Boris Vsevolodovich Ignatovich (;

Slutsk Slutsk is a town in Minsk Region, in central Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Slutsk District, and is located on the Sluch (Belarus), Sluch River south of the capital Minsk. As of 2025, it has a population of 59,450. Geography ...

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Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

- 4 April 1976,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

) was a Soviet photographer, photojournalist, and cinematographer. He was a pioneer of Soviet avant-garde photography in the 1920s and 1930s, one of the first photojournalists in the USSR, and one of the most significant artists of the Soviet era.

Early life

Boris Ignatovich was born in 1899 in the Russian Empire in the city of

, in present-day

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. He studied at gymnasia in Lodz and

Lugansk Luhansk (, ; , ), also known as Lugansk (, ; , ), is a city in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. As of 2022, the population was estimated to be making Luhansk the 12th-largest city in Ukraine. Luhansk served as the administrative center of Luh ...

, until he was expelled in 1917 for the publication of a handwritten magazine and for participation in revolutionary activities. In 1918, he graduated from the Vyborg gymnasium in Petrograd (present-day St. Petersburg). After graduation, Ignatovich returned to

, where he began work as a journalist and joined the Communist Party. He worked as an editorial assistant at the

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

newspaper '' Krasnaya Zvezda'' and the Kiev newspaper ''Vseizdat'', then as a managing editor of the newspaper ''Krasnaya Bashkiria'' in Ufa,

Bashkortostan Bashkortostan, officially the Republic of Bashkortostan, sometimes also called Bashkiria, is a republic of Russia between the Volga river and the Ural Mountains in Eastern Europe. The republic borders Perm Krai to the north, Sverdlovsk Oblast ...

. He was also in charge of the regional office of

Russian Telegraph Agency Russian Telegraph Agency (, ROSTA) was the state news agency in Soviet Russia between 1918 and 1935. It was the central information organ of the Soviet Union. After the creation of Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union in 1925, it remained the ne ...

(ROSTA) in

Sterlitamak Sterlitamak ( rus, Стерлитама́к, p=stʲɪrlʲɪtɐˈmak; ; ) is the second largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia, located on the left bank of the Belaya River (Kama), Belaya ...

. In 1918, he became one of the first members of the Russian Union of Soviet Journalists in 1918. In 1922, Ignatovich rose to become chief editor of the Moscow newspaper ''Gornyak''. Accusations that he had published unverified reports from amateur proletarian journalists known as ''rabkor'' led to his demotion from membership in the Communist Party and dismissal from his job as editor. He relocated to Petrograd, where he headed the editorial boards of the magazines ''Drezina, Smekhach,'' and ''Buzotyor''.

Early career

In 1923, Ignatovich made his first photo report: a snapshot of writer

Mikhail Zoshchenko Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko (; – 22 July 1958) was a Soviet and Russian writer and satirist. Biography Zoshchenko was born in 1894, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, according to his 1953 autobiography. Other sources suggest that he was born i ...

buying apples, taken with a pocket Kodak camera at the editorial office of ''Smekhach''. In 1925, he was restored to the ranks of the Communist Party and returned to Moscow, where he continued to work as an editor and soon joined the prominent newspaper ''Bednota'' as a press photographer, covering rural life, the peasantry, and industrial developments. His photographs began appearing in the photography magazine '' Sovetskoe Foto'', and by the end of the decade he was working as a photographer for numerous publications, including the magazines ''Sovremennaia arkhitektura'', ''Radioslushatel and ''Illiustrirovannaia rabochaia gazeta''. In 1927, he participated in the photography exhibition of the Society of Friends of Soviet Cinema (Obshestvo Druzey Sovetskogo Kino - ODSK, Moscow), through which he met

Alexander Rodchenko Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (; – 3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepa ...

. In 1929, he was included in the landmark modernist exhibition ''Film und Foto'' (FiFo) in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

and

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

Cinematography and mid-career

In the 1930s, Ignatovich began to work in cinema, in particular in documentary films. In 1930, he shot the

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

''Today'' at the Soiuz-kinokhronika studio, with a screenplay by Esphir Shub; stills from this film were published in the magazine ''Kino i Zhizn (Cinema and Life). He also participated in the creation of one of the first sound films, ''Olympiad of Art,'' and made an extensive series of aerial surveys of

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

from an R-5 reconnaissance plane for a special issue of ''

USSR in Construction ''USSR in Construction'' () was a journal published in the decade of 1930 to 1941, as well as briefly in 1949, in the Soviet Union. It became an artistic gem and counter-current in the first year of socialist realism. With elements such as overs ...

''. In 1932–34, working as a filmmaker for ''Soiuzkinohronika'', he shot the documentary films ''How the

Kukryniksy The Kukryniksy () were three caricaturists/cartoonists in the USSR with a recognizable style. "Kukryniksy" is a collective name, which is derived from the names of three caricaturists Mikhail Kupriyanov (Михаил Васильевич Куп� ...

