Russian photography and photographers

Alvin O. Turner

Russians are represented disproportionately in the fine arts with powerful presences in music, literature, painting and sculpture. In contrast, their contributions are less evident in fine art photography. They are also noticeably less prominent in historical, documentary and fashion photography and there are only scant records of street photographers or snapshooters, if any.

This absence is largely due to the coincidence of photography’s development during Russian turmoil in the 19th century and its subsequent isolation from forces spurring related expressions in the western world. Restrictions were most evident in official Soviet policy demanding socialist realism which expected all art forms to complement efforts toward the advancement of social goals. Soviet restrictions on the free flow of information further limited photographers.

Despite these pressures, there were a number of Russian individuals who earned reputations at the forefront of photographic history, mostly in the United States where many immigrated in the late 19th and early twentieth century. However, increasing access to Russian archives as seen in recent books by Leah Bendavid-Val, may lead to a revision of previously prevailing conclusions about Russian documentary photographers. The rise of avant garde expressions among postwar Russian artists along with other trends point to the likelihood of an increasing Russian presence among photographers in the art world.

This presentation offers a survey of Russian photographers and photography from the first uses of the camera in Russia through the last decades of the twentieth century identifying the principal figures associated with these developments.

I. Pre- 1900

A. Representative Siberian historical photographers

1. Similar content to American photographers on American frontiers (another parallel in history of the two countries)

2.Notable examples: Vladimir Soldatov , A.K. Kuznetsov, Alexander — Kocheshev, Alexander A. Dudin-Gokavich, and Victor Soldatov; others are listed in an index.

B. Andrey Osipovich Karelin* ( 1837–1906) was a Russian painter and photographer, 1869 he opened his studio in Nizhny Novgorod. He made photo–portraits and views of the city. In 1870, he created the album “Nizhny Novgorod.” From 1870 to 1880 he created his “Art Album of Photos from Life” and created a large gallery of portraits of Russian scientists, writers, musicians, artists and public figures. In 1886 he issued the album “Views of Nizhny Novgorod,”

C. Roman Vishniac* (1897–1990) was a Russian-American photographer, best known for capturing images of Jewish culture in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

Vishniac was a versatile photographer, an accomplished biologist, an art collector and teacher of art history. He also made significant scientific contributions to photo microscopy and time-lapse photography.

D. The Museum Ludwig Cologne holds examples of the work of the following Russian photographers in addition to many of those listed elsewhere in this paper: Yuri Eremin (Kasanska on the Don, 1881–1948); Georgii Petrussow (Ukraine 1903–1971): Ivan Schagin (Jaroslaw, 1904–1982); Arkadi Shaikhet ( Nicolajew, 1898–1959); Georgii Zelma ( Tashkent, 1906–1984); Georgii Zimin (Moscow, 1900–1985.).

II. Soviet policy expected photography and photographers to promote the Communist cause and usually limited sharing of images abroad.

A. The special case of Soviet Censorship: David King, The Commissar Vanishes, Kontakt Kultura, 2012.

B. See examples of 1954 restrictions imposed on Henri Cartier-Bresson at: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/image/PAR18736.html

III. Documentary photographs from the 1930s in the US and USSR

Leah Bendavid-Val, Propaganda and Dreams, Photographing the 1930s in the USSR and US, (NY: Edition Stemmle, 1999) compares American documentary photographs with those from Soviet Union in the same period. The collection featuring biographical sketches and examples of the work of twenty-four Russian photographers, challenges prior perceptions of the artistic quality of Russian images while acknowledging their propaganda functions and corresponding restraints on the photographers

A. American examples: The work of New Deal photographers in the US during this period created some of the most iconic images from American history. Many of these photographers were Russian born or children of Russian parents.

1. Ben Shahn*, Lithuanian born, 1898: immigrated to US in 1906. His 1932 exhibition of twenty-three gouache paintings pertaining to the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti helped to define American Social Realism. He began work as a photographer for the Resettlement Administration in 1935 and was employed subsequently by the Farm Security Administration.

2. Jack Delano*(1914–1997) Ukranian, Jacob Ovcharov moved to the United States in 1923.

Delano proposed a photographic project to the Federal Art Project and was hired by the Farm Security Administration Photography program in 1940.

3. Weegee (Arthur Felig)* 1899, Ukranian born photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography. He worked as New York City press photographer during the 1930s and 1940s developing his signature style. Paul Strand saw Weegee as “the first major contributor of day to day journalism and photography as a medium.’

B. Russian Socialist Realist photographers.

1. Ivan Shagin — Yaroslav district , 1904- 1982)

2. Mark Markov-Grinberg Russia, (1907–2006). His first work was with the Sovyetski Yug newspaper in 1925 and did freelance work for Ogonyok. In 1926, began work in Moscow, for numerous trade union newspapers. By 1930 his work appeared in all of the major Soviet publications and he became one of the most important Soviet photographers of his generation. During World War II, he served as a soldier and then as a war correspondent for the military publication but lost his job at TASS in 1948 during Stalin’s anti-Semitic campaign.

