"Arkady Shaikhet: favorite photos 1920-30-x" in New York
ARTinvestment.RU   14 ноября 2010

The exhibition presents forty works from the collection of a family of photographers and several private collections

In New York gallery Naila Alexander (Naily Alexander gallery) opened an exhibition « Arkady Shaikhet : favorite photos 1920-30-x. This is the first New York retrospective of works by the founder of the Soviet photo essay. Shaikhet was an innovator, the creator of a new aesthetic in photography, tailored to the needs of the young Soviet Union. The exhibition presents forty works from the collection of a family of photographers and several private collections. Assistance in organizing the exhibition had granddaughter Arcadia Shaikhet Maria Zhotikova.

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Arkady Shaikhet (Shoikhet Abram) was born in southern Russia in 1898 in a poor family. His father delivers beer, and his mother sewed his hat and ran the household. The boy was the fourth child in the family and did not get a consistent education, having completed only four years of school. Educational qualifications on a national basis only allows one child to a Jewish family to complete secondary education, but without any qualification means to educate all children in the family is still not there. In twelve years Shoikhet settled apprentice fitter at the Nikolaev shipyard. There he spent the next five years, and perhaps would have spent and the rest of his life, but began troubled times: The First World War, riots, revolution, civil war. Abram Shoikhet went to the front. He served in a brass band, has not yet contracted typhus. After the war, a future photographer changed his name and, like many young men of the time, went to Moscow. Came in 1922.

live in the capital was not easy, but for a young person with a minimum of requirements and a strong character - perhaps. His first work, which managed to get Shaikhet, defined his entire life. He went to work in the studio with a great name "Rembrandt", which was located on Sretenka. Arkady Shaikhet himself recalled it this way: "At the end of 1922, I got a job as a retoucher to a private photographer for Sretenke in store" Rembrandt ". Maybe so, and proceeded to my life in the little room back at the table studio retoucher, if not the case. One experienced journalist advised me to go to the photo essay ... Armed with a universal camera measuring 9 x 12 with pull-fur, I'm full of young enthusiasm, started to work. My first images appeared in popular with Muscovites, "the Working newspaper. To test their strength photojournalist it was a good start ».

experienced journalists figured out in the future retouchers great photographer, was Dmitri Brazul, head GROWTH. He also advised Shaikhet include their photos not only in the "Working paper, but in the magazines" Red Field "and" Moscow Proletarian ". Of the young author quickly attracted attention - his skill grew with each passing day. Besides Shaikhet was close and relevant to themes of time, which keep saying that all newspapers and magazines, including the "main body" - the magazine "Soviet Photo": "We need to remove the truth, not the front, and everyday ... We want to see the workers and peasants as they are, without a leaf embellishment. Photos of Arcadia Shaikhet were invariably appear in each issue of "Soviet Photo", from the first, released in 1926.

Shaikhet perfectly cope with any story - it was known in many editions of Moscow, often happy to publish. He shot a May Day demonstration, Lenin's funeral, the Plenary Session V Congress of the Comintern.

In 1925, Mikhail Koltsov, invited the photographer to "Spark". Jobs in Ogonyok gave unprecedented creative possibilities - is only mentioned that especially for the edition of Ogonyok was purchased aircraft, which allows photographers to keep up on important activities almost anywhere in the vast country. In 1926, at the opening Shaturskaya TPP Arkady Shaikhet made one of his most famous images - the bulb Ilyich. Other photographs Shaikhet this time - farmers, Red Army athletes.

However, work in Ogonyok not always been a big holiday: once he had spend four months in the Lubyanka. Here's how recalled this son of the photographer: "Somehow, photographing Clara Zetkin - leader of the German proletariat, the father broke and threw a bad shot, which from the revolutionary dress was visible petticoat. Someone glued torn imprint with comments: "This is how some photographers shoot the leaders of the world revolution" - to be posted. Shaikhet was arrested and, if not for the intercession of the all-powerful editor of Ogonyok Mikhail Koltsov, this story could have ended tragically. Rid "slight shock", Arkady Shaikhet returned to the profession.

