Andrey Osipovich Karelin (4 [16] July 1837 — 31 July [12 August] 1906) was a Nizhny Novgorod photographer and painter, and the founder of Russian artistic photography.[1][2] His "room groups" — multi-figure interior scenes captured with sharpness across all planes — brought him European renown and a gold medal at the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1876.[1][3] For forty years he ran a studio called "Photography and Painting" in Nizhny Novgorod, assembled a collection of Russian antiquities famous throughout Russia, and trained Maxim Dmitriev.[2]
From an icon-painting workshop to the Academy of Arts
Karelin was born on 4 (16) July 1837 in Tambov Governorate, into a peasant family; he was the illegitimate son of a state peasant, Tatyana Ivanovna Karelina.[2] At the age of ten the boy was sent to Tambov to work in an icon-painting workshop, and it was there that he began his working life.[1][2]
His talents were noticed: in 1856 one of the landowners sent him to study in St. Petersburg, where he passed the entrance examinations to the Academy of Arts. Karelin completed the Academy in 1864 with the title of free non-class artist, and had begun to pursue photography while still a student — he took on retouching work at photographic studios and taught himself the craft.[1][2][3]
After the Academy, he worked at the studio of Mikhail Nastyukov in Kostroma — the very same master through whose Moscow workshop the young Dmitriev would later pass.[2][4] Karelin moved to Nizhny Novgorod in the second half of the 1860s — 1866 according to some sources, 1869 according to others — and opened his own business.[2][3] He settled in the city for a long time with his second wife, Olga Grigoryevna, née Lermontova, and their children.
"Photography and Painting"
The studio was called "Photography and Painting of the Artist Karelin," and the name was apt: Karelin worked at the intersection of two crafts. The technology of the day stood in the way of his vision, so he turned to optics himself. He fitted a portrait lens with a supplementary lens element that increased the depth of field, so that both the foreground and the far reaches of the room came out equally sharp in the photograph.[1][3] He was the first to compose complex multi-figure shots without distorting proportions.[3]
His second technique concerned printing: he printed the positive from two glass negatives — a weak one and a stronger one — and the resulting print acquired an extraordinary softness.[3] The studio pavilion was designed with the same calculation in mind: overhead lighting, a fully glazed wall, and additional windows in one of the side walls.[3]
Karelin arranged his subjects in the drawing room, by the window, in armchairs; he photographed some from behind or in three-quarter profile, avoiding the stock poses of the trade.[3] Photography historian Elena Barkhatova calls these works "interior groups" — complex compositions set in refined interiors filled with air and light.[5] He assembled the furnishings himself: the studio would recreate a peasant izba (traditional wooden house) or a Russian svetlitsa (a bright, upper-floor chamber), and the models were dressed in authentic historical costumes from his own collection.[2]
The studio was visited by Vladimir Korolenko, Maxim Gorky, Yakov Polonsky, and Dmitry Mendeleev; his collection of photographs preserved portraits of Chernyshevsky, Turgenev, Vereshchagin, and Shishkin.[1]
Medals of Europe
In 1873 Karelin took part in the VI World Exhibition of Artistic Photography in Vienna, and three years later came an episode still retold in Nizhny Novgorod. For the international exhibition in Edinburgh in 1876, photographers from Europe and America submitted around six thousand photographs, and they were displayed without the authors' names. The jury was divided: two works were simultaneously judged worthy of the gold medal. When the envelopes were opened, both turned out to be from Nizhny Novgorod — "Girls with Albums" and "The Zelenetsky Couple" by Andrey Karelin.[1][2][3]
That same year came medals from the French Photographic Society in Paris and the World Exhibition in Philadelphia, and in 1878 another gold from Paris.[2][3] For his participation in the World Exhibition in Paris he was awarded a gold medal to be worn around the neck on a St. Stanislaus ribbon. In Russia, Karelin was granted the title of Photographer to the Imperial Academy of Arts.[1][2][3]
He was admitted as a member of the French National Academy of Arts, awarded a diploma of the French Photographic Society and an honorary diploma of the French National Academy of Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce. In 1885, at the Nizhny Novgorod Handicraft and Industrial Exhibition, he received a medal "for progressive improvement of his craft."[1]
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1864 | Graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts with the title of free non-class artist[1][2] |
