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Artist/Maker
Dmitri Baltermants
(Russian, 1912 - 1990)
Date1941-45 (printed 2003)
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 12 1/8 × 18 1/4 in. (30.8 × 46.4 cm)
Sheet: 15 15/16 × 19 7/8 in. (40.5 × 50.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Thomas J. Wilson and Jill M. Garling, P2016
Object number2013.5.10
Not on view
DescriptionA Call to Arms was made during World War II on the eastern front, where the Russian military fought to repel invading Nazi forces in one of the deadliest military confrontations in history. The artist, Dmitri Baltermants, later stated that, like the soldiers themselves, “we Soviet photographers also went off to war untrained” and learned their craft on the battlefield. Many images depicting the horrors of the Nazi offensive were not published at the time, censored by the Russian government to prevent loss of morale. Only in the 1960s, under Premier Nikita Khrushchev, were more photographs by Baltermants and his colleagues made public, and ordinary Russians began to grasp the full extent of their military’s suffering and casualties during the war. Today, Baltermants is probably the best-known photographer in Russia’s history. Nicknamed the “Eye of the Nation,” he captured moments from those wartime battles to the modernization of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Prior to becoming a photojournalist in 1939, he had been a lecturer on mathematics at a military academy. Baltermants credited the painter Aleksandr
Rodchenko and the photographer Arkady Shaikhat as influences: from the former, he learned the importance of framing, and from the latter, how to publicize one’s art. Over a number of years, Thomas J. Wilson and Jill M. Garling, P2016, have donated many documentary photographs of the mid- to late twentieth century to the Wellin Museum, supporting its growing collection of photography and politically engaged art. (SOURCE: Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS, 2017)
Collections
Additional Details
Exhibition History
2017
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 80, illus.).
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 80, illus.).
Provenance
2013: Hamilton College (Ruth & Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by gift of Thomas J. Wilson.
Markings
Verso, lower right (stamp, black ink): "[cyrillic] Dmitri Baltermants / c. DMITRI BALTERMANTS COLLECTION / Authorized Estate Print 2003 / Print No. 19 [in pen]/28"
Published References
Katherine D. Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS: THE RUTH AND ELMER WELLIN MUSEUM OF ART AT FIVE YEARS, HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION (Clinton, NY: Wellin Museum of Art, 2017), p. 186.
Thomas Nast
Date: published June 27, 1874
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.245
William E. Williams
Date: 2003–4 (printed 2007)
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 2008.5.3
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Date: 1976 (printed c. 1977, published 1979)
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 1980.2.1
Sénèque Obin
Date: early 1960s
Medium: Oil on masonite
Object number: 1981.13
Henry Moore
Date: 1969 (published 1970)
Medium: Etching
Object number: 1988.21
Lt. John Herbert Caddy
Date: 1845
Medium: Watercolor on paper
Object number: 1971.3
John William Lewin
Date: 1770-1819
Medium: Graphite, ink, and watercolor on paper
Object number: 1971.13
Unknown artist
Date: c. 610-650 CE
Medium: Terracotta
Object number: 2015.6.5