Aram Vramshapu Vanetsian was born in what is today the Armenian city of Gyumri. From 1915 to 1918, he studied at the Stroganov School for Technical Drawing, and from 1920 to 1923, Vanetsian attended the Moscow VKhUTEMAS [Higher Art and Technical Studios] where painting was his study concentration. Of his portraits, the one he created in 1939 of the Russian writer and playwright Issac Babel turned out to be the last representation of the writer made during his lifetime. In 1940, ...

The Krasnii Proletarii Workshop originated under the ownership of Ivan Kushnerev, a Russian entrepreneur who founded the Kushnerev & Company Printing Shop in 1869 in Moscow. When Kushnerev died in 1896, his printing operation was one of the largest in Imperial Russia. In 1919, the printer was nationalized by the Soviets and consigned to the Printing Section of the Moscow Economic Council (MSNKh).) It later became the 3rd Krasnii Proletarii Book Printing Plant when its location (at 16 Pimenovskaia ...

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.