Artists Registry
New Haven CT United States
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Artist's Statement
Statement of Work
I am a photographer dedicated my portfolio "My World Trade Center" to the 10 anniversary of the attacks on WTC.
My memoir offers a series of visual hymns to the site as it was before the attacks.
Monuments have been an obsession of mine throughout my career as a
Photographer. Journeying from St. Petersburg to Rome and finally settling
in New York I have met, befriended and fallen in love with some of the
greatest wonders wrought by humans. Among these, the Twin Towers was one of
my greatest love affairs.
In January 1979 I left Russia and later that year arrived in Manhattan.
Here the bustling, creative energy I felt surmountedinitial shocks of immigration.
For the Russian poet Mayakovsky (half a century before me) it was
the Brooklyn Bridge: a "fight for construction instead of style, an austere disposition of bolts and steel." For me, these words more elegantly befit the World Trade Center, a symbol of the city, of the country, of contemporary civilization itself. At these towers and the plaza between, my own visions came to life. Struck instantly by itsgrandeur, I began to photograph the WTC soon after I arrived.
I photographed the towers regularly, from the Western banks of the Hudson
through the overgrown brush of the Jersey City waterfront, as well as from below. I portrayed them in black and white and in color, in twilight and at sunrise, in three formats, in all their moods. Exploring the complex, I documented the many sculptures that greeted the mostly heedless pedestrians. For me there was nothing to take for granted.
The tragedy of the 9/11 destruction, above all human, but also tectonic, has
brought me back to this collection of the monument. I wish to contribute my
own testament to the story of its commemoration, rendering the strength and
power of its bolts and steel thereby indestructible.
Resume
Resume
Anatoly Pronin was educated at the State University of Leningrad, Russia(now St. Petersburg) and continued to work as a photographer in the USSR through 1978 for publishing houses, magazines and museums. Three years later he was able to resume that career in the United States, and his travels have led his camera to different parts of the world at different times.
He has been exhibited in Russia, Germany, Scotland, Belgium, France, South Africa, India, The United States, and published internationally, including GRAPHIS magazine (Switzerland), ALBERTA EDUCATION (Canada), ASICS CO. (Japan), BRUNOTT ART PUBLISHER (Netherlands), ROUTLEDGE (UK), MUSEUM OF JEWISH DIASPORA (Israel), SMYTH & HELWYS (USA), McGRAW-HILL (USA), W.W.NORTON (USA), SIMON & SHUSTER (USA), HARCOURT BRACE (USA), PRENTICE HALL (USA), ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA (USA), MICROSOFT ENCARTA (USA), NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES (USA), CYNTHIA HALL PRODUCTIONS (TV documentary USA), GEO (Germany), RANDOM HOUSE (UK), NEWS CORPORATION (USA), etc.
He won the silver medal at the 1971 Berlin International Photo Exhibition and the First Prize at the 1977-78 USSR Photo Exhibition in Moscow. Ten years later, in 1987-88 he won First Place in the City Spirit Festival competition in Jersey City and received the Certificate of Excellence from the Art Directors Club of New Jersey.
He was awarded a Fellowship grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for the series of still-lives "Nature Morte" in 1990, and again for the series, "Items" in 1999.
A wide selection of his photographs is in the permanent collection THE STATE RUSSIAN MUSEUM (St. Petersburg, Russia), THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY ST. PETERSBURG (Russia), STATE MUSEUM OF THEATRE AND MUSIC (St. Petersburg, Russia), THE ROYAL COLLECTION (England), LEEDS CITY MUSEUM (England), BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE (Paris, France), STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN (Germany), THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (USA), THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM (New York, USA), THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART (New York, USA), THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (Washington DC, USA), PORTLAND ART MUSEUM (Oregon, USA), SALVADOR DALI MUSEUM (St. Petersburg, FL, USA), D.BALANCHINE FOUNDATION (New York, USA), and THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA).
His photographs are part of various private collections, such as HOWARD STAIN’S COLLECTION and have been auctioned in PHILIPS DE PURY AUCTION HOUSE.
His name is included in Marquis "WHO’S WHO IN AMERICAN ART" and "WHO”S WHO IN AMERICA”.