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Original pearl-finish 7 x 9.25 silver gelatin photograph of esteemed Russian composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich by photographer Moisei Nappelbaum from the 1940s. The reverse bears pencil notations and a Russian ‘Library’ stamp. In fine condition, with faint surface marks, and a crease to the lower right corner.
Moisei Nappelbaum (1869-1958) was one of the most important figures in the history of photography and a pioneering master of the artistic and psychological portrait. His stature was decisively affirmed in 1918, when the Bolshevik government selected him to create the first official artistic portrait of Vladimir Lenin, establishing the visual image of the new Soviet state for the world. Nappelbaum became the preeminent photographer of the Soviet cultural and political elite and is widely regarded as the godfather of the photographic portrait, having developed a distinctive and influential style of his own. Over the course of his career, he produced more than a thousand photographs that now form part of the canon of photographic art, including celebrated portraits of figures such as Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Blok, Maxim Gorky, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Sergei Esenin, Georgi Plekhanov, H. G. Wells, Boris Pasternak, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Yakov Sverdlov, and Semyon Budyonny.
