Bookvica

[THE ART OF INDUSTRIAL PHOTO] 1 gosudarstvenniy podshipnikoviy zavod imeni L.M. Kaganovicha [i.e. The first state ball-bearing factory, named after Lazar Kaganovich]

Item #761

Moscow, 1932. 42 photos. 24x31 cm. Very good.
The album was prepared for the Mikhail Kaganovich (1888-1941), brother of Lazar Kaganovich, party secretary. Mikhail Kaganovich at that time was the deputy to the minister of industry. His brother will become the head of that ministry in 1937. Mikhail has committed suicide a week after the beginning of German-Soviet conflict in WWII.
The factory became the first one in USSR to specialise on ball-bearings. The album shows in detail the construction and building of the factory, including 16 panoramas, the images of the everyday life of the workers and the images of the work process including close-ups of the ball bearings, some of which bear the undoubted artistic quality.
The photos resemble the photos, made by Moscow photographer Alexander Khlebnikov, a friend of Rodchenko and Stepanova, that he has made for the trade-catalogue of Ball bearings, designed by Solomon Telingator in 1930s. Khelbnikov most probably took the studio photographs using the ball-bearings from this factory, but it’s not known whether this particular album has any of his photographs.

Sold