2. Yeveny Anan’evich Khaldei* Ukranian born, 1917–1997) was a Red Army naval officer and photographer, best known for his World War II photograph of a Soviet soldier Raising a flag over the Reichstag, in Berlin, He began work with TASS in 1936 and continued to work in photojournalism after the war but was reprimanded in a 1947.

3. Max Alpert** , Simferopol, 1899. Worked variously for Pravda, TASS, the Soviet Information Agency and USSR In Construction. His work on engineering and other projects meant he was one of the few photographers of the era to see his work published outside the Soviet Union,

4. Boris Ignatovich,** Ukraine, 1899. Early work focused on Ukraine, the first Soviet photographer to make aerial photos. His sister Olga was also a noted photographer. Temporarily expelled from Communist party in twenties for non-conformity such as use of foreshortening and tilted perspectives. Most of his work was unpublished before his death in 1976.

5. Alexander Rodchenko, St. Petersburg, 1891. Noted for early experiments with photomontage he was highly influential among innovators and a leader of the Oktober group, frequently condemned in decades prior to his death in 1956.

IV. Evidence from the thawing

A.. Henri Cartier Bresson, About Russia, (Viking Press, NY, 1974), Cartier Bresson was the first Western photographer permitted to publish his photographs taken widely in the Soviet Union. Even he, however still had to deal with restrictions and was carefully guided.

B. Nathan Farb, The Russians, (NY, Barrons, 1980), Ada Oklahoma, 1941-. He took photos in conjunction with a cultural exchange program when he accompanied an American photographic exhibit in Novosibirsk, Siberia in 1978. Later he would indicate that he smuggled about 1500 of his Polaroid images from the Soviet Union in a diplomatic pouch but that information was not included in the book’s publication.

C. Yevgeny Yevtushenko: His Invisible Threads was probably the first Russian treatment of photography as art form published with juxtapositions of poetry. His dedication of the book honors Edward Steichen whose 1959 “Family of Man” exhibition in Moscow influenced Yevtushenko greatly. He would later write an extended poem to accompany his Siberian photographs and the Alaskan photographs of Boyd Norton for Divided Twins. He then wrote the forward for and contributed his poem, “Patchwork Quilt” to Bryan Moynahan’s photographic history, The Russian Century.

D. The Russian Century, cited above was the first major publication documenting a number of historical photographers, many of which were taken by unknown individuals. There are also more than sixty credited photographs but the book does not provide biographical data or even full names in many instances and the index is incomplete.

E. A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union: Photographed by 100 of the World’s Leading Photojournalists on one day, May 15, 1987, Collins, NY, 1986

V. Fashion and fine art photographers

A. Alexander S. Liberman* (Kiev, 1912–1999) Magazine editor, publisher, painter, photographer, and sculptor. He held senior artistic positions during his 32 years at Condé Nast Publications and is credited with development of the Vogue magazine style and the major force in development of fashion photography, defining American standards of beauty. However, he argued that photography was not an art form, an attitude common among many artists, particularly Russian. He also clearly wanted to direct critical attention from his magazine work to his sculptures. He is also known for his study of artists in their studios.

B. Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (Belarusian, 1898–1975) photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar from 1934 to 1958

C. Gleb Derujinsky* ( New York, 1925–2011), American born child of emigre parents. His father was a sculptor, also named Gleb and his mother was the classical pianist Alexandra Micholoff Derujinsky. He worked for Esquire, Look, Life, Glamour, Town and Country and The New York Times Magazine, before shooting extensively for Harper’s Bazaar. He is recognized as an “early visionary on a path that others were to follow.”

D. Val Talberg, * (Moscow,1910–1995), began work in surrealism and experimental film-making in 1942 and then began work in photography: He is best known for photomontages accompanying a reissue of Anais Nin’s House of Incest in 1959.

E. Vladimir Sichov, (Kazan, 1945- ) documented aspects of Soviet life publishing his first collection in France in 1980. He later focused on fashion: http://vladimirsichov.me/east-artist-sichov-5.html

* denotes use of stem from Wikipedia which is not cited otherwise.

** denotes use of stem from Leah Bendavid-Val, Siberia in the Eyes of Russian photographers, (Munich, Prestel, 2013).

1. Leah Bendavid-Val, Siberia in the Eyes of Russian photographers, Of the photographers featured, only Kuznetssov was found in English language internet searches in 2018.
2. Marianne Bieger Thielemann, et al, 20th Century Photography Museum Ludwig Cologne, Koln, Taschen, 2000.)
3. Jan van Tienen, “Nathan Farb Made Communism Look Groovy,” https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/pp88nb/nathan-farb-made-communism-look-groovy-58478221ab4b6a022a064ca0; https://nathanfarb.com/#russians, accessed Feb 19, 2019.
4. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Invisible Threads (New York, Macmillan,1982
5. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Divided Twins (New York, Viking, 1988).
6. Bryan Moynahan, The Russian Century: A Photographic History of Russia’s 100 Years (New York: Random House, 1994.
7. Alexander Liberman, The Artist in His Studio, Viking Press, 1960; Eye, v. 3 #10, 1993– Susan Morris, eyemagazine.com/feature/articles/reputation-alexander-lieberman (Feb 192019 And theguardian.com/news/199/dec/07/