Boris Smelov – photographer with impeccable reputation

The work of the legendary St. Petersburg photographer Boris Smelov is of interest to art historians, critics, theorists, historians and photography enthusiasts. In 2009 the State Hermitage Museum held the largest exhibition of his photographs. No mention of Petit-Boris leaves anyone indifferent. Why? We have tried to answer this question by quoting various points of view, memoirs, and time-honored quotes from Boris Smelov himself.

Self-Portrait. 1997

While still alive, photographer Boris Smelov became a legend in St. Petersburg photography.

– You want both sun and moon, flood and snow, all in one frame??? But it’s the end of the world?

– Yes.

From Boris Smelov’s dialogue with Masha Snigirevskaya

Nicholas Bridge. 1995

Arkady Ippolitov

Senior Researcher at the West European Department

Fine Art of the State Hermitage Museum,

Conceptualizer and curator of the exhibition “Boris Smelov. Retrospective

(State Hermitage Museum, March 20 – June 28, 2009

Photographer Boris Smelov 1951-1998 became a legend of St. Petersburg photography in his lifetime, a living classic, admired by everyone who was in any way associated with the art of photography.

Any more or less visible photographer in St. Petersburg today has not escaped his influence. The image of St. Petersburg he created is not just high quality photography, but certainly the most expressive statement that was made about this city at the end of the last century, a statement equal in importance to Brodsky’s poetry.

His work is the most valuable and outstanding creation of the St. Petersburg culture of the 70-90s, of which the Hermitage Museum is the most important source., connected to St. Petersburg, dedicated to St. Petersburg and defined by St. Petersburg, but at the same time reaching an international level, because his works are comparable to the highest examples of world photography.

The sound of an oboe. 1972

David Galloway. The City of Shadows. The City of Tears

Prof. David Galloway

contemporary art historian,

art critic ARTnews, International Herald Tribune ,

editor of Art in America,

Curator of International Exhibitions,

author and publisher of numerous books on art

It’s interesting to imagine how Boris Smelov would have responded to the digital revolution in photography, which, in 1998, when he died, was only just beginning to spread its wings over the world. On the one hand, this photographer was always interested in new photographic technique, and he often lamented how difficult it was to obtain the latest equipment and materials in the Soviet Union, where only journalistic and amateur photography was officially recognized. Nevertheless, Smelov had first-rate cameras and always printed his pictures on high quality photographic paper. It was obvious to him that the development of technology, naturally, entailed a qualitative change. In an interview published in 1988, Smelov opined that the advent of automatic cameras and new developing and printing techniques broadened “the range of photographers’ horizons, enriched their style of expression and even their vision. But he was not enthusiastic about any innovation: “To be able to make a quality “card” without having any intelligence or culture, carries the danger of stultifying photography.”. It is not surprising that he anticipated the phenomenon, which many later saw as the reverse side of the digital aesthetic that flooded the art market at the end of the last century: without an authorial view of the world, without the human position of the artist, the results are “empty and cold.

In Smelov’s thoughts on photography the key word is always “culture”. When asked what kind of education it would be ideal for a photographer, he replied that it would be better if he had a liberal arts education, as well as a philosophical, psychological and art history education. Although, according to many, “pictures speak louder than words,” it is worth noting that among the subjects important to the future photographer, Smelov included foreign languages in his curriculum.

His photographs were the testament of a dedicated master, who loved the philosophy of Dostoevsky, the paintings of Van Gogh and the music of Mozart, but also read the theoretical works of Siegfried Krakauer and Roland Barthes and was generous with praise when assessing the works of his colleagues. His favorite photographers were Henri Cartier-Bresson and Josef Sudek, who taught him the most important lesson: “Every object in the material world has a soul of its own.

At the beginning of his career as a photographer, Smelov made portraits of underground writers and artists, including himself, and sometimes worked, with great success, in the genre of still life. His “Still Life with a Pomegranate” 1988 and “Still Life with a Crooked Mirror” 1991 are true masterpieces of the genre. They show perfectly how well Smelov knew Renaissance painting.

