'Soviet Photography of the 1920s and 1930s'

Background information

The catalog volume offered here 'Sowjetische Fotografie der 20er und 30er Jahre / Soviet Photography of the 1920s and 1930s' was published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the Swiss Museum Wintherthur in 2004.
The exhibition led from Pictorialism and Constructivism to Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union. Pictorialist photography, inspired by Impressionist and Symbolist painting, flourished worldwide until the 1920s. Russia's famous pictorialist photographers - Alexander GRINBERG, Yuri YEREMIN, Nikolay ANDREYEV, Leonid SHOKIN, and Vasily ULITIN - were not only landscape photographers, but also masters of genre painting, photographic portraiture, and still life.
Parallel to this 'art-photographic' scene, in the course of the 1920s photography began to focus on its own expressive power. Photographs were to look like photographs and contemporary: Clear, direct, with new insights. In Russia, Alexander RODCHENKO - along with EL LISSITZKY and Boris IGNATOVICH - is considered a pioneer of 'photographic constructivism'. Constructivism, which sought to incorporate art in the shaping of proletarian everyday life, was the most radical avant-garde movement of the 1920s in terms of content. Suddenly, it was also up to artists to become actively involved in building the new socialist society. In the 1930s, however, since the proclamation of Socialist Realism as the only binding art form, the great creative wealth of the Soviet avant-garde was directed in a new direction. The Stalinist system combined aesthetics with ideology.
The exhibition was curated by Olga Sviblova in collaboration with the House of Photography, Moscow, and Galerie Alex Lachmann, Cologne.

Content

After a twelve-page introduction consisting of two texts by Olga Sviblowa ("Soviet Photography of the 1920s and 1930s. Pictorialism, Modernism/Socialist Realism," four pages) and by Alexander Lavrentyev ("Pictorialism and Modernism in Soviet Photography of the 1920s and 1930s. From A to B and Back Again", eight pages) - each in German and English - are followed by the approximately 220-page picture section, always preceded by a biography. Shown are exclusively black-and-white photographs by: Alexander GRINBERG (25), Yuri/Yuri YEREMIN (22), Vasily/Vassily ULITIN (11), Nikolai ANDREYEV/Nikolai ANDREEV (11), Leonid SHOKIN/SHOKIN (17), Alexander RODCHENKO/RODCHENKO (37), Boris IGNATOVICH/IGNATOVICH (26), Max PENSON (33), Alexander KHLEBNIKOV (22), Arkady SHAIKHET (16), Georgy ZELMA (9), Grigory ZIMIN (8), Georgy PETRUSSOV (25) and by EL LISSITZKY (8).

About the Russian photographers

Alexander GRINBERG, Yuri YEREMIN, Vassily ULITIN, Nikolai Nikolai ANDREEV, Leonid SHOKIN, Alexander RODCHENKO, Boris IGNATOVICH, Max PENSON, Alexander KHLEBNIKOV, Arkady SHAIKHET, Georgy ZELMA, Grigory ZIMIN, Georgy PETRUSSOV as well as EL LISSITZKY

Photo books by and about the work of

• ANDREEV, Nikolai
  EL LISSITZKY
  GRINBERG, Alexander
  IGNATOVICH, Boris
  YEREMIN, Yuri
  KHLEBNIKOV, Alexander
  PENSON, Max
  PETRUSSOV, Georgy
  RODCHENKO, Alexander
  SHOKIN, Leonid
  SHAIKHET, Arkady
  UTILIN, Vassily
  ZELMA, Georgy
  ZIMIN, Grigory