Fedor Vasilievich Antonov was a Soviet painter, muralist, graphic artist, and a textile artist. He studied at the Tambov Real School (later, Tambov State Free Workshops), an institution for the training of technical specialists. While in Tambov, he was sent to Moscow with the Komsomol where he studied at VKhUTEMAS (Higher Art and Technical Studios) from 1922 to 1929 under the noted Soviet-era realist painter, Sergei Vasilevich Gerasimov. Antonov graduated from VKhUTEMAS in 1929 from the textile department. ...

Formed in 1921 as the state planning commission, Gosplan carried out a unified program for the Soviet economy and it coordinated state-run economic regions. Gosplan had its own publishing and printing departments. Its printing division, Gosplanizdat (State Publishing House of the Economic, Planning and Accounting and Statistical Literature of the State Planning Committee of the USSR), was formed in the 1940s.

Iskusstvo was the Art Publishing House (A.K.A. Visual Arts Publishing) that was created in 1936 from Ogiz-Izogiz (State Art and Literature Publishing House). It disseminated books and journals dealing with graphic design and the fine arts, and it issued numerous posters. Since the Iskusstvo banner was part of the State Printing Works in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Moscow, its two main offices were located in those two cities.