But at his core, he was a photographer and chronicler of the city, and not of any city, but of Leningrad St. Petersburg, where he was born and died. He was thus carrying on the great tradition of urban photography which emerged in the 19th century with the advent of this art form. It was a time of rapid urbanization and industrialization. The contrast between wealth and poverty, between sunny boulevards and dark alleyways, between luxurious public buildings and ramshackle tenement houses, was an inexhaustible source of motifs for photographic images.

Smelov’s work “Tuchkov Alley” 1995 shows that this contrast remained strong even many decades later. In this picture, with its strict geometric composition, we see an old woman leaning on a stick and gingerly stepping along a narrow strip of light, which falls parallel to the faceless wall of a rectangular building. Her path crosses a shaded alley, in the depths of which a few trees can be seen: perhaps it’s a park, one of the photographer’s favorite motifs. The shadows in the foreground are obviously from a tree that cannot be seen in the frame. The language of oppositions is simple yet rich and expressive: light and dark, architecture and nature, man and anonymous urban landscape. In other works, including such gloomy sketches as “The Man with the Bucket” 1974 and “The Wall” 1975 , there is no nature, only dismal labyrinths in which the invisible tenants are huddled. It must be borne in mind that these works belong to an especially important and eventful period in Smelov’s creative biography, when he first received public recognition, but at the same time he began to be pursued by the authorities, who in 1975 closed his exhibition at the Palace of Culture “Vyborgsky” and confiscated the works exhibited there.

In Smelov’s cityscapes one rarely sees a human figure, and those people who are found there, as in Two Figures in a Back alley 1971 , are in fact nameless extras, who are obviously attracted to the artist because of the interesting play of light and shadow, but not as individuals. “Silver Boy” 1995 is a striking exception to the rule: in this composition, the human figure forms the true center. In the majority of cases, the figures that appear in Smelov’s photographs are not human beings: they are stone statues in a cemetery, sculptures adorning a fountain or a bridge, like the centaur balancing so gracefully in “Pavlovsk, The Centaur Bridge I” 1975 and “Pavlovsk, The Centaur Bridge II” 1994 . It is interesting to note that in his later work the natural environment is brought to the foreground, while the sculpture itself is almost completely consumed by shadow.

Smelov also has architectural studies bordering on geometric abstraction. Light falling diagonally through the windows, arches traversed by the boundary between light and darkness, spiral staircases and balustrades – these motifs obviously attracted the artist precisely by their form. However, Smelov, who was interested in contemporary philosophy, probably saw in them existential connotations as well. An air of mystery and sadness pervades these St. Petersburg cityscapes, in part because Smelov rarely photographed in bright sunlight. Sometimes we see the fading light of evening in his pictures, but what the artist loved most was the early morning light, when the sunlight was still just beginning to clear the fog over a cemetery, a bridge, or a playground. The shadows in this morning shot are long and deep, so that the highlighted details stand out especially well. Looking at Smelov’s photographs, we perceive Leningrad/Petersburg not as the city of light that the architects had envisioned under Peter the Great. For all the splendor found in this city, it is a world of shadows and – often – a world of tears. In an article entitled “After Raskolnikov: American Photography Today,” the critic John P. Smelov. Jacob called Smelov “a master of the school of spiritualist aestheticism.”. Indeed the series “In Memoriam of Dostoevsky” could serve as a kind of story about the entire oeuvre of this artist, one who is extraordinarily gifted and stands apart in the art of photography.

The Hay Bridge. 1993

Boris Smelov. From interviews over the years

Secrecy is needed

Soviet photo. 1988. № 10.

– What do you mean by successes and failures??

– My greatest failures have always been related to the technical aspects of photography, to the craft, when, due to impatience and fuss, I irrevocably lost the best shots during shooting or in the laboratory. Luck is the coincidence of creative intentions and a “premonition of the shot” with the end result. In general I consider myself a person of emotional and intuitive photography, and in shooting I trust my feelings more than my preliminary ideas. But at the same time, don’t consider it a mystery, I dreamt about many photos and then, sometimes years later, I suddenly saw them. And I’m lucky if I have my camera and film with me at such moments.

– In your opinion, what can and should be done to avoid “impersonal” photography?

– What we lack today is a serious photographic theory. There’s almost no influx of young, fresh talent.

