The Russian Museum of Photography is a Nizhny Novgorod museum founded on September 21, 1992, on a public initiative; it became a state institution in 2000.[1] It is located in the city center in the building of the merchant Paltseva estate at Piskunova Street (formerly Osypnaya Street), a nineteenth-century structure protected as a monument of history and culture.[3] It is Russia's first photography museum dedicated to the history of photography and to the life and work of the world-renowned photographers Karelin and Dmitriev.[1]
The Building and Its History
In the nineteenth century, two outstanding Nizhny Novgorod photographers worked in succession in this historic building on Osypnaya Street. Andrey Osipovich Karelin (1837–1906) — the founder of artistic and pictorialist photography and the originator of the domestic school of genre photography — worked here until 1881, after which he moved to another studio.[2] In 1878, Karelin was admitted as a member of the French National Academy of Arts.[2] Following his design, a photographic studio pavilion was built on the second floor: one of the walls facing the street was made entirely of glass, providing soft, diffused light.[1] It was here that Karelin shot the genre portraits that appeared in the Album of Artistic Photographs from Life; printed from glass negatives, they are still preserved in the museum's collection.[3]
From 1886, Maxim Petrovich Dmitriev (1858–1948) — the founder of documentary photography — lived and worked in the Paltseva house.[1] The Dmitriev family occupied the third floor; the second floor housed the photographic studio pavilion, while the first floor contained a phototyping workshop where Dmitriev published postcards and photo albums.[3] In 1877, at the age of eighteen, he moved to Nizhny Novgorod from Moscow to apprentice under Karelin, and remained by the Volga for the rest of his life, producing large-scale photographic essays on the daily life of Volga dwellers and a photographic chronicle of Nizhny Novgorod and its surroundings.[2] Dmitriev's works received awards at exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam, Chicago, and New York.[2]
The walls of the entrance and cast-iron staircase were hung with photographs, and across from the building stood a wooden display case with mirror glass, near which — according to the recollections of artist F. Bogorodsky — spectators always crowded: here one could see photographs of Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Korolenko, Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky, and other cultural figures.[1] After the The Great Patriotic War, when the building housed a tailoring workshop, the photographic studio pavilion was rebuilt and has not survived in its original form.[3]
Collection and Exhibition
The museum's holdings number 213,359 items: daguerreotypes, negatives, stereo negatives, positives, postcards, cameras, enlargers, photo albums, medals, letters, and personal belongings of notable photographers — dating from the 1870s of the nineteenth century.[1] The "History of Photographic Equipment" hall features a camera obscura in the form of a large tent and a photoplastikon with three-dimensional photographs of old Nizhny Novgorod, as well as wooden box cameras from the 1870s and apparatus by AGFA, ZEISS-ICON, GOERZ, and VOIGTLÄNDER.[1] The collection is richly represented by the Soviet era, including works by Nizhny Novgorod photographer Nison Kapelyush.[2]
The second floor houses the permanent historical exhibition halls and a temporary exhibition hall. The lecture hall hosts masterclasses, meetings, discussions, and lectures.[1] The museum operates a hand-printing darkroom laboratory where visitors can learn the technique of making black-and-white photographic prints.[3] Twice a year the Nizhny Novgorod Photography School enrolls students, offering instruction in the main photographic genres, composition, and the technical fundamentals of photography.[3]
Exhibition and Festival Activities
The museum regularly hosts thematic exhibitions related to Nizhny Novgorod history and culture, and organizes international and Russian photography competitions and festivals.[3] Each year the Volga Biennale is held at the museum, bringing together art photographers and photojournalists from across Russia.[2] In June 2007, the museum hosted the Photogorky", presenting the best photographs from the namesake Nizhny Novgorod photography community over the first five months of that year (the exhibition ran from June 6 to 19). In 2021, for the 800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod, the museum, together with the Russky Mir Foundation, presented the exhibition "Inspired by the Books of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky: In the Forests and On the Hills" as part of the VI Russian Photography Festival "Svetopis-2021"; the photographs were by Sergey Potapov (Moscow) and Sergey Lotyrev (Nizhny Novgorod).
The museum's long-serving director is Vera Tarasova; the first director was Vladimir Voytenko.[2]
Sources
- fotomuseum.nnov.ru — Russian Museum of Photography — About the Museum (archive)
- nn.kassir.ru — Russian Museum of Photography — prices, buy tickets in Nizhny Novgorod: schedule for 2026, event listings on KASSIR.RU (archive)
- Kommersant (Volga Region) — A Historic Moment (archive)