Work'' and ''The Electrification of the USSR''. Together with

, he led the photography section of the October Group'','' a collective of Constructivist and avant-garde artists that existed in the USSR from 1928 to 1932. In 1932, he was elected chairman of the Moscow Association of Photojournalists. He headed the department of illustrations at the newspaper ''Vecherniaia Moskva'' (Evening Moscow), and contributed to newspapers including ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

Rabochaya gazeta ( rus, Рабочая Газета, p=rɐˈbot͡ɕɪjə ɡɐˈzʲetə, t=Workers' Newspaper) was an illegal social democratic newspaper in the Russian Empire, published in 1897 in Kiev. It was an organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Part ...

, Trud,'' and ''Komsomolskaya pravda'', as well as the magazines ''Projector'', ''Krasnaya niva'', ''Ogonyok'', ''Smena Vekh'', and ''Soviet Photo.'' His work in this period included documentation of the

Stakhanovite movement The Stakhanovite movement was a mass cultural movement for workers established by the Communist Party in the 1930s Soviet Union. Its promoters encouraged the rationalization of workplace processes—i.e., increased production goals—while pro ...

and a series on the

Cossacks The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic languages, East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borde ...

. The late 1930s also saw the formation of the so-called "Ignatovich Brigade," composed of devotees and young photographers who had studied under Ignatovich. The group included Elizar Langman, Olga Ignatovich and Elizaveta Ignatovich, and provided images for ''Evening Moscow'' and ''Soyuzfoto.'' In 1937–38, Ignatovich's work was exhibited in the First All-Union Exhibition of Photographic Art at the

Pushkin Museum The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...

in Moscow, the

Russian Museum The State Russian Museum (), formerly known as the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (), on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, is the world's largest depository of Russian fine art. It is also one of the largest art museums in ...

in Leningrad, and in Kiev. From 1937 to 1941, he worked as a staff photojournalist for the magazine ''Construction of Moscow,'' while continuing to cooperate with the magazine ''USSR in Construction''. By the end of the decade, his work as being exhibited as far abroad as Lithuania and England.

World War II

Ignatovich served as a military photographer on the Eastern Front during World War II, working for the newspaper ''Boevoe Znamia''. He rode on horseback, reporting on a range of topics – including

sapper A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses ...

squads, cavalry, snipers, scouts, front-line barbers, and field kitchens – in a variety of forms, such as chronicles, vignettes, genre scenes, and group and personal portraits. In the last years of the war, he was sent by a studio of military photographers to the Western and

Bryansk Bryansk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Desna (river), Desna River, southwest of Moscow. It has a population of 379,152 at the 2021 census. Bryans ...

fronts, where he worked with partisan detachments. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945, he photographed

Marshal Zhukov Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( 189618 June 1974) was a Soviet military leader who served as a top commander during World War II and achieved the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. During World War II, Zhukov served as deputy commander-in-ch ...

signing the

Potsdam Declaration The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, ...

. He continued to work as a military photographer until 1950, when he was discharged with the rank of captain.

Postwar period and death

After his war service, Ignatovich made his first forays into color photography. In the 1950s he worked as a photographer for ''Ogonyok,'' as well as for the publishing houses ''Pravda,'' ''Izogiz, Stroiizdat,'' and ''Zhurnal mod,'' and led technical workshops at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV), where he set up a laboratory for color photography. He participated in the landmark exhibition in Moscow ''Photo Art of the USSR: 40 Years''. He also headed a department at the publishing house ''Iskusstvo''. In 1957, publication of the magazine ''Soviet Photo'' was resumed, and he worked briefly in the literary department. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he supervised a photo studio in the factory ''Serp i molot'', consulted for the photo studio club ''Trudovye rezervy'', and led the reporting section in the country's biggest photography club, ''Novator'', taking part in club exhibitions. In 1969, in honor of his seventieth birthday, the Moscow branch of the Union of Soviet Journalists organized a solo exhibition of Ignatovich's work at the Central House of Journalists. The exhibition featured photographs from every period of Ignatovich's career, from 1923 through 1963, and included large-scale prints, made by Ignatovich, whose size was highly unusual for exhibitions at that time. The last years of Ignatovich's life were spent in his communal apartment on Lenin Prospect, where young photographers would often visit to present their work and to learn from the old master. His wife and archivist, Klavdia Ignatovich, reports, "I served as an assistant, a photo model, and a cook for him. Boris Vsevolodovich was working until the very last." Ignatovich died on 4 April 1976. He is buried in

Rogozhskoe Cemetery Rogozhskoe cemetery ( rus, Рогожское кладбище, Rogozhskoye kladbishche, p=rɐˈɡoʂskəjɪ ˈkladbʲɪɕːɪ) in Moscow, Russia, is the spiritual and administrative center of the largest Old Believers denomination, called the Ru ...

in Moscow. Assessing his legacy after his death, the writer and historian of photography Valeriy Stigneev wrote, "He worked a frame like a sculptor, shearing off anything superfluous, and brought it to life like a movie. That's how he has entered his name in history. The epoch of Ignatovich saw photographs acquire a language of their own, an artistic expressiveness of their own. The revolution in Russia swept away the bourgeois order and the bourgeois aesthetic. The builders of a new society needed their own language and idols. On this great, fast-moving wave of art rose

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist mov ...

