page_title: Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
section_title: Marriage and career in photography
hierarchical_section_title: Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky / Biography / Marriage and career in photography
caption_attribution_description: English: "Lev Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana", 1908, the first color photo portrait in Russia. Français&#160;: «&#160;Léon Tolstoï à Iasnaïa Poliana&#160;», 1908, le premier portrait photographique en couleur en Russie. Polski: „Lew Tołstoj w Jasnej Polanie”, 1908, pierwsza barwna fotografia portretowa w Rosji. Русский: Л.Н. Толстой в рост, голова фас, корпус – 3/4 влево, в голубой блузе, серых брюках и чёрных сапогах. Сидит в парке в плетёном кресле нога на ногу, правая рука лежит на подлокотнике кресла, левая – на коленях. На втором плане деревья парка. Suomi: "Leo Tolstoi Jasnaja Poljanassa", 1908. Ensimmäinen Venäjällä otettu värimuotokuva. Svenska: "Lev Tolstoj i Jasnaja Poljana", fotograferat 1908 av Sergej Prokudin-Gorskij, och sålunda det första färgfotografiska porträttet i Ryssland. Português: "Liev Tolstói em Yasnaya Polyana", 1908, o primeiro retrato colorido na Rússia.
context_page_description: Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky was a Russian chemist and photographer. He is best known for his pioneering work in colour photography and his effort to document early 20th-century Russia.
  Using a railroad-car darkroom provided by Tsar Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled the Russian Empire from around 1909 to 1915 using his three-image colour photography to record its many aspects. While some of his negatives were lost, the majority ended up in the U.S. Library of Congress after his death. Starting in 2000, the negatives were digitised and the colour triples for each subject digitally combined to produce hundreds of high-quality colour images of century-ago Russia.
context_section_description: In 1890, Prokudin-Gorsky married Anna Aleksandrovna Lavrova, and later the couple had two sons, Mikhail and Dmitri, and a daughter, Ekaterina. Anna was the daughter of the Russian industrialist Aleksandr Stepanovich Lavrov, an active member in the Imperial Russian Technical Society (IRTS). Prokudin-Gorsky subsequently became the director of the executive board of Lavrov's metal works near Saint Petersburg and remained so until the October Revolution. He also joined Russia's oldest photographic society, the photography section of the IRTS, presenting papers and lecturing on the science of photography. In 1901, he established a photography studio and laboratory in Saint Petersburg. In 1902, he traveled to Berlin and spent six weeks studying colour sensitization and three-colour photography with photochemistry professor Adolf Miethe, the most advanced practitioner in Germany at that time. Throughout the years, Prokudin-Gorsky's photographic work, publications and slide shows to other scientists and photographers in Russia, Germany and France earned him praise, and in 1906 he was elected the president of the IRTS photography section and editor of Russia's main photography journal, the Fotograf-Liubitel. Gorsky was a member of the Royal Photographic Society between 1920 and 1932.
  Perhaps Prokudin-Gorsky's best-known work during his lifetime was his color portrait of Leo Tolstoy, which was reproduced in various publications, on postcards, and as larger prints for framing. The fame from this photo and his earlier photos of Russia's nature and monuments earned him invitations to show his work to the Russian Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich and Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in 1908, and to Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1909. The Tsar enjoyed the demonstration, and, with his blessing, Prokudin-Gorsky got the permission and funding to document Russia in color. In the course of ten years, he was to make a collection of 10,000 photos. Prokudin-Gorsky considered the project his life's work and continued his photographic journeys through Russia until after the October Revolution. He was appointed to a new professorship under the new regime, but he left the country in August 1918. He still pursued scientific work in color photography, published papers in English photography journals and, together with his colleague S. O. Maksimovich, obtained patents in Germany, England, France and Italy.
caption: Lithograph print of Leo Tolstoy in front of Prokudin-Gorsky's camera in Yasnaya Polyana, 1908
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