Russian Museum
Augmented Reality

Annotation

The main heroes of Fyodor Bogorodsky’s works were sailors, whom the artist referred to as his “brothers”. Himself a former commissar with the Volga and Don fleets during the Civil War, Bogorodsky could not help feeling an affinity with their coarse yet romantic lifestyle. Calling himself “a sailor within the ranks of artists”, he even signed his articles on art for the Nizhny Novgorod Commune “Sailor Bogorodsky”. In 1931, the artist spent six months on naval vessels in the Black Sea, visiting Sebastopole, Odessa and Batumi: “This voyage was decisive in setting me on the path of a ‘naval painter.’ I will never lose touch with my desire to dedicate all my main works to my beloved Red Navy and sailors.” These cordial notes are reflected in Getting their Photograph Taken. Chaffing good-naturedly at the gallant sailor and his faithful female companion naïvely posing against a fake landscape, the artist also invests their images with a healthy dose of sympathy and respect. The sailor possibly brought his clearly expectant wife to be photographed on the eve of a long voyage, in order to have a keepsake to warm his heart in the long days apart. While Bogorodsky’s images are collective and devoid of concrete prototypes, a hint of self-portraiture can nevertheless be discerned in the guise of the sailor.

Author's Biography