MOSCOW, July 6, Svetlana Vovk. «The Origins of Soviet Photography. 1920-1930s» — in the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center you can see 277 works from the collection of the Lumiere Gallery. It is especially interesting to look at vintage prints made in that era by the authors themselves — faces and life, stories from Soviet childhood, chronicles of Moscow streets and squares, ceremonial parades and photographic portraits.
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The works of six classics of photo reporting are presented: Arkady Shaikhet, Yakov Khalip, Mark Markov-Grinberg, Emmanuel Evzerikhin, Mikhail Prekhner, Naum Granovsky.
The photographs are printed from the author's original negative. And in the center of the hall are artifacts, vintages.
«They are easy to distinguish even without reading the labels — by the warmth of the paper and the different, non-standard, usually small format. After all, then photography was primarily aimed at printing and book publishing , not for a large exhibition print. It is important that in vintages we see the author’s view of our own work,” explains exhibition curator Valeria Shishkanova.
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Almost all of the photographs were published in various publications, where they valued not only the beauty of the frame, but also the speed of their delivery to the editorial office. In one of the display cases is the cover of the legendary magazine «Soviet Photo».
“In those decades, photo reporters began to be paid. And they insisted that authorship be indicated under the publication. After all, usually everyone who worked on the issue was simply listed at the end of the magazine,” continues the curator.
Sometimes, some stories were taken from reporters' archives and not returned. This happened to Arkady Shaikhet, who was convicted in 1927 on false charges.
The exhibition contains many shots taken in the then popular avant-garde spirit: sharp angles, geometry, light and shadow play. Several lyrical subjects by Mark Markov-Grinberg stand out — cute fluffy ducklings, a rural landscape. According to Valeria, they are also uncharacteristic of the master himself. His most famous works are portraits-posters, a kind of collective image of a Soviet person: “The Cook”, “The Noble Miner Nikita Izotov”.
And a photo report about the replacement of the royal eagles on the Kremlin towers with ruby stars. The exhibition includes three frames from it. “This series is close to a film sequence, a storyboard for all minimal processes — from loading stars to hoisting,” notes the curator.
There are many works by the “singer of Moscow” Naum Granovsky. He often shot from a single point to trace the city's enormous changes during these two decades.
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«Granovsky loved to draw parallels and compare — how it was and how it became. series of postcards: “Old Moscow” and “New Moscow”. He wrote a personal column in newspapers under the same name,” clarifies Valeria Shishkanova.
Here is his work «Happy Motherhood». She was criticized in «Soviet Photo». They called it “baby on a pitchfork” for its complex and strange composition. But this is also a document of the era.
Nostalgic footage of Emmanuel Evzerikhin’s Soviet childhood immerses him in a happy, serene atmosphere. However, it is easy to imagine how difficult it was to capture each of the captured moments.
“It’s very difficult to work with children: they always try to freeze, pose, interact with the photographer. Moreover, for them the technique itself was a great innovation. But he somehow managed to take unstaged, lively photographs,” says the curator.
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Yakov Khalip also photographed Moscow — views of the changing city, parades. And he made the series “Baltic Fleet”, replicated on postcards, together with Alexander Rodchenko. Khalip collaborated with the publication Intourist, a kind of showcase of the USSR. He also photographed foreigners. Also presented are four of his frames with Ivan Papanin, the heroic four, and their meeting on Komsomolskaya Square.
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Mikhail Prekhner died very young. All the more valuable are the few vintage prints of his works that are on display.
The exhibition “The Origins of Soviet Photography. 1920-1930s” will be open until September 29.
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