It is not hard to die in this life. To make one is much more difficult.

These illustrations were created for an editorial piece about the artistic and private life of an avant-garde poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. He became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist movement: co-signed the Futurist manifesto, A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (1913), and wrote such poems as A Cloud in Trousers (1915) and Backbone Flute (1916).

Mayakovsky produced a large and diverse body of work during the course of his career: he wrote poems, wrote and directed plays, appeared in films, edited the art journal LEF (Left Front of the Arts), and produced agitprop posters for Rosta (Russian Telegraph Agency) windows.

In 1930, Mayakovsky ended his own life. The handwritten death note read: “To all of you. I die, but don't blame anyone for it, and please do not gossip. The deceased disliked that sort of thing terribly. Mother, sisters, comrades, forgive me – this is not a good method (I do not recommend it to others), but there is no other way out for me. Lily – love me. Comrade Government, my family consists of Lily Brik, mama, my sisters, and Veronika Vitoldovna Polonskaya. If you can provide a decent life for them, thank you. Give the poem I started to the Briks. They'll sort them out.”