GEORGIA: First colour photos of Georgia on display in exhibition of early photography

Georgia has opened an exhibit of early 20th century photos made by a pioneering tsarist-era Russian photographer. The images, which are on loan from the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., are the first-ever colour photos of Georgia, and date from 1909-1915. The opening of the exhibit, 'A Colourful Past: 100 photos of Sergei Prokudin-Gorski', was presided over by John Tafft, the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, and Zaza Kikvadze, CEO of the Georgian Glass and Mineral Water Company. "These pictures were purchased by the Library of Congress from the family of Mr. Prokudin-Gorski and when we found out that they were, they made depiction's of Georgia 100 years ago, pictures that show the place, culture, the people, the history, we thought it was really an opportunity to show this to the country,'' Tafft said. Prokudin-Gorski travelled to the Caucasus as part of his ambitious plan to document the various indigenous cultures and peoples of the Russian Empire with colour photos using a camera of his own design. Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorski completed surveys of eleven regions, travelling in a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation. Prokudin- Gorski created his colour photos by registering three separate black and white frames taken through blue, green and red filters on a single glass plate. Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, and like every region of the country that Prokudin-Gorski visited he documented in colour the daily life of the people, their local clothing, natural scenery, agriculture and industry. "So this is an American way of saying we believe in the history and culture of this great country and we want to be a part of that and it's a great opportunity," Tafft said. Prokudin-Gorski's collection of glass plates, on which the exhibition is based, is part of a larger collection of nearly 2000 Prokudin-Gorski images purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948. The exhibition also features four plates that are housed at the Dadiani Palace-Museum in Zugdidi. "It's so amazing to have these photos in Georgia, in Tbilisi. These photos gives us an opportunity to have those colours that Georgia had in the beginning of the twentieth century," said Nitsa Cholokashvili, spokesperson for Georgian Glass and Mineral Water Company, co-sponsor of the exhibit. Prokudin-Gorski left Russia in 1918 and travelled to Norway and England before settling in France. By then, the Tsar and his family had been murdered and the empire that Prokudin-Gorski so carefully documented had been destroyed.

ITN Source | January 26, 2007

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