In the 1920s and 1930s, several prominent Russian avant-garde writers and artists devoted their talents to creating children’s books. Highlights include the bold Constructivist illustrations by Vladimir Lebedev (1891–1967) and Mikhail Tsekhanovsky (1889–1965) for Samuil Marshak’s poems The Circus and The Post, respectively, and the children’s books by Futurist poet and artist Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930). These artists’ experiments with layout and imagery contributed significantly to the artistic quality of these books.