The question of education for photographers seems to me to be extremely important. I myself become more and more painfully aware of the lack of it as I get older. It’s interesting that most of modern photographers have technical education, but it would be more useful to have humanities education – philosophical, psychological, art history, and with knowledge of foreign languages. One has to be able to easily navigate through art history to make a new story. An artist should know the past maybe even better than the present, which he or she can perceive on an intuitive level. The culture of the author is always, in one way or another, apparent in his work. And I think that without a love of Dostoevsky’s philosophy, Van Gogh’s paintings and Mozart’s music, not only myself, but also my work would be poorer.

– And one last question. Is there any quality which the successful photograph possesses??

– There is. There must be a Mystery in it. Otherwise its multiple meanings will be lost.

The image of the city

Subjective. 1995. № 1.

The city dominates my photography, although lately, in order to bring it to life and only for that reason , I’ve been paying more and more attention to the people in the city. I shoot in infrared on special film. In the past I shot with high-sensitivity emulsions and red filters to achieve a certain dramatic, condensed, concentrated character of Petersburg. Infrared film fascinates me because it gives a new quality and a completely different graphic effect. The difficulty with a photograph is that you can’t get the exposure meter right. This film is meaningless in automatic cameras where sensitivity is introduced. That’s the beauty of working with it: you add another parameter, and sometimes you don’t know what you’ll get, despite your many years of experience. The further one gets in life, the less one understands the effect of light on emulsion. We are used to not taking thermal radiation into account, but here the temperature of the objects affects the overall exposure, but there is absolutely nothing to measure this effect. Naturally I have to make duplicates, though it’s a pity to transfer expensive material. One more peculiarity: the proper focus on such film is different from that on ordinary film. The sky gets very dark, the greens get very bright, it looks strange. And that’s why you need a specific approach to composition which takes all these peculiarities into account.

Shooting on infrared film helps me emphasize a certain cosmopolitanism of the city, its objects, its epicism, its significance, its tragedy. And pictures taken on ordinary film in foggy weather, given the limitation or absence of backgrounds, in fact, only the foreground and this delicate pearly grayness emphasize a certain localized lyricism. But I have to say that in both cases a romantic approach prevails in my photos.

My Home

From an interview in 1993. To the publisher of the album “Winter Petersburg” 1997 .

– How long have you been shooting in general, including in winter??

– Probably ever since I froze my hands and feet off at the age of thirteen.

– What features of winter photography can you name??

– Frostbite, when the temperature drops drastically, and the lens under your jacket and even in your case fogs up, so, before you shoot, take a sideways look at your camera lenses!

– What is it about the city of St. Petersburg and winter photography in particular that appeals to you??

– Rude – lack of dirt. More subtly, all that is conceived and, incidentally, embodied by all European architects. Winter is definitely like the Neva River in the flood – it purifies, but in a different way.

– What moments of winter shooting can you remember?

– Ripping off a roof in winter: I managed, like a cat, to “twitch” through an attic window, but maybe I shouldn’t have..

– What a photographer should have for taking pictures in the winter?

– I think Team Cousteau should be consulted here. It would be good to put them in the Neva! In all seriousness, the main thing is the shoes. Valenki are good, but not so much. Why? Perfect for the countryside, but let’s say on a rooftop your cramped foot won’t add to your dexterity.

– Do you use frame direction or rely on chance?

– Intuitive case – when snow, passerby, bridge, house are combined into immutability, i.e. into fate.

– Which of the great masters of photography have influenced you??

– An intimate question. In the sense that his staging implies for the average person – who do you look more like? If on this one, I’ll buy, and on the other, I’ll wait until you’re dead yourself.

From the catalog of the exhibition “Boris Smelov. A “retrospective” at the State Hermitage Museum

March 20 – June 28, 2009.

We thank the Boris Smelov Foundation for the texts and photos provided for publication.

The album Boris Smelov was published for the Hermitage exhibition. Retrospect” KERBER Publishers, 448 pp., in American and English, 3500 copies., sold in every art bookstore in Europe and the USA .

Sour lover. 1975

Blotchy lilies. 1987

Silver Boy. 1995

Puppy seller. 1972

The Florensky couple. 1981

White cat. 1993

A Look Down. 1975

The Fontanka in winter. 1987

Photo: Boris Smelov