2006 Press Releases
U.S. Library of Congress Exhibit in Yekaterinburg: The Russian Empire As Seen by Sergey Prokudin-Gorskiy
December 18, 2006
On December 18 the U.S. Consulate General in Yekaterinburg opened the U.S. Library of Congress’ exhibit of color photographs by Sergey Prokudin-Gorskiy at the Municipal Photography Museum “The House of Metenkov”. The exhibit, “The Wonders of Photography,” consists of 59 color images of imperial Russia taken between 1905-1916. Until recently most of these photographs existed only as triple green, red, and blue negatives and no one (including the photographer himself) had ever seen the entire collection in color. The negatives are preserved at the US Library of Congress, which artistically reconstructed about 170 images in 2000. 59 of them were chosen to form a traveling exhibit that has been donated to the Russian State Library of Foreign Literature, Moscow.
The photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world--the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, and to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population.
In the early 1900s Prokudin-Gorskii formulated an ambitious plan for a photographic survey of the Russian Empire that won the support of Tsar Nicholas II. Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, he completed surveys of eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation.
Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, going first to Norway and England before settling in France. By then, the tsar and his family had been murdered and the empire that Prokudin-Gorskii so carefully documented had been destroyed. His unique images of Russia on the eve of its revolution--recorded on glass plates--were purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948 from his heirs. For this exhibition, the glass plates have been scanned and, through an innovative process known as digichromatography, brilliant color images have been produced. This exhibition features a sampling of Prokudin-Gorskii's historic images produced through the new process; the digital technology that makes these superior color prints possible; and celebrates the fact that for the first time many of these wonderful images are available to the public.
“The Wonders of Photography” will stay in Yekaterinburg until January 20, 2007. Afterwards the exhibit will be displayed in the large cities of the Urals and Western Siberia before being returned to Moscow.
