Exhibition: Masterpieces of Soviet Photography

Exhibition: Masterpieces of Soviet Photography

Atlas Gallery will present Masterpieces of Soviet Photography, a selection of photographs from the collection of celebrated sports photographer Lev Borodulin, known for his artistic images of athletes, skaters and swimmers.

Masterpieces of Soviet Photography reflects Borodulin’s long-lasting quest to collect and preserve images from a time when art was restricted to serve a Soviet socialist agenda. The photographs Borodulin collected over decades now constitute one of the largest collections of Soviet photography in the world and include prints by the greatest masters working in the medium such as Arkady Shaikhet, Yakov Khalip, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich and many others.

The exhibition covers a wide range subjects – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin seated in a line at the 1945 Yalta (Crimea) Conference, a close-up portrait of astronaut Yuri Gagarin, and an austere 1930s morning exercise class where the instructor, incongruously dressed in a floaty floral dress and scarf, stands with arms outstretched looking down on the circular group of participants obediently following below.