Black may be forever stylish but heck, colour is powerful. It’s that premise that forms the basis for a new exhibition at The Photographer’s Gallery, delving into the links between Russia’s social history and the growth of colour photography over the course of a century.

Primrose: Early Colour Photography in Russia takes its name from the Russian translation of the name for the flower (literally, ‘first colour’) and traces everything from the use of tricolour schemes in political propaganda during WW1 to its use in underground movements under Soviet rule. 

So take a deep breath and prepare to get right into Russian history – this is a lesson worth attending. Curator at The Photographer’s Gallery Karen McQuaid here tells us why…

Tempe Nakiska: What was the ultimate premise of the exhibition?
Karen McQuaid: The exhibition looks specifically to the development of colour processes in Russian photography. Of course it thus also traces many developments of the photographic medium itself, but colour, how it appeared –manually and chemically, how it was captured, fixed, presented and shared in the Russian domestic, media and state spheres, over more than a century, are the transformations the show concentrates on.

TN: There must have been a huge depth of work to curate. In the process, what were the main social developments you found colour photography to have impacted on in Russia?
KM: To give one example, Lenin and his Soviet government actively supported photography in the early post-revolutionary years, seeing it as an important propaganda weapon for a country where 70 per cent of the population were unable to read or write. At first there was emphasis on photo reportage, but very soon it became apparent that what the reportage was documenting (often hunger and devastation) did not align with the slogans and declarations the state needed to communicate. So photomontage was encouraged, as it could use the documentary veracity of original photography, but re-work it into bold compositions that chimed better with the promotion of the Soviet myth. The content and the surroundings that were ‘off message’ so to speak, could literally be cut out. Photomontage became an popular ideological ‘visual weapon’ in the hands of the Bolsheviks and used colour very knowingly.

TN: How did its influence differ to black and white photography in terms of communication and expression of trends or ideas?
KM: It is hard to imagine ‘Suzi Et Cetera’, Boris Mikhailov’s series from the late 1970s and early 1980s, in anything other than full colour, and indeed the particular hue of the scratchy slide film that was the affordable option for colour photography, as it could even be developed easily in domestic setting and could be projected rather than printed. More than half a century of Soviet power had radically altered Russia and the promise of the Soviet dream had faded. Mikhailov’s  images picture the human experience of this ideological decline, in full visceral colour.

From ‘Suzi et cetera’ 2007 © Boris Mikhailov

TN: What are the key images shown here?
KN: A favourite of mine is the portrait of Lev Tolstoy taken on the 23rd May, 1908 and very likely to be the sole colour photograph in existence of the famous writer, philosopher and political thinker. The photograph was taken as part of chemist and colour photography pioneer Prokudin-Gorsky’s ambitious, Tsar-appointed documentary project spanning the Empire, which was an epic undertaking. Prokudin-Gorsky would have been the first to take colour images and make polygraphic reproductions of his shots so they could be distributed.

His photographs were printed in the form of photo cards and inserts for illustrated magazines, so these would have been the first widely shared colour photographs that Russians themselves encountered in the late 1910s.  The Tolstoy portrait was hugely popular so I love the idea it would have been in thousands of pockets, school rooms and homes.

Primrose: Early Colour Russian Photography was curated by Olga Sviblova, Director, Moscow House of Photography Museum / Multimedia Art Museum. The exhibition runs until 19th October at The Photographer’s Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies St, London W1F 7LW