woman in fur, ca. 1926 nude study, 1926 liza, 1920s nude in grass, ca. 1920s student brotherhood, moscow, 1907-1910 woman with cigarette & wine, ca. 1920s woman with braids, 1920s portrait du femme, 1913-1914the theatre of meyerhold, 1920s
alexsander danilovich grinberg (1885-1979) is one of the most respected russian photographers of the twentieth century. He experienced the russian revolution, the civil war, two world wars, & stalinist repression in his 94 years. by the age of 22 he was an creative force in the russian photographic society. in 1914 he started working with the khanzhankov film studio in moscow, becoming the head of the film advertising.
in 1929, under the storm of the cultural revolution, the "old school" of soviet photography came under fire as "depraved", and he fell out of favor. the new cultural policy dictated that any eroticism in artistic form was a remnant of bourgeois idleness, and inappropriate for soviet society. in 1935 grinberg went ahead with an exhibition that showed images of partially dressed women that led to his arrest. he was sentenced to a labor camp of distribution of pornography. he was finally paroled for good behavior & industriousness in 1939 but had permanently lost his sense of smell during his imprisonment. he resumed work as a photographer for a variety of institutions & museums and taught photography.
his early work was not destroyed, as would have normally happened, because his older brother managed to hide the negatives for many years. during the second world war grinberg worked to preserve & restore the archives. after the war he worked with models & fashion designers throughout the 1950s.
his whole life was devoted to photography, which he never abandoned, even in the most difficult of circumstances.