Overview
- Brief Narrative
- Photographic print of farmers carrying a sign, created in 1933 by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and World War II correspondent. Markov-Grinberg was a major Social Realist photographer during the Stalinist era of the 1930s-1940s. He worked for major newspapers and journals, including TASS. He was a war correspondent during the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939-1940 and, in 1941, was drafted to fight in World War II. While a soldier, he continued his work as a photographer and army correspondent. After the war, he returned to his job at TASS.
- Artwork Title
- Public letter to a slacker from a record breaking collective farmers, Stalingrad Region
- Date
-
depiction:
1933
- Geography
-
creation:
Stalingrad Region;
Volgograd (Russia)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Joanne and Will Potter
- Signature
- back, center, Russian script, pencil : M. Markov-Grinberg
- Contributor
-
Artist:
Mark Markov-Grinberg
Subject: Mark Markov-Grinberg
- Biography
-
Mark Borisovich Markov-Grinberg was born on November 27, 1907, in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. He learned photography at secondary school. In 1925, he took his first job as a photographer for the Sovetsky Yug (Soviet South) newspaper and worked as a freelance correspondent for Ogonyok magazine. In 1926, Markov-Grinberg moved to Moscow and worked for various trade union newspapers and the magazine, Krasnoarmeyskaya Smena (Transformation). In 1930, he accepted an offer to work for the Fotokhronika TASS (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union). He traveled around the country photographing the official Soviet Union: major construction projects, collective farms, and happy workers engaged in building Soviet Society, as well as prominent Russian and foreign personalities. His photographs appeared in major Soviet publications, including USSR in Construction, a magazine that documented Stalin’s Five-Year Plans to industrialize the Soviet Union. In 1934, TASS commissioned Markov-Grinberg to create a photo essay detailing a day in the life of Ukrainian miner, Nikita Izotov. He created an iconic portrait of Izotov as a Socialist worker hero. The Izotov photo essay launched Markov-Grinberg's career as a Stalin-era photographer and he became one of the most important photographers of his generation. His work was part of the socialist realist movement in photography which pictured life as it should be in idealized images made to look like objective recordings of things as they were.
During the Soviet-Finnish War (1939-1940), Markov-Grinberg worked for TASS as a war correspondent and documented the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus. In September 1941, he was drafted into the Red Army, and continued to take photographs. He became the army correspondent for the military publication, Slovo Boitsa (Soldier’s World), in July 1943. He created well-known images of the Battle of Kursk and the crematorium at Stutthof concentration camp, when it was liberated on May 9, 1945, by the Soviet Army.
Markov-Grinberg lost his job with TASS in 1948 as a result of the anti-Semitic climate of late Stalinism. After his demobilization in 1953, he worked as a photographer for the Red Army Illustrated Gazette and, later, for the photography publishing office of the Soviet Union Agricultural Exhibition, a theme park about the People’s Economy. From 1957–1973, Markov-Grinberg worked for the Club and Art Hobby magazine. He took part in photography exhibitions in the USSR and abroad. An honorary member of the Russian Union of Art Photographers, Markov-Grinberg died in 2006 at the age of 99.
Physical Details
- Language
- Russian
- Classification
-
Photographs
- Category
-
Artistic photography
- Object Type
-
Photojournalism (lcsh)
- Physical Description
- Black and white gelatin silver photographic print depicting a group of peasant farm workers with a handheld sign. In this outdoor shot, men, women and children are crowded together in the foreground, standing in a line, 2 deep. All face front and look out or to the right. They wear worn, dirty clothing, and all but 2 females wear headscarves and all males, except for a toddler, wear caps. At the far left stands an old man with a close cropped beard and mustache, wearing wire rimmed glasses and an apron over a collared shirt. Across the front, 3 adult women wear pinafores over blouses and a toddler, at the right, wears a collared shirt with 2 buttons. A young man, right of center, holds a pitchfork; all are smiling except for the toddler and the woman, left of center, carrying the sign. The sign is a piece of paper attached to a square shaped board on a pole and she holds it at a left diagonal. The background is a cloudy sky. Inscribed on the reverse are the artist’s signature, the year and the title, letters, and numbers.
- Dimensions
- overall: Height: 15.880 inches (40.335 cm) | Width: 19.880 inches (50.495 cm)
- Materials
- overall : paper, emulsion, gelatin silver print, graphite
- Inscription
- back, center, pencil : 1933 [Symbol] / [Russian script]
back, bottom, right, pencil : DS 3800
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- No restrictions on access
- Conditions on Use
- Restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The photographic print was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by Joanne and Will Potter.
- Record last modified:
- 2025-01-02 11:32:49
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn523370
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Also in Mark Markov-Grinberg collection
The collection consists of photographic prints of life in the Soviet Union created by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and war correspondent during World War II.
Date: 1933-1939
Markov-Grinberg photograph of a crane lowering a Soviet Star onto the Spasskaya Tower
Object
Photographic print of a star being hoisted onto a tower in Red Square, Moscow, created in 1935 by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and World War II correspondent. Markov-Grinberg was a major Social Realist photographer during the Stalinist era of the 1930s-1940s. He worked for major newspapers and journals, including TASS. He was a war correspondent during the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939-1940 and, in 1941, was drafted to fight in World War II. While a soldier, he continued his work as a photographer and army correspondent. After the war, he returned to his job at TASS.
Markov-Grinberg photograph of 8 white horses pulling wagons in a barren landscape
Object
Photographic print of horses pulling carts, created in 1936 by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and World War II correspondent. Markov-Grinberg was a major Social Realist photographer during the Stalinist era of the 1930s-1940s. He worked for major newspapers and journals, including TASS. He was a war correspondent during the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939-1940 and, in 1941, was drafted to fight in World War II. While a soldier, he continued his work as a photographer and army correspondent. After the war, he returned to his job at TASS.
Markov-Grinberg photograph of women athletes holding flags in Red Square
Object
Photographic print of women carrying flags in a procession in Moscow, created in 1935 by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and World War II correspondent. Markov-Grinberg was a major Social Realist photographer during the Stalinist era of the 1930s-1940s. He worked for major newspapers and journals, including TASS. He was a war correspondent during the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939-1940 and, in 1941, was drafted to fight in World War II. While a soldier, he continued his work as a photographer and army correspondent. After the war, he returned to his job at TASS.
Markov-Grinberg photograph of an old sailor with whiskers in front of a boat of fishermen
Object
Photographic print of an elderly sailor and a boat load of fishermen, created in 1939 by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and World War II correspondent. Markov-Grinberg was a major Social Realist photographer during the Stalinist era of the 1930s-1940s. He worked for major newspapers and journals, including TASS. He was a war correspondent during the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939-1940 and, in 1941, was drafted to fight in World War II. While a soldier, he continued his work as a photographer and army correspondent. After the war, he returned to his job at TASS.