From 1927 to 1930, Petr Gorbunov attended Vkhutein (Higher Artistic-Technical Institute), formerly the Imperial Academy of Arts. Gorbunov began to exhibit professionally in 1936 and created the paintings Lenin's Speech at a Finnish Train Station (1934; Novosibirsk Painting Gallery) and Partisans (1945), among others. In addition to historical paintings, Gorbunov produced a number of portraits. As graphic artist, he designed the posters Let's Transform the War with Imperialism into Civil War! (1917) and Did You Contribute to the Reconstruction of Leningrad? (1945). Petr Gorbunov became a member of the Communist Party in 1917.

The 24th Lithography Workshop was located at Kronverkskaia and Mir Streets in St. Petersburg (Petrograd). Historically, the workshop had its roots in Imperial Russia and it was a large printing operation founded in 1881 by Theodore Kibbel (Fedor Fyodorovich Kibbel). Shortly after the printer was nationalized by the Soviets, it became the 1st State Lithography Workshop. In 1924, the workshop was named in honor of Mikhail Pavlovich Tomskii (1880-1936), head of the Soviet trade union and the head of the State Publishing House. During the early 1930s, the printer was reorganized as the 24th Lithography Workshop of Ogiz (Association of State Book and Magazine Publishers) and was placed under the management of the Poligrafkniga (Book and Magazine Printing) state printing trust.

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.