Adrians Pabians, designer, was born on 21 November 1908 in the BirΩi parish of the Jékabpils region. After completing Jékabpils High School he went to Riga, because he had four brothers and sisters and so had to support himself, combining work with study. The prospective lawyer invented numerical billiards in the early 1930s and in 1934 signed an agreement regarding its manufacture, however this idea did not come to fruition. In 1939 Pabians received a Diploma of Law from the University of Latvia, and in 1951 he completed study at the Department of Painting at the Latvian Academy of Art, although he did not complete his graduation work. The next stage of his life pointed him in a different direction: from 1951 until 1979 – when Pabians became a pensioner – his only place of employment was the Cooperative of Latvian Art production for Commercial Advertising within the Soviet Union or for short, the Sojuztorgreklama.
The artist modestly called himself an artist-constructor and also used these skills at home, not only making moving toys for his children, but also sewing clothes for his daughter! Pabians built all of his ideas based on his first draft design, including all of the technical and economic calculations. He painted, constructed, sewed, was electrician, locksmith – undertook every task so that these “dynamic thematic advertisements (the author’s own phrase) would play a significant role in the advertising of goods, and also taking into account the maturing aesthetic sophistication of the working class.” This was written by Adrians Pabians on 11 January 1965 in a letter to the workers of the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Commercial Advertising Cooperative.
The artist’s achievements in the field of advertising can be divided into three groups. Firstly there is advertising and decorations which were created from 1951 until 1964 for the Riga Central Department Store (RCDS). In the late 1950s, shoppers at the RCDS were entertained by two moving animals: a polar bear licking an ice-cream wafer sandwich, popular at the time, and a sea lion swinging on a piece of ice. In 1960 a new “living advertisement” (again using Pabians’ own terminology!) appeared in the shop window of the RCDS – an elephant moved packets of coffee, tea and sugar with his trunk. This mechanical animal, over 1.5 metres high, was made in Pabians’ own apartment, where a corner of the kitchen was divided off for creative work, in lieu of his own workshop. A new composition – “The Swan, Pike and Crayfish” was created in 1963.
The above-mentioned group is also joined by dynamic objects created in various years for the purpose of advertising food and goods. In 1965, a magpie appeared in the shop window of a jewellery store on the corner of Krißjåña Barona and Kirov (now Elizabetes) streets, moving jewellery from one branch to another. A blue delivery truck was displayed in the window of a bakery on the corner of Miera and Íarlotes streets, which drove a circular path to an improvised bakery with a pack of flour and emerged with a loaf of bread. In the mid-1960s, the artist created a mannequin-robot which lifted fabrics, for a drapery. Much later – in the early 1970s – a multipurpose circular stand was made, on which stationery, shoes or children’s toys could be displayed. A row of revolving pedestals was also created for a perfumery.
In 1964, the department store Bérnu pasaule was opened on the corner of Krißjåña Barona and Revolücijas (now Bruñinieku) streets in Riga. This became Adrians Pabians’ main workplace until 1979. The first dynamic composition for the central window was Doktors Aikåsåp (Doctor Ow-it-hurts), followed by “Buratino’s Theatre” (1967), “Circus” (1974), “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” (1981) and “Woodpecker Pecking” (1988). The artist also created new dynamic advertisements for the store later, when he was already a pensioner. The result of this was a toy carousel which, for many years, greeted shoppers on the Krißjåña Barona Street entrance. A much larger animal carousel was located on the roof of the extension to the main entry. The animals on the carousel were replaced occasionally, but otherwise the mechanism worked for 15 years without any problems! The last dynamic thematic advertisement – Aija Ωü-Ωü låça bérni (Sleep Little Bear Cubs) was opened in June 1990, when the artist was already 82 years old. Pabians passed away on 14 April 1993, and soon after, Bérnu pasaule underwent a restructure and his dynamic advertisements were taken out of circulation.
What does the artists’ phrase – a dynamic thematic advertisement – mean? Adrians Pabians was convinced that movement alone would not bring his ideas to fruition – there also had to be some contact or relationship between the figures, and this is why fairytale characters were judged as the most suitable for the task. For example, by using the character “Doctor Ow-it-hurts” from the popular poem from the early 1960s, by Russian author Kornej Chukovsky, about a doctor who travelled to Africa to help sick animals. Aleksey Tolstoy’s tale about Buratino, the wooden boy with a long nose, was just as well-loved and popular. Adrians Pabians’ version had four scenes. In these, Buratino met other characters from the story and the relevant actions occurred – Malvina shook her head when Buratino, sitting at the table, licked the plate; the evil Karabas Barabas, caught in his own beard, circled Buratino with a stick and couldn’t catch him; the tomcat, Bazilio, and fox, Alice, shook their heads, trying to convince the wooden boy to dig his money under a tree. The movements in each scene occurred one after the other – reflecting the order of events in the book.
A description of the Pabians’ first dynamic thematic advertisement, “Doctor Ow-it-hurts”, has been preserved, which enables us to evaluate the level of complexity of the construction. The advertisement had two central figures – the sick hippopotamus and the doctor. The action occurred in a number of stages:
1. The doctor sits calmly and examines the hippo with a stethoscope; the hippo at this time breathes deeply and rhythmically (its head and chest rises and falls);
2. The doctor stands up, then bends his head towards the hippo, which at that time opens its mouth wide, for the doctor to examine its throat;
3. The doctor lifts his head, then his left arm to look at his watch, and from the movement of the lips you can see that he is measuring the pulse. The hippo closes its mouth and holds its breath.
The movements of the figures were synchronised and lasted for 30 seconds. Then the actions began again. Next to the main figures in the advertisement was a camel, which displayed toys for sale on its back. An ostrich with a bandaged neck stood next to the camel. The doctor and the hippo were made from papier-mache. The camel was cut out of chipboard, while the ostrich was made from fabric and foam.
“Circus”, the next dynamic advertisement, was set up in the window of Bérnu pasaule in 1974. Here, the action occurred in four separate scenes, which included seven figures on eight moving objects. Each group of figures was constructed separately, so that it was possible to place them in different places, if necessary. The mechanism worked without sound, with minimal electricity usage, and due to these economic running costs, the advertisement was displayed in the window for almost eight years. “Circus” included the following groups of figures:
1. A fox on a horse. The horse smoothly swayed on a semi-circular base. The fox balanced on one leg and turned in all four directions;
2. A white elephant with a rider stood on a large, shiny ball. The elephant balanced on the ball, lifting its rider from time to time with its trunk;
3. A rabbit rode on a turtle as if it were in a circus arena;
4. A tiger did exercises, and, when changing direction, his right eye glinted, then his left eye, then both eyes.
An “audience” of dolls and soft toys for sale in the shop was located around the circle (arena).
Of course, this kind of dynamic thematic advertisement was expensive. The projected budget for the advertisement “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” (1981) has been preserved – 4509.97 roubles were needed for the materials and construction, because, as the artist himself wrote in a letter, “it is a complicated process, which requires art and creative expression to be combined with economics”. It was not always possible to convince the directors of Bérnu pasaule about the necessity of creating a new dynamic advertisement, so one of the solutions was to sell the constructions which were “morally and aesthetically aged”, but still in good mechanical condition, to other shops throughout the entire USSR. Pabians regularly entered his dynamic advertisements in the Soviet Union’s People’s Innovation Exhibition in Moscow, where they were also sold: “Doctor Ow-it-hurts” was valued at 2763.21 roubles. It is known that this construction, with slight modifications, was set up in the department store in Almaty. At the same time, Adrians Pabians also received orders from shops in Omsk, Tashkent, Tbilisi, the Crimea, and of course, Moscow. The only existing record of these works is a few photographs.
The life of advertising is very short. This is also the case for Adrians Pabians’ dynamic advertisements, of which no original details or groups of figures have survived. However the situation has changed in terms of attitude. Today Pabians’ advertising and shop window decorations can be valued as a unique material, witnesses of a particular time, which definitely occupies a place in the history of advertising and design in Latvia.
Special thanks to daughter of the artist, Dzintra Preisa, for her generous assistance in writing this article, as well as providing the opportunity to use family-owned photographs of window scenes created by Adrians Pabians.