Alexander Danilovich Grinberg

Russian, 1885–1979

Death placeMoscow, Russia

Birth placeMoscow, Russia

BiographyAlexander Danilovich Grinberg (1885, Moscow, Russian Empire - 1979, Moscow, USSR). Photographer-artist, cameraman, teacher. In 1908 he was awarded the silver medal in the all-Russian photo exhibition in Moscow and the gold medal in the international photo-exhibition in Dresden. Member of the Russian Photographic Society [RFO] in Moscow (1907-1917, 1921-1929), foreign member of several European photographic societies. In 1911 joined one of the two first cinema studios in Moscow as a photographer / cameraman. Worked with the first Russian movie-stars such as Vera Kholodnaya, depicted by him at his famous compositions of early period. During Russian Civil War worked as a cameraman of documentary. In 1921 he returned to Moscow and started to work at the first nationalized Moscow cinema studios. In 1925 he joined the group of Moscow photographers-artists for summer plein-air studies in Crimea. G. was involved into activity of the Photographic Section of the State Academy of Artistic Science [GAKH] and was part of the Russian Art of Movement. Highly exhibited internationally and nationally in 1920s.
He was member of organization committee for large All-Soviet Photo exhibitions in 1929 and 1935. Was awarded with several national prizes. Since 1929, the year of the "Great Break", with the turn in the Soviet politics toward arts, his erotic photography was declared inappropriate for Soviet morale, as a feature of the "overindulged idleness of the rich". Nevertheless, he risked exhibitions of semi-naked women, and was eventually sentenced to Gulag labor camps (1936–1939) "for distribution of pornography". After elaboration lived in 1940-1956 near Moscow (it was forbidden for him to live in a capital city after Gulag). Later period worked as a portrait photographer in Moscow. [Irina Chmyreva, January 2023]

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