Abram Shterenberg

Born in Zhitomer, Shterenberg learned the photographic métier at an early age and began working on commissions. After the First World War, he worked in Tshkent, then decided to settle in Moscow, staying with his brother David Shterenberg, a famous painter who worked in the IZO section of the Narkompross under Anatoly Lunacharsky. Shterenberg was a master of portrait photography, a technical virtuoso and gifted artist. In 1927, he submitted about fifty examples of his work to the exhibition "Ten Years of Soviet Photography", mostly portraits. Unlike Nappelbaum or Zhukov, Shterenberg never retouched the backgrounds of his photographs to give them a more "artistic" painterly look. He managed to convey the essence of clear and blurred contours, the different positions of the head, the direction of the look and the sculptural possibilities of light and shadow. Shterenberg worked for the agencies Russfoto, Unifoto, and Soyuzfoto, and was a member of the "Oktiabr" ["October"] group. After the war, he continued working for the press agency Novosty. Source: Grigory Shudakov. "Pioneers of Soviet Photography". New York: Thames and Hudson, 1983, p.252