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Early Russian photo exhibitions

We continue publishing the information on early Russian photo exhibitions. The ╚Photography News╩ magazine was established in 1907 and immediately got an important position on the market of the Russian photo publications, for it monitored the life of the Russian photography not only in the capital, but also in the province, talking about the problems important for the whole society.

The ╚photography news╩ exhibitions

Already in 1910, ╚Photography News╩ announced an amateur photo contest and called its readers to participate. Namely the photos sent by the readers accounted for the bulk of the works exposed on the first exhibition organized by the magazine.

The exposition was opened in the hall of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Arts between February 19th and March 6th, 1911. The exhibition was the first event of a kind in a relatively long period of time. Its scale was rather modest. However, the public inte+rest to it was great. Every day about 140 men visited the exhibition.

The participant works proved rather high level of the Russian amateur photographers. About 500 works were presented, most of them executed on matt albumin photo paper.

In accordance with the adopted tradition, the contest of the presented works was organized in frames of the exhibition. The jury of the contest was in difficulty, because all the works were of excellent quality, and the members of the jury had to explain their judgment to the general public pointing out the hardly noticeable at the first glance drawbacks. Professional photographs also exhibited their works, but did not take part in the contest. P.S. Zhukov, D.S. Zdobnov, E. Mrozovskaya, I. Perl, I.M. Ponomarev, E.A.Semenenko, V.I. Druri and O.Cach represented the St.Petersburg masters. Besides the photos on paper, a number of autochrome microphotos from the Geological Chamber of the University and samples of the transparencies on Autochrome and Omnicolor plates were exhibited.

Free access to the exhibition was granted to the scholars of the Academy of Art and other art colleges. Part of the collected money was donated to the Fund of Needy Scholars of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Arts.

The display hall of the photo exhibition. 1911. Photo of the early XXth century [zoom (91k)]

Exhilarated by the success of the 1911 exhibition, the editorial board of ╚Photography News╩ started to prepare for the new exhibition in the same year. Everybody understood, however, that the public would not be satisfied by a ╚modest╩ exhibition of amateurs. Big efforts were undertaken to attract maximum number of participants and viewers.

The steering committee was elected including such persons as V.A. Vinogradov, (St.Petersburg Photographic Society), S.A. Danini (architect, St.Petersburg Photographic Society member), E.R. Devi (St.Petersburg representative in St.Petersburg), V.I. Druri (amateur photographer), N.E. Ermilov (chief of the ╚Photography News╩ editorial board), S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky (chief of the 5th department of the Imperial Russian Technical Association) and many others. The program was developed and adopted long beforehand. It consisted of seven sections. The halls of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Arts again were chosen for the site of the conference. The organizers of the event promised the most favorite conditions in the sense of work positioning and lighting.

The second exhibition was held under the auspices of Grand Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich. This is the proof of imperial persons keeping interest in the art of photography. It looks like the love to photography of Emperor Nicholas II and his family also promoted the cause of the exhibition.

The exposition opened on April 12th. The entrance fee was 50 kopeck. The speech of Chairman of the Steering Committee, V.I. Sreznevsky, began with the words: ╚Today is the high day of the Russian Photography!╩ It was indeed, because the previous major exposition took place as long ago as in 1903. ╚In the ten years period... the photography made a huge progress: the new processes emerged, color photography accessible to every photographer was introduced, cinematography developed greatly, the major discoveries were made in the field of the sun beam studies, new sectors of the photographic industry emerged as well as new forms of the artistic photography╩.

All these things were presented at the exhibition of 1912. New styles in photography developed by that time. The technique of the reproduction of paintings neared its perfection, photo mechanics and optics also made a huge progress.

The Steering Committee promoted the event by issuing corresponding stamps and posters. The posters were meant to be put on the walls in different crowded places: shops, hotels, etc. The stamps advertised the exhibition at home and also in the foreign lands.

The exhibition occupied both the great and the small corpses of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Arts. The gray-greenish fabric of wall and stand draping matched the exhibits. Tropical trees helped to create a special aura in the halls. In the main hall, the A. Gevert▓s Company pavilion was the biggest. Its design was simple, but stylish. The important place was occupied by the Kodak Company pavilion, also characterized by elegancy and simplicity. The amateur works hanged on the walls, secured on special panels. The works of the St.Petersburg photographer I.I. Zgersky were presented by portraits, genre works and landscapes. V.T. Shabanov, also of St.Petersburg, presented lhis andscape photos. St.Petersburg Photographic Society was under the auspices of Grand Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich. Besides the works the St.Petersburg photographers the works of amateurs from Tomsk and Kharkov were hanging...

The Scientific Section of the Exhibition attracted great interest of the visitors. Photos of police and law court photographers (Zakharyin and Popovitzky) and Vadeinbaum▓s photos of surgical operations were ones of the main attractions of this part of the exposition. The professionals were very interested in the scientific studies in the field of color photography by A.I. Prilezhaev.

Participants of the photo exhibition in 1911. Photo of th early XXth century [zoom (74k)]

The color photo exposition was of particular interest. It featured a number of outstanding works by Polster, Vasilieva, Tcherkisova, Istomina, Pisareva, Gurkih, etc. It is worth mentioning that the participant list featured a big number of women-photographers. A reporter remarked: ╚Xenya Glybovskaya from St.Petersburg provided interesting works (e.g. "A.I. Kuindzhi and D.I. Mendeleev playing chess"), she also presented an interesting photo etude, "The snow has fallen"╩.

The dry statistics gives us the idea about the big scale of the exhibition: The first section featured 33 exponents, the second 118 exponents including 76 Russian photographers (25 professionals and 51 amateurs) and 37 foreigners (21 professionals and 16 amateurs), as well as 2 foreign educational institutes and 3 Russian photographical societies. In the third section (color photography), 19 exponents participated. In the fifth section 7 persons participated, in the sixth 36 persons and in the seventh 81. Patronage of Great Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich helped providing high level of the event organization. Emperor Nicholas II greeted the Exhibition with a special telegram. On April 26th (at 10 p.m.), the patron, Great Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich, visited the exhibition and very thoroughly considered the exhibited works.

The exhibition had a great public success. More than 15 thousand persons visited it. It was in spite of a comparatively high admission fee of 50 kopecks (the opening day fee was 3 rubles, and the first Sunday▓s fee was 1 ruble). As it was at the previous exhibition, the pupils of the Imperial Society of the Promotion of Arts and of the other artistic education schools were granted free admission in case of preliminary agreement of their visiting a special time being allotted for such visits.

We must remark that the described exhibition content was very reach, and the presented thematic range was very wide. It featured a big number of works of outstanding beauty and artistic level. The scientific division included a lot of works never exhibited before. It was at this exposition, where a rich selection of color photos was presented for the first time to the general public.