Artist Research: Dmitri Baltermants (for era - the way people dressed/landscape etc)

 Today I’m going to look at Dmitri Baltermants a soviet photojournalist (1912 - 1990). Baltermants was in half polish As Nailyaalexandergallery.com, (2025) states   '...born in Warsaw, Poland, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. His father, Grigory Stolovitski, was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, while his mother came from a family of Polish intellectuals.' He was working durning WW2 and his photos showing a lot about this time especially how people dressed and how landscape look like. I want to paint people and landscapes around 1945 so Dmitri fitted perfectly to my artist research. The phirst photo I want to discuss is titled 'Berlin is Taken' 

Baltermants ,.D Berlin is Taken (1945)

In this photo we see group of soldiers, cannon and building in fire at the background. Photo was taken in 1945 propably the building was after bomb attack. This photo show me people clothes and place and this will help me to understand the atmosphere. As Icp.org, (2025) states 'His images capturing the reality and immediacy of historical events provide insight into the quality and character of Soviet photojournalism during this century.' This is exactly what im looking for. Generally It could my help and improve my imagination about this times. Im going to use this as inspiration to paint my medium outcome durning 1945. The second photo im going to discuss is Inspecting the German Losses on the Outskirts of Odessa,taken in 1944.

Baltermants ,.D Inspecting the German Losses on the Outskirts of Odessa,taken (1944)

Photo was taken by Dmitri Baltermants. The photo showing war, its maybe after war. People walking around, two propably soldiers driving on horses, everywhere destroyed cars. Time is definetly hard. Again as before I want to use this photo as reference, inspiration to paint a cars, horses, people, buildings, landscape. 

Another image im going to discuss is (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024)

Baltermants ,.D The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024

During my research im found very interesting fact about this image, namely that the autor prepare the image from two photos and he create a conected one which looks like panoramic photo. As The Metropolitan Museum of Art, (2024) state  'Careful examination of the photograph, however, reveals that Baltermants seamlessly combined two separate exposures of the same group of soldiers, effectively doubling the number of prisoners...' i did't know in that time they are using primary photoshop methods like connecting photos. Additionaly people were more unconciousnes and they cannot realize that fake preparation. I want to do my project in similar compopsition. 

*The next step was to learn the composition from Dmitri photographs. So I made quick sketch of  “Berlin is taken” from 1945. For this task I used “B” and “B6” pencils. The results I leaving below.

Reference

Nailyaalexandergallery.com. (2025). Dmitri Baltermants - 1920s-1930s - Nailya Alexander Gallery. [online] Available at: https://www.nailyaalexandergallery.com/1920s-1930s/dmitri-baltermants [Accessed 4 May 2025].

Icp.org. (2025). Dmitri Baltermants | International Center of Photography. [online] Available at: https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/dmitri-baltermants [Accessed 3 May 2025].

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2024). Dmitri Baltermants | POWs, Stalingrad | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [online] Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/294754 [Accessed 4 May 2025].