| 1870 | Album Nizhny Novgorod, whose photographs were hand-colored in watercolor by Ivan Shishkin[2][3] |
| 1873 | VI World Exhibition of Art Photography in Vienna |
| 1876 | Gold Medal of the Edinburgh International Exhibition; medals in Paris and Philadelphia; title of Photographer to the Imperial Academy of Arts[1][2][3] |
| 1878 | Gold Medal of the Paris Exhibition[3] |
| 1885 | Medal of the Nizhny Novgorod Handicraft and Industrial Exhibition "for progressive improvement of one's craft"; photography of the visit of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich[1][5] |
| 1886 | Album Views of Nizhny Novgorod; from this year onward, art exhibitions were held regularly in the city with his participation[2] |
| 1896 | Paintings by Karelin, his wife O. G. Karelina-Lermontova, and his son Andrey Karelin were displayed in the Art Pavilion of the exhibition[3] |
| 1902 | Diploma of the First International Exhibition of the Moscow Art Photography Society |
Views of the City and the First Reportage
The first experiment in combining painting with photography was the album Nizhny Novgorod of 1870: Karelin's photographs were hand-colored in watercolor by the landscape painter Ivan Shishkin.[2][3] In 1886 the album Views of Nizhny Novgorod was published, and in the 1890s his city views circulated as postcards.[3]
Karelin turned seriously to landscape photography in the 1880s: views of the city sold readily to tourists and visitors to the yarmarka. He shot panoramas from elevated vantage points — bell towers and steep bluffs — and despite the modest print size, each frame encompassed the broad sweep of the river, high banks, domes, and steamships.[5]
In 1885 Karelin did something unexpected of him: he produced a series of reportage photographs documenting the visit of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna to Nizhny Novgorod and the yarmarka. He captured the moving procession and the crowds using instantaneous exposure, yet printed the positives by his usual methods — with soft outlines and a velvety quality. [5] From the same period comes something unusual for him — a portrait of the steamship Magdalena, in which the master conveyed not so much the vessel's technical specifications as the beauty of its construction.[5]
In the summer of 1887, near the selo of Yuryevets, he photographed a total solar eclipse. From 1898, the studio produced lantern slides for magic lanterns, which were taken up by educational institutions and public lectures.
Collector of Russian Antiquities
Karelin's collection of antiquities was known far beyond the boundaries of the governorate: artists Vasily Vereshchagin and Makovskiy purchased pieces from him, and during the yarmarka Andrey Osipovich himself could be found on evenings in the Yaroslavl Row among the second-hand dealers, searching for rarities.[2] The collector Aleksey Bakhrushin testified that "everyone with an interest in old Russian objects had visited him, some traveling from a great distance."[2]
Makovskiy used objects from Karelin's collection while working on his painting Minin's Appeal.[2] The collection itself included glass, porcelain, faience, bone, and metalwork, as well as peasant household objects and Russian national costume — silk sarafans, satin dushegreyas (short sleeveless jackets), brocade skirts, kokoshniks (traditional headdresses) embroidered with pearls and gold thread, headpieces, kerchiefs, and shawls.[2]
In 1929, his younger son Rafail donated the greater part of his father's collection to the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Museum. Today, the Karelin collection held by the museum-reserve numbers more than fifteen hundred items, the bulk of which are photographs — portraits of the artist himself and his family, figures from the worlds of culture and science, prominent townspeople, visitors to the city, and characteristic Nizhny Novgorod types.[2] A further 136 items — photographs, hand-colored glass slides, and personal belongings — are held at the Russian Museum of Photography, which also preserves original prints from his Art Album.[6]
In Nizhny Novgorod I made the acquaintance of the artist-photographer Andrey Osipovich Karelin… The large hall of his house resembled an antique shop.
Teacher and public figure
In 1897, the "Photography and Painting" studio moved to Varvarskaya Street, to the house of M. N. Shcholokov (now No. 8a, the building of the Nizhny Novgorod Art School). A drawing and painting school opened there at the same time; it became popular in the city and remained in operation for thirty years.[1][2] Before this, from 1892, the studio had been located in the house of A. I. Strepetova on Zhukovskaya Street — the present-day Minin Street — where the collection of antique objects and period clothing was open for public viewing.
