VALERY FAMINSKY MAY 1945 BERLIN PD
VALERY FAMINSKY MAY 1945 BERLIN PD.
An exhibition of rare war photographs by Soviet photojournalist Valery Faminsky, from a previously unknown archive discovered by Arthur Bondar on an online flea market.
During his service as a war correspondent, Faminsky served on seven fronts of the Great Patriotic War. He participated in the liberation of Sevastopol and the entry of Soviet troops into Berlin. Faminsky's photographic vision is characterized by his keen interest in the fates of ordinary people caught up in the crucible of war. Above all, his camera is biased—the consequences of the largest military conflict in human history cannot leave a thoughtful and observant person indifferent. Queues for bread, wounded soldiers being loaded onto vehicles, and wrecked military equipment—Faminsky is interested not in documentation but in the symbolic interplay of reality and fiction, the moment when a particular incident shapes history. This is what makes Faminsky’s photographs compelling. Having escaped the filter of state propaganda, they preserve details of major events as an eyewitness account.
Valery Faminsky was born in 1914 in Moscow. He took up photography in 1928 and was working as a photo lab technician by 1932, later becoming the head of the photo lab. In 1979, the Union of Artists of the USSR organized a solo exhibition of Faminsky’s work titled "50 Years with a Camera on the Roads of War and Peace."
After the photographer’s death, his heirs decided to sell his carefully preserved photo archive, which had been kept by the family for decades. By a stroke of luck, the renowned photographer Arthur Bondar purchased these rare frontline photographs, making this unique exhibition possible. "From the moment I laid eyes on the negatives, I knew I was holding a vast body of historical material largely unknown to the general public, even citizens of the former USSR. The photographs reveal Faminsky's genuine interest in the fates of people on both sides of the front lines during World War II.”
2017, Gallery of Classical Photography (Moscow, Russia)
