Three generations: A.P. Kalganov with son and granddaughter. The last two work in the shop of the Zlatous plant, 1910 (detail). Foto Sergej Prokudin-Gorskij. Library of Congress, USA

AMSTERDAM.- Museum Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis presents People of the Empire: Early Russian Colour Photographs. This summer a special exhibition about the Russian photographer Sergej Prokudin-Gorskij will be on show at the Museum Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This pioneer in colour photography captured the population in different area's of the vast Russian empire in colour with financial support of Tsar Nicolas II. The selection of photographs at this exhibition shows the ethnic diversity of a vanished great power. The images, as the photographer stated in his days, were made with an eye to the historical value of the subject. The early twentieth century photographs are not only remarkable because of the subject matter. The intensity of the colours and the sharpness of the images are as well of extraordinary quality. Early 1900 Prokudin-Gorskij developed his own method of colour photography. The basis for his approach essentially consisted of a three-phase black and white recording made through a red, green and blue filter. The glass plates were projected with a self-built three-colour filter projector resulting in a colour image. With the assistance of the current digital technology these colour images can be reconstructed from the past. The Prokudin-Gorskij collection resides at the Library of Congress in Washington and thanks to a large digitalisation project colour images of pre-revolutionary Russia is available for the public.

This exhibition is made possible with the support of Picturebox, Flevodruk, Spigthoff en Lintberg.

A book about the photographer Prokudin-Gorskij will be published by d'jonge Hond in June 2008 and is available at the museum store. The exhibition will be on view through September 1st 2008.

Dagastani types, between 1905-1915. Foto Sergej Prokudin-Gorskij. Library of