Aleksei Alekseevich Kokorekin was born in a part of Imperial Russia that is today Kyrgyzstan. In 1918 Kokorekin attended the Krasnodar School of Painting and Sculpture. In 1929, he graduated from the Kuban' Pedagogical School in Krasnodar. While in Krasnodar, he worked both as a poster designer and a decorator for the Krasnodarskii Theater. Shortly after his graduation, he moved to Moscow and began contributing designs to IZOGIZ State Publishing House. In 1933-'34, he created book and magazine illustrations while at the same time producing easel paintings.

The Dunaev printing plant was located at 9 Bolshaia Polianka in Moscow. Headquartered inside the former Menert Brothers printing plant, during the 1920s, the firm was named in honor of the Bolshevik leader Evlampii Dunaev (1877-1919) who served as assistant chairman of the Soviet of Nizhny Novgorod. Dunaev was also a member of the provisioning committee and he served on the Nizhny Novgorod Council of Local Economy. During the Civil War, he reportedly died from typhus. Before the plant was named in Dunaev’s honor, it was under the management of Geokartprom of the V.T.U. (Military Topographic Directorate of the Headquarters of the Red Army).

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.