MOSES NAPPELBAUM (1869-1958) Portrait of Sergei Yesenin

inscription in Cyrillic and signature of the photographer’s grandson: 'Sergei Yesenin, photograph by M.S. Nappelbaum (on the reverse) Gelatin silver print 17 х 12 cm printed mid 20th century Provenance: Borodulin Collection Moses Nappelbaum was a Soviet photographer who created his own creative manner of performing studio portraits. In January 1918, he made a superb portrait of Lenin - one of the best in photographic Leniniana. In the same years he made a number of portraits of Lenin’s comrades-in-arms. Among them are especially successful F. Dzerzhinsky, Vatslav Vorovsky, Lunacharsky, as well as Stalin. In the 1920s and 1930s, he photographed the country’s leading figures: artists, writers, painters and scientists. Nappelbaum adopted a special method of working with light, which allowed him to create an austere and at the same time bright and authentic image of the portrayed person