Lot 55: ALPERT, MAX (1899-1980) The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station

ALPERT, MAX (1899-1980)
The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station.
Gelatin silver print, 39.5 by 29 cm.
Photographed in 1937, printed c. 1960s.

Provenance: Private collection, Europe.

A distinguished Russian photographer, Max Alpert (1899–1980) was one of the pioneers of photo reportage. He studied photography in Odessa and worked before World War II for Rabochaya gazeta in Moscow. During the 1930s, he specialised in creating photographic series from construction sites for the periodical SSSR na stroike (Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, Turkestan-Siberia Railway, Great Fergana Canal). Alpert also worked for the daily Pravda, shooting predominantly photographic portraits of politicians, military leaders, writers and other luminaries. He is mostly known however for his frontline work during World War II as a photo correspondent for the state news agency TASS and the Soviet Information Bureau, when he produced a number of iconic war photographs, such as Combat (1942). He documented military events in Prague and Berlin and the Victory Parade in Moscow in June 1945.