Markov-Grinberg photograph of women athletes holding flags in Red Square

http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn523365-irn523366 an entity of type: Record

rico:history

Mark Borisovich Markov-Grinberg was born on November 27, 1907, in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. He learned photography at secondary school. In 1925, he took his first job as a photographer for the Sovetsky Yug (Soviet South) newspaper and worked as a freelance correspondent for Ogonyok magazine. In 1926, Markov-Grinberg moved to Moscow and worked for various trade union newspapers and the magazine, Krasnoarmeyskaya Smena (Transformation). In 1930, he accepted an offer to work for the Fotokhronika TASS (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union). He traveled around the country photographing the official Soviet Union: major construction projects, collective farms, and happy workers engaged in building Soviet Society, as well as prominent Russian and foreign personalities. His photographs appeared in major Soviet publications, including USSR in Construction, a magazine that documented Stalin’s Five-Year Plans to industrialize the Soviet Union. In 1934, TASS commissioned Markov-Grinberg to create a photo essay detailing a day in the life of Ukrainian miner, Nikita Izotov. He created an iconic portrait of Izotov as a Socialist worker hero. The Izotov photo essay launched Markov-Grinberg's career as a Stalin-era photographer and he became one of the most important photographers of his generation. His work was part of the socialist realist movement in photography which pictured life as it should be in idealized images made to look like objective recordings of things as they were. During the Soviet-Finnish War (1939-1940), Markov-Grinberg worked for TASS as a war correspondent and documented the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus. In September 1941, he was drafted into the Red Army, and continued to take photographs. He became the army correspondent for the military publication, Slovo Boitsa (Soldier’s World), in July 1943. He created well-known images of the Battle of Kursk and the crematorium at Stutthof concentration camp, when it was liberated on May 9, 1945, by the Soviet Army. Markov-Grinberg lost his job with TASS in 1948 as a result of the anti-Semitic climate of late Stalinism. After his demobilization in 1953, he worked as a photographer for the Red Army Illustrated Gazette and, later, for the photography publishing office of the Soviet Union Agricultural Exhibition, a theme park about the People’s Economy. From 1957–1973, Markov-Grinberg worked for the Club and Art Hobby magazine. He took part in photography exhibitions in the USSR and abroad. An honorary member of the Russian Union of Art Photographers, Markov-Grinberg died in 2006 at the age of 99.

The photographic print was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by Joanne and Will Potter.

rico:identifier

irn523366

rico:title

Markov-Grinberg photograph of women athletes holding flags in Red Square

rico:recordResourceExtent

overall: Height: 10.880 inches (27.635 cm) | Width: 13.750 inches (34.925 cm)

rico:scopeAndContent

Photographic print of women carrying flags in a procession in Moscow, created in 1935 by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and World War II correspondent. Markov-Grinberg was a major Social Realist photographer during the Stalinist era of the 1930s-1940s. He worked for major newspapers and journals, including TASS. He was a war correspondent during the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939-1940 and, in 1941, was drafted to fight in World War II. While a soldier, he continued his work as a photographer and army correspondent. After the war, he returned to his job at TASS.

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Black and white gelatin silver photographic print depicting a group of female athletes standing in a cobblestone square fronting a large building. The group fills the foreground, positioned 12 abreast in tight block formation holding white flags and wearing white, belted leotards, white socks, and athletic shoes. The front row stands behind a white horizontal line. Figures stand in the background to the right and left of the group, some holding flags. Dominating the background is a large building with a backdrop covering its facade. Headshots of Lenin and Stalin hang from the roofline and below the banners and Russian text extends across the frame. Adjacent is a structure with only the curved roof visible; 5 black flags stand horizontally at the roofline. The bright white of the athletes, flags, text and banners sharply contrast with the dark background. The block formation, upright flags and portrait orientation of the hangings create strong vertical lines, contrasting with the horizontal lines of the first row, white line, text, and rooflines. Inscribed on the reverse are the artist’s signature, the year and the title, letters, and numbers. back, left, top, pencil : 1935 [Symbol] / Москва [Moscow] / [Russian script] back, bottom, right, pencil : DS 2500

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