In Soviet Russia, however, it was going from strength to strength.Miron Sherling, Fedor Chaliapin as the Miller in the Opera "Rusalka" by Dargomyzhsky, 1913In 1928, at the exhibition 10 Years of Soviet Photography, the so-called 'old school' clearly dominated, if we consider the number of participants and their works by comparison with the modernists and adherents of the new Soviet reportage. Pictorialism in world photography, born in the late nineteenth century, had largely exhausted its aesthetic potential by the mid-1920s. They frequently won gold and silver medals at major international photo shows and salons in Europe, United States and Japan. Pictorial photography challenged documentary shots and, just like painting, sought to convey the emotional side of things, and to express the individual senses and meanings implied by the artist in his work.The masters of Russian pictorial photography, Alexander Grinberg, Yury Yeremin, Nikolai Andreev, Nikolai Svishchov-Paola and others, were an established part of the world art scene.
Moreover, it became a symbol of the powerful energy and innovative spirit of Soviet Russia in the first years after the October revolution of 1917.However, few people realise that at the very same period there was another, pictorial trend in Russian photography, which strove to approximate photography to painting, using mainly 'soft' lenses and special, often very sophisticated, printing techniques. Curated and organised by Olga Sviblova, Director of the Museum Moscow House of Photography, this show provides an extraordinary opportunity for visitors to explore an aspect of Russian photography that has been overlooked until now.The Russian photographic avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, represented by Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Boris Ignatovich and others, in spite of persecution and repressive measures of the totalitarian regime, became a classic part of Russian and world art. The exhibition Quiet Resistance: Russian Pictorial Photography, 1900-1930s at the Gilbert Collection this winter presents some 100 photographs by artists whose works have rarely been exhibited in the UK.
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