Rodchenko Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (; – 3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Step ...

, Eisenstein,

Dziga Vertov Dziga Vertov (born David Abelevich Kaufman; – 12 February 1954) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary ...

, Deineka, El Lissitsky, and others. More accurately, they made this art. Boris Ignatovich made photography."

Selected filmography

*''Today,'' 1930. Documentary film produced by the Soiuz-kinokhronika studio, Moscow. Screenplay by Esfir Shub. *''Olympiad of Art,'' 1930. Boris Ignatovich worked as a cameraman, alongside Dmitriy Debabov. *''How the Kukryniksy Work'', 1932. Documentary film produced by the Soiuz-kinokhronika studio, Moscow. *''The Electrification of the USSR,'' 1934. Documentary film by director A. Egorov. Boris Ignatovich worked as a cameraman.

Selected collections

Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...

, Moscow, Russia *

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lic ...

, Cologne, Germany *

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

, Chicago, IL, USA *

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follow ...

, TX, USA
State Museum and Exhibition Centre for Photography ROSPHOTO
Saint Petersburg, Russia *

Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...

, Miami, FL, USA *

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 117,000 work ...

, Princeton, NJ, USA *

Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM; , Москва) is a Russian state museum dedicated to the presentation and development of contemporary art related to new multimedia technologies. The museum was opened in October 2010 on the grounds of ...

, Moscow, Russia * Richard and Ellen Sandor Art Foundation, Chicago, IL, USA * Alex Lachmann Collection, Cologne, Germany
Nailya Alexander Gallery
New York, NY, USA * Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA *

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

, Ottawa, Canada * Merrill C. Berman Collection, Rye, NY, USA

Major exhibitions

* 1929: ''Film und Foto.'' International Werkbund exhibition in the New Exhibition Hall on Interim Theatre Square. Stuttgart. Germany * 1929: First ''October'' exhibition. Gorky Park, Moscow, Russia * 1935: ''Exhibition of the Work of the Masters of Soviet Photography (Vystavka rabot masterov sovetskogo foto-iskusstva).'' Moscow, Russia * 1969: Solo exhibition organized by the Union of Soviet Journalists, Central House of Journalists, Moscow, Russia * 1981: ''Moscow-Paris /Paris-Moscow, 1900–1930.''

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...

, Moscow, Russia;

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

, Paris, France * 1992: ''The Great Utopia: the Russian Avant-Garde, 1915–1932''.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

, New York, NY, USA;

State Tretyakov Gallery The State Tretyakov Gallery (; abbreviated ГТГ, ''GTG'') is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, which is considered the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world. The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Muscovite merchant Pavel ...

, Moscow, Russia;

State Russian Museum The State Russian Museum (), formerly known as the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (), on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, is the world's largest depository of Russian fine art. It is also one of the largest art museums in ...

, St. Petersburg, Russia;

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt The Schirn Kunsthalle is a Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany, located in the old city between the Römer and the Frankfurt Cathedral; it is part of Frankfurt's Museumsufer (Museum Riverbank). The Schirn exhibits both modern and contemporary ar ...

, Germany * 1999: ''Boris Ignatovich. 100 Years of Mastery''. Moscow House of Photography, Moscow, Russia * 2000–2001: ''Propaganda & Dreams. Photographing the 1930s in the USA and USSR.''

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art is a former art museum in Washington, D.C., that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Founded in 1869 by philanthropist William Wilson Corco ...

, Washington, DC, USA;

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...

, New York, NY, USA; Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia *2002 ''Boris Ignatovich: Icon of National Photography,'' 1927–1963. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia * 2003 Boris Ignatovich: Unknown masterpieces.

The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography (Russian language, Russian: Центр фотографии имени братьев Люмьер Romanization of Russian, ''tr.'' ''Tsentr fotografy imeni brat'yev Lyum'yer'') is a private exhibition ...

. Moscow, Russia * 2004 ''Sowjetische Fotografie der 1920er und 1930er Jahre. Von Piktoralismus und Modernismus zum Sozialistischen Realismus.''

Fotomuseum Winterthur Fotomuseum Winterthur is a museum of photography in Winterthur, Switzerland. History The museum was founded in 1993 by photographer George Reinhart, the nephew of the wealthy Swiss art collector Oskar Reinhart. ''Fotomuseum''s exabits are dedicat ...

, Switzerland * 2011: ''Boris Ignatovitch: Platonov's Time.'' Multimedia Art Museum/Moscow House of Photography. Voronezh, Samara, Russia * 2015-2016: ''The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film.''

Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. Notable Jewish museums include: Albania * Solomon Museum, Berat Australia * Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourn ...

, New York, USA * 2017: ''Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932''.

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

. Burlington House, Piccadilly, London

References

External links

Boris Ignatovich EstateBoris Ignatovich at Nailya Alexander GalleryBoris Ignatovich at the International Center of PhotographyBoris Ignatovich at the Art Institute of Chicago
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ignatovich, Boris 1899 births 1976 deaths People from Slutsk Soviet photographers Russian photographers Constructivism (art) Russian avant-garde Soviet photojournalists