Borodulin Collection

Our Story

The Borodulin Collection-одна из крупнейших частных коллекций советской фотографии, охватывающей период с 1920-х до 1950-е годы. Первые имена и первые работы, таких мастеров как А. Родченко, А. Гринберг, А. Шайхет, Б. Игнатович, О. Игнатович, Г. Петрусов, Д. Бальтерманц, Е. Халдей, М. Альперт, Г. Зельма, И. Шагин, Л. Бородулин, Н. Грановский, Я. Халип, А. Шишкин, А. Хлебников, Б. Кудояров, Д. Дебабов, М. Марков-Гринберг, М. Грачев, Н. Петров, С. Фридлянд, С. Гурарий, Э. Евзерихин, Я. Рюмкин, А. Устинов, А. Штеренберг, С. Лоскутов, Б. Вдовенко и др. Мы открыты к сотрудничеству с музеями, галереями и коллекционерами для организации выставок, благотворительных акций и других интересных проектов. Также можно приобрести авторские отпечатки.

The Borodulin Collection is one of the largest private collections of Soviet photographs, covering the period from 1920-s to 1950-s. First names and first works the list of the artists A. Rodchenko, A. Grinberg, A. Shaikhet, B. Ignatovich, O. Ignatovich, G. Petrusov, D. Baltermants, Y. Khaldey, M. Alpert, G. Zelma, I. Shagin, L. Borodulin, N. Granovsky, Y. Khalip, A. Shishkin, A. Khlebnikov, B. Kudoyarov, D. Debabov, M. Markov-Grinberg, M. Grachev, N. Petrov, S. Friedland, S. Gurary, E. Evzerikhin, Y. Rumkin, A. Ustinov, A. Shterenberg, S. Loskutov, B. Vdovenko and other. We' ll be glad to cooperate with the museums, galleries and collectors for exhibitions, charity events and other interesting projects. You can also buy the original photograps of the above-mentioned photographers. Most of the photographs in our collection are prints made by the photographers themself, a lot are exhibition quality prints.

“The Borodulin Collection of Russian Photographs.
Lev Borodulin, a student at the Art Faculty of the College of Journalism in Moscow, was sent to the front in the first days of the Second World War. He was severely wounded, but was demobilized only after the Victory, when he returned to his studies. He was awarded medals for the defence of Moscow and capture of Berlin.
As a future journalist, and a Moscow citizen, Lev was commissioned by his regiment to gather images for a photographic record of their part in the war. Though it was in many ways a difficult period, it was also a good time to be a student. The pioneers of Soviet photography, who had served as a war correspondents on the front line, were still alive. They were willing to share their photographic prints without asking for payment. At the time, there was no concept of photographs having monetary value. After a friendly chat and a simple meal provided by Lev’s superiors, he would leave with a couple of prints. In this way he began his collection, and the long journey to becoming a professional photographer. At the time food was scarce, and these simple meals were a great help for a poor student.
Later on, already a professional photographer, Lev continued his search for a good images, and planned to retire as a photography teacher with a collection of prints to show his students. In the lab at Ogonyok, the Russian weekly version of Life with a circulation of twelve million copies, the best images by the best photographers were being printed; working there, it was easy for him to assemble a fine collection.
Before the war, Lev had been an active sportsman; now, as a photographer, he continued to focus on sport, which gave him a certain freedom of artistic expression, and the freedom to travel. During the gloomy years of the Iron Curtain, Lev managed to attend five Olympic Games and many world championships, reviving the formalist photographic principles of his forgotten teachers – Rodchenko, Ignatovich, Shaikhet – and of course the famous Dmitri Baltermants, with whom for fifteen years he successfully shared a small darkroom at Ogonyok.
Fate was kind to him: in 1964 the English Photography Yearbook named him a “Star of World Photography” and in 1967 the Japanese newspaper Asahi called him the best photographer of the year. He won a gold medal in the 1972 Munich Olympic Photographic Exhibition, held just before the Games, and the newspaper Pravda ran the story on the front page, with the title “The First Olympic Gold Medal is Sovet”. Nevertheless, official authorities decided his presence as a correspondent was “ inappropriate”, and he was banned from going to Munich, where he had been recognized as the world’s best sport photographer. Accusations of formalism followed, and fate turned against him. His plan to become a teacher fell by the wayside, but his interest in the history of Soviet photography remained unwavering, and Lev held onto his collections. Only later, after his move to Israel in 1972 and a period of adjustment, did he plunge once again into the world of Soviet photography.
In 1995 he was invited to Moscow, as a Second World War veteran, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Victory Day. He had the chance to meet his old colleagues, and further supplemented his collection. His son Sasha has been passionate about photography from his early childhood, has worked with his father to enrich this wide-ranging collection, visiting the classic photographers and purchasing their work since 1988. Most of the prints in the Collections were acquired directly from the photographers, such as Grachev, Khaldey, Ustinov, V. Egorov and Markov-Grinberg, whom Lev and Sasha both met. Some were purchased by Lev from Khalip, Alpert, Kudoyarov, Evzerikhin, Grinberg, Rumkin, Granovsky, Shagin and Shishkin, and others later by Sasha from their families. Lev acquired more prints from other sources, including Anatoly Fomin (editor-in-chief of Art Publishing House, Moscow, who acknowledged their meeting by inscribing a photographs of himself by Svishov-Paola to Lev), and Lilya Ukhtomskaya (editor of Pioneers of Soviet Photography, 1983) who was a close friend and admirer of Lev.
Unless otherwise mentioned, prints are vintage, stamped with the Borodulin’s Collection inkstamp on verso, and generally annotated in pencil on verso.”