The Béton Center of Visual Culture presents the exhibition «Pioneers of the World Photography». The exhibition includes landmark works by leading masters whose creative output became a turning point in the history of photography art: Vincent Louis Chevalier, William Henry Fox Talbot, Gustave Le Gray, Roger Fenton, Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, Eugène Atget, Man Ray, Henri Cartier‑Bresson, Josef Sudek, August Sander, Aaron Siskind, Bernd and Hilla Becher. By rejecting conventional frameworks and canons in favor of radical, innovative approaches and concepts, these authors were able not only to rethink photography but also to predetermine its development trajectory for decades to come.

The exhibition covers various historical periods — from the 1840s to the 1980s — as well as the main photographic technologies: daguerreotype, wet collodion process, and gelatin‑silver print. The original prints reveal the development of key photography genres: portrait, landscape photography, still life, architectural, documentary (reportage), and genre (everyday life) photography. Thanks to these works, it is possible to trace the evolution of the role of photography: from an exact mechanical imitation of reality — through a subjective creative act — to a complex and multifunctional visual language that simultaneously reflects the world and actively constructs it.

The exhibition features the first ever photographic still life by William Henry Fox Talbot. This photograph was included in «The Pencil of Nature» album, which Talbot published between 1844 and 1846. In «Still Life with Fruits» (1844), Talbot strove not only for scientific accuracy, but also for artistic effect.

Friedrich Albert Schwarz’s still lifes, such as «Carcass» (1896), deserve special mention. These works were created by the photographer nearly 25 years before the famous paintings by Chaim Soutine appeared, which later had a colossal influence on expressionism and abstraction.

Gustave Le Gray was one of the first to use the montage technique in photography, thereby initiating a discussion about the boundaries of a photograph’s documentary nature. Possessing a keen artistic sense, the master worked masterfully with light. To achieve the perfect exposure, he used a technique that was revolutionary for the 19th century: he printed marine landscapes from two negatives simultaneously. One was responsible for the detail of the water, the other for the subtle nuances of the sky. This made it possible to achieve a dynamic range that was incredible for that time, and Le Gray’s works caused a real sensation among his contemporaries. Le Gray’s first photo reports are also of particular value.

The exhibition features a wide range of photographic portraits: from «business cards» (carte de visite), patented by the French photographer André Disderi in 1854, to Man Ray’s artistic self‑portrait. The portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron deserve special attention. Her work was deeply influenced by literature, religion, and the aesthetics of the Pre‑Raphaelites, who sought to restore sincerity and simplicity to art in the spirit of the Quattrocento era. Like them, Cameron rejected academic «cabinet» painting: she preferred to work from life, choosing close people as her subjects and imbuing her photographs with spiritual meaning. Her lens captured the greatest minds and talents of the time: from John Frederick William Herschel and Charles Darwin to Alfred Tennyson and Ellen Terry. Cameron’s work challenged the photographic conventions of the Victorian era. Her contemporaries criticized Cameron for her lack of professionalism, but at the same time they admired the beauty of her compositions and her determination to make photography an art form.

The exhibition includes works by August Sander from his monumental project «People of the 20th Century» (Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts). The author himself conceived it as a visual portrait of German society — an attempt to create an encyclopedia of the era, to show the entire diversity of social groups of his time: from peasants and artisans to artists, doctors, and bankers. Sander’s photographs are not only a valuable historical document but also an attempt to take an objective look at human beings.

The urban environment of the 20th century comes to life in the works of Eugène Atget and Henri Cartier‑Bresson. Eugène Atget’s work is often interpreted as an attempt to create a large‑scale catalogue of Parisian monuments. Instead of grand historical sites, he captured unremarkable details of the city — windows, staircases, doorways — from identical frontal angles. He often returned to the same shooting points, creating variations of the same shot. Atget himself regarded his works as utilitarian materials. Calling himself an «auteur éditeur» (author‑publisher), he positioned his studio as a supplier of «documents pour artistes» (documents pour artistes). The artistic status of his photographs was recognized much later. Thanks to his interest in fragmentary depictions and the peripheral life of the city, Atget’s works are now often associated with the aesthetics of the «New Vision». The preservation of the photographer’s colossal archive after his death in 1927 became possible thanks to the efforts of Berenice Abbott and Man Ray, who saw the aesthetic of surrealism in Atget’s photographs.

As early as the 1930s, Cartier‑Bresson began to explore urban life, developing a unique method of «invisible» presence. He fundamentally shot only with a lens having a «normal» focal length, which forced him to get close to the subject being photographed and to come into direct contact with it. Cartier‑Bresson sought what he himself called the «decisive moment» — the culmination of emotional tension in the frame. But intuition alone was not enough for this: he skillfully crafted the composition and transformed random street scenes into visual metaphors. His lens captured the life of Paris, New York, Madrid, and many other cities around the world.

The creative method of Bernhard (Bernd) and Hilla Becher changed the way people viewed photography and became one of the most significant in the entire history of the medium. Inspired by the aesthetics of the «New Objectivity» and the works of August Sander, the couple devoted their lives to documenting disappearing industrial objects. Their photographs are distinguished by strict formal standardization: frontal perspective, maximum depth of field, and shooting on cloudy days, which eliminates harsh shadows. The Bechers sought neutrality and documentary style and avoided any manifestations of subjectivity. At the same time, they perceived their photographs as portraits of architectural forms and sought to find for each building the angle that would most accurately convey its character. The key element of their method was typologies — series of several dozen photographs, compared to identify structural similarities and differences. They created a visual sequence in which every detail held equal significance, holding the viewer’s attention both during a cursory glance and during a detailed analysis.