PIONEERS OF SOVIET RUSSIAN PHOTOGRAPHY. - Lot 240

PIONEERS OF SOVIET RUSSIAN PHOTOGRAPHY. Paris, Philippe Sers Éditeur, 1983. Large quarto, publisher’s hardcover with illustrated dust jacket. An important publication devoted to the early history of Russian and Soviet photography, from the last great photographers of the Empire to the Constructivist avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 1930s. The volume, richly illustrated with 302 two-tone reproductions and 68 in black and white, is preceded by an introduction by Grigori Chudakov, Olga Souslova, and Lilya Ukhtomskaya, as well as a foreword by François Mathey, chief curator of the Musée des Arts décoratifs. It traces the evolution of Russian photography through the works of Karl Bulla, Mikhail Nappelbaum, Abram Sterenberg, Alexander Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich, Eleazar Langman, Dmitri Debabov, Arkadi Shaikhet, Max Alpert, and many other photographers who profoundly transformed the visual language of documentary and propaganda photography. One of the best overviews published in French on this period, it has become a standard reference for the study of Soviet photographic constructivism. Condition: very good copy. Dust jacket slightly rubbed with a few minor signs of wear and a slight dent at the top; interior in very fresh condition.