Lev Borodulin. Sport. To the 95th anniversary

AS PART OF THE 12TH INTERNATIONAL MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN MOSCOW PHOTOBIENNALE 2018

Lev Borodulin, legendary sports photographer and classic of Soviet photography, celebrates his 95th birthday this year. MAMM has prepared an exhibition of his work from the museum’s own collection for this anniversary.

Lev Borodulin was born in Moscow in 1923. He began studying at the art department of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute in 1940, but was called to the front in 1941.

After the war Borodulin completed his course at the Polygraphic Institute and took a serious interest in photography. These were difficult years, in the country’s history and in the history of Russian art. Criticism of ‘formalism’ had begun in the 1930s and now reached its height, finally erasing the remnants of modernism in Russian photography. Most of the Soviet photographers who then held leading positions in their profession were left unemployed. Lev Borodulin turned to sports photography, which was less affected by ideological restrictions, and tried to revive ‘formalist’ principles in this genre of photographic art. His work was greatly influenced by classic masters of Soviet modernism such as Alexander Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich and Arkady Sheikhet.

Borodulin’s choice of sport as the main theme of his work also ensured a certain freedom to travel abroad. For fifteen years he worked at Ogonyok, where Dmitri Baltermants headed the photo department from 1965. During those years Borodulin journeyed all over the world, documenting Olympic competitions and world championships in various sports.

In 1964 the English-language Photography Year Book dubbed Borodulin ‘Star of World Photography’ and in 1967 the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun declared him photographer of the year, while in 1972 Borodulin was awarded a special gold medal at the Munich Olympics for achievements in the field of sports photography.

Borodulin left the USSR at the peak of his fame that same year, and has been working in Israel for more than 45 years, to great acclaim.