This book is a presentation of some of the figurative pictorials of Alexander Grinberg (1885-1979 ). Most of his body of photographic work were destroyed by Soviet authorities for being "erotic" and "decadent" in nature and the product of "bourgeois idleness." In the late 1930's Grinberg spent time in a Siberian Gulag.
After being rehabilitated in 1941, Grinberg worked as a photographer and photojournalist, sometimes very near the front on several occasions. Some of his photographs would be published in Soviet newspapers.
After World War Two, Grinberg worked for a modeling agency, photographing for fashion designers. In the late 1950's, and throughout the 1960's he made portraits of various famous Soviet actors and scientists.
Grinberg died in 1979 largely unknown as an art photographer within the Soviet Union. It was only a decade after his death when his Figurative photographs were rediscovered outside the Soviet Union and put on show at some retrospectives in Europe that Grinberg started to become known as a Fine Art Figurative Photographer. Each few years a new set of Grinberg negatives or prints surface for auction. They have become collectibles.
Alexander Grinberg's photography spans an interesting era of Figurative art. It spans the end of the Victorian era and the beginnings of Art Deco, which is something that makes his work charming and unique. The Grinberg Figuratives in this book spans four decades, 1920 to 1960, and several genres.
