Photograph | 1920–1960s Photos

1946

Alexander Khlebnikov (1897–1979), an outstanding Russian photo artist who was a trailblazer in many fields of photography, including advertising, applied museum filming, still life photography and the photography club movement. He was born in Novocherkassk in 1897. A high school graduate, he took up photography when he enrolled in the cameramen department of the Tchaikovsky cinema courses in 1925. In 1926 he started working at the photo cabinet of the State Academy of Art Sciences under the supervision of B. Podluzsky. The latter seriously opposed neglect of applied photography and insisted on quality reproduction technology. Podluzsky’s influence made Khlebnikov study this field of photography in some depth. As early as in 1927 photographs made by Khlebnikov at the State History Museum won the 1st degree prize at the exhibition “10 Years of Soviet Photography” as “samples of first-class reproduction technology”. His subsequent work at the History Museum posed a number of not only technical but also research problems for Khlebnikov. On his initiative a compulsory course in Photography in Museum Practice was introduced at the Higher Museum Courses and for post-graduates of the USSR Revolution Museum after the 1st Museum Congress. Khlebnikov supervised that course from 1931 on. In the prewar period Khlebnikov began to cooperate with Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova, and their cooperation and friendship was to last for many years. In the 1960s Khlebnikov made his mark by founding, together with G. Soshalsky, the Novator (Innovator) photography club, which he headed almost to his last day, teaching the rudiments of photography and secrets of the craft to amateurs.