Image from the photo report Kossikoff made about the port of Ghent, Belgium. Dock workers load a ship with cars. The abstract composition and choice of subject (modern living) are a good example of new ways of looking during the Interbellum. A style of photography used by many photographers from Central and East Europe [M. S. Witkovsky, 2007].

Printed and signed by Kossikoff on Agfa photo paper. Numbered "998-P" on the verso. We had another example in our collection that was printed on Agfa Brovira paper.

Vintage silver print ca. 16,5 x 23 cm

Nikolaï Kossikoff (1898 - 1975) was born in Kharkov, Ukraine. Then part of the Russian Empire. In 1923 he arrived in Ghent, Belgium. He worked as a painter in the restauration works of churches. In 1925 he took back up his old hobby of photography. Being self-educated he developed his own technique and style with deep beautiful blacks.

From 1935 until the Second World War he worked on the documentary of the port of Ghent. Many of his photographs were published in the year books of the port. We offer a typical example of these harbor photos in a modernist style. Like other photographers during the interwar period, he works with extreme camera angles. As he writes in his biography:
"In order to have the most interesting points of view I climbed all the cranes of the port with an old view camera under a black blancket, despite heavy prostesting from my wife. It was a strange experience when the crane I was on started to swing to the right as if it was trying to shake me off! But I loved the sport and I was fascinated by the result despite the huge difficulties waiting for me at home : at the time I didn't have the right camera , no dark room, no enlarger and certainly not the money to buy them."

A contemporary photo journalist would also picture the workers and the people in the port. Not Kossikoff. The cranes and boats are the actors in his play. The cranes are the giants and the workers are the dwarfs or the slaves of the machines. This is highly contradictory to the ideas of the Russian Revolution.
Kossikoffs' work is a tribute to modern technique and evolution, the result of his fascination for engineering.

You could interprete his images as being under the influence of the Russian avant-garde photographers but in his biography Kossikoff only vaguely refers to cubism and abstract photography.
He wasn't really into the modernist trends, although his work is clearly in this category.
[Information and text based on the research done by Xavier Debeerst]

Literature:
There is a street in Ghent named "Nicolaï Kossikoffstraat".

👉 This gelatine silver print is part of the Bazar Nadar "History Class Collection".
Based on these unique images, we will tell you about the origins of the medium during workshops.