first exhibition, which was attended by several works of photographer, was organized by the Association of Moscow photographers and was held in 1926. In 1928 the exhibition "The Soviet photography for 10 years" Shaikhet exposed for 60 of his photographs, which have received the most favorable reviews from critics and the press. In 1931, the photographer took part in the exhibition "ogonkovskih" photographers in London. British reports about the show were filled with the words "outstanding", "astounding", "exclusive", and Bernard Shaw with "Bolshevik directness" said that "... Soviet art has left far behind the modern West-European." In the summer of 1935 Shaikhet was among twenty-three participants of the exhibition "Masters of Soviet photography. The exposition presents about twenty of his pictures ("Ship of the steppes" (1934), "The plane on the farm" (1934), "Sort of Grain" (1933), "Rollers" (1930), "Ski tour of Red" (1929); "Morning exercises" (1927 )).

main reasons for the success of Arcadia Shaikhet - fanatical attitude towards work, incredible meticulousness, the ability to grab the essence of the moment and build the perfect track. Possibility to refuse the job or expired Editorial its performance for the photographer just did not exist. But the job was very different, even riskier. For example, during a report about the wedding of a prosperous NEP (Shaikhet captures all its stages - from the wedding and congratulations to the drunken brawl) "heroes" of the photographer threatened with physical violence and called names bad words. And for the shooting of famous pilots Grizodubova, Raskova and Osipenko Shaikhet had to work not only photographs, but also a stylist: Editorial on assignment, he led the famous pilots in Torgsin store and on the editorial also picked up the money to them appropriate costumes. Perhaps this is partly explained by the sincere joy of models for these very nice shots. However, the ability to get in touch, to win her hero, too, has always been one Shaikhet. In his presence, people do not feel constrained: in the photo "On the arable land. Village Kolomenskoye (1927) Collective Farm quietly breastfeeding, "wanderers" with pictures of the same name in 1925 as calmly drinking tea at a leisurely conversation, not paying any attention to the photographer that was rather strange at the time - for a photo was supposed to "sit" .

Nevertheless, even the "spontaneous" shots Shaikhet were carefully aligned. He put border guards in the pose of the statue, trying to find a line of cars on the conveyor unity of rhythm, and a photo of "Uzbek under a new sun" sought from the cheeks of the old Uzbek man, lying under quartz, metallic shine. With respect to angle, Shaikhet loved the highest points - for the shooting, he climbed on the roofs, trees, the steeple. One day he climbed on the roof of the Kiev railway station and fell through the glass there, but he had for something to grasp, and still made the photo you want.

But times have changed, and the work Shaikhet in Ogonyok coming to an end. The photographer did not join the party and refused to take up leadership positions. Gradually, he stopped charging those responsible shot, and in 1938 Shaikhet was forced to resign from Ogonyok, which gave almost thirteen years of his life.

World War Shaikhet was a front-line photographer. He worked for "Frontline illustration", published in Pravda, "Krasnaya Zvezda", "Komsomolskaya Pravda". One of the first shots of war was shot, depicting the frightened women and children on the platform of the metro station Mayakovskaya during the air raid. Images that Shaikhet did on the front line, often built on the enlarged image of the protagonist, they are - human suffering and courage, pain and heroism. Burned huts, destroyed temples, the soldiers during the brief respite between battles ... Shaikhet participated in the battles along with the Red Army, and in the Battle of Königsberg, along with a truck driver at an editorial evacuated from the battlefield fifteen wounded, and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Shaikhet depicted scenes of the Battle of Moscow, Stalingrad (here in 1942, was made his famous image of "political officer"), the arc and the battle of Kursk in Belarus. Arkady Shaikhet ended the war in Berlin, and the summer of 1945 he filmed a meeting of Soviet soldiers at the Belarus railway station: happy and tired soldiers, happy children, and enthusiastic women.

Shaikhet After the war he returned to "Spark". He worked hard, often exhibited, but age and two wars have undermined his health - a photographer's acute illness resulting in his youth, he suffered from heart attacks and for several years suffered three heart attacks. However, to abandon your favorite things Arkady Shaikhet could not. In 1958 he received an honorary diploma of the All-Union exhibition "Photography of the USSR for 40 years." A year later, during filming on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, AS Shaikhet died of a heart attack.

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Source: club.foto.ru , artdaily.com , nailyaalexandergallery.com , artinvestment.ru