From 1886 onward, art exhibitions were held regularly in the city with Karelin's active involvement; together with other Nizhny Novgorod residents he was an initiator of the Art and History Museum, which opened in 1896.[2] In 1895 he became one of the founders of the Society of Artists of Historical Painting, and together with Gorky he co-founded the Nizhny Novgorod Society of Art Lovers.[1]
He was a member of the Nizhny Novgorod Guberniya Scholarly Archival Commission (from 1887), a full member and board member of the Nizhny Novgorod Circle of Physics and Astronomy Enthusiasts (from 1888), a member of the Imperial Russian Technical Society and the Russian Photographic Society in Moscow (from 1895), of the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography (from 1897), and of the Nizhny Novgorod Society of Art Lovers (from 1901).
Karelin had many students. The most famous was Maxim Dmitriev, who inherited his mentor's landscape tradition and gradually moved into documentary photography.[1][4] Another student, S. G. Solovyov, opened his own studio in St. Petersburg, and his work earned medals at international exhibitions.[1] In 1905, Karelin himself opened a studio called "Edinburgh Photography" in N. Kh. Kurepin's house on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya (now No. 4) — the name a reminder of his greatest award.
In 1902 he exhibited paintings at the Second Nizhny Novgorod Art Exhibition; his photographs of slums and their inhabitants were also used in staging Gorky's play "The Lower Depths" at the Moscow Art Theatre.
Death and Legacy
Andrey Osipovich Karelin died on 31 July (12 August) 1906 and was buried at the cemetery of the Krestovozdvizhensky Convent. The cemetery was closed in the 1920s; in the late 1980s, the monument from his grave was found and placed in the old city cemetery — as a cenotaph, without the remains.[1]
In 1992, a cast memorial plaque by O. Lisenkov was installed on the building at 8 Varvarskaya Street: "the world-renowned photographer, artist, teacher, and public figure Andrey Osipovich Karelin lived and worked here."[1] That same year, the Russian Museum of Photography opened in the former house on Osypnaya Street — the first museum in Russia dedicated to the history of photography and to two Nizhny Novgorod masters.[7]
On 6–7 October 2025, the First All-Russian Academic and Practical Conference bearing his name — "Karelin Readings" — was held in Nizhny Novgorod.[8] In the winter of 2025–2026, ROSPHOTO in St. Petersburg exhibited more than three hundred original works by Karelin and Dmitriev from the collection of the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve; both were described there as masters of light-writing from the city that had become the center of Russian photography at the turn of the century.[4]
Photographic composition was born in Russia, and the first to show this new path to Europe was Karelin in Nizhny Novgorod.
Sources
- opentextnn.ru — Izvekov B. S., Kessel A. V. Memorial Plaques of Nizhny Novgorod: Karelin A. O. (1837–1906). Varvarskaya Street, 8 — a directory of memorial plaques, "Otkryty Tekst" (archive)
- ngiamz.ru — Andrey Osipovich Karelin — photograph collection of the NGIAMZ — publication of the Nizhny Novgorod State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve, December 7, 2022 (archive)
- fotomuseum.nnov.ru — Russian Museum of Photography. A Tour of the Museum — an exhibition essay on the work of A. O. Karelin and his photographic method (archive)
- rosphoto.org — Andrey Karelin and Maxim Dmitriev — Masters of Light Photography from Nizhny Novgorod — ROSPHOTO exhibition, December 12, 2025 – February 15, 2026 (archive)
- expositions.nlr.ru — Barkhatova E. V. Along the Banks of the Great Volga: Rare Photographs by Leading Russian Masters of the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century — a virtual exhibition of the Russian National Library (archive)
- fotomuseum.nnov.ru — Russian Museum of Photography. Collections — composition of the holdings: 136 storage units of Karelin's work, prints from the "Art Album"
- fotomuseum.nnov.ru — Russian Museum of Photography. About the Museum — the building on Osypnaya Street, the photo pavilion built by Karelin, history of the museum (archive)
- opentextnn.ru — First All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference Dedicated to A. O. Karelin — "Karelin Readings", Nizhny Novgorod, October 6–7, 2025; "Otkryty Tekst" (archive)