Anton Bruehl
Christine Davis
Stan Douglas
Walker Evans
Geoffrey Farmer
CAO FEI
Greg Girard
Mike Grill
shari hatt
Fred Herzog
J Kuhn
Jacques-Henri Lartigue
Tim Lee
JUDY LINN
Kyla Mallett
LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY
Dick Oulton
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii
Danny Singer
John Vanderpant
Johannes Wohnseifer
ANONYMOUS
ANONYMOUS (SPIRIT)

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SERGEI PROKUDIN-GORSKII
KARAGACH, SAMARKAND. 1905-1915

Lightjet print
Image dimensions 30.5 x 30.5 cm

ESTIMATE $700 - $1,000

Prokudin-Gorskii was a pioneer in colour photography whose remarkable archive of images is a critical document of pre-Revolutionary Russia.  Around 1907, he envisioned a plan to use the emerging technological advancements that had been made in colour photography to systematically document the Russian Empire. His ambition won the support of Tsar Nicholas II, who in early 1909 invited Prokudin-Gorskii to give a slide presentation to the Imperial Court. His subjects ranged from medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population. Using an experimental technique whereby he captured colour by taking three pictures of each scene, each with a different red, green, or blue colour filter, Prokudin-Gorskii  set off on two surveys, one between 1909-12, and again in 1915 traveling over eleven regions of the country.

Outfitted with a darkroom provided by the Tsar, with a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation, and in possession of two permits that granted him access to restricted areas and co-operation from the empire's bureaucracy, Prokudin-Gorskii documented an Empire on the eve of The Great War and the coming years of revolution. By 1918, after having lost his money and property during the revolution, his patron Tsar and family murdered and the empire that he so carefully documented destroyed, Prokudin-Gorskii was forced into exile, leaving Russia and finally settling in France, taking only his collection of photograph albums and nearly 2,000 glass-plate negatives. His unique views of everyday life in colour photographs can now by replicated through new computer technology.

Additional photographs will be available at the time of the fundraiser.