The wallpaper industry of Leningrad in the post-war period and the role of artistic institutions in the development of standard product samples

The subject of the study is the wallpaper industry of Leningrad during the post-war period and the thaw period (late 1940s–1960s), which until now has not been included in the scope of problems in the history of decorative and applied art and industrial art. During the period under consideration, there was only one wallpaper factory operating in Leningrad, and at the turn of the 1940s–1950s, as indicated by discovered archival materials, there were demands for active involvement in the development of a new type of living environment and the creation of standard samples of high artistic quality. Various institutions (an art and industrial school preparing textile artists, experimental combines subordinate to the Leningrad branch of the RSFSR Artistic Fund) were supposed to ensure a high level for these processes, reflecting the specifics of the development of Soviet decorative and applied art and industrial art. The thaw period halted this movement, defining the role of wallpaper as a background element in the new space of small apartments, which removed them from the zone of intensive artistic exploration. The study of the institutional history of the wallpaper industry enterprises as part of the artistic industry of Leningrad involves the use of a structural-functional method. Within the framework of archival research, a source-critical evaluation of materials was conducted, including current documents from wallpaper factories, albums of wallpaper and textile samples from the personal collections of artists, and stenographic materials from meetings on the development of the wallpaper industry. The article presents and analyzes for the first time archival materials found in the Central State Archive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg (TsGALISPb) related to the post-war restructuring of the wallpaper industry and the definition of its tasks in connection with the development of the new type of artistic industry. These materials (stenograms, standard samples) allowed for the presentation of the dynamics in defining the development tasks of the industry, the role of institutions (educational, experimental) in creating standard samples of products, as well as stylistic changes due to the transition from the pompous and complex solutions of post-war art to the minimalist options of thaw-era wallpaper intended for small apartments. The conducted research allowed for the identification of four stages in the development of the Leningrad wallpaper industry (early Soviet, post-war, thaw, late Soviet) and the determination of the specifics of each stage.