Lipa Roiter's Drawing "The Traffic Controller's Dinner"

A pencil sketch made in Poland in 1944: a young woman traffic controller, her hood thrown over her head, bends over a bowl with a spoon in her hand. The figure is set down in loose strokes, the background is left blank, and the artist's signature is in the lower right corner.

Lipa Roiter (1910–1994) graduated in 1938 from the Moscow Institute of Fine Arts, where he studied under Vladimir Favorsky, and before the war illustrated books. On the 1st Ukrainian Front he fought as a sapper with the rank of sergeant, and in early 1944, after a shrapnel wound, he was posted to the 21st Military Motor Road. There he drew many portraits of women traffic controllers for the units' wall newsletters.

These sketches grew into Roiter's linocut "Traffic Controllers", which was shown more than once at all-Union exhibitions and abroad. The sheet measures 250 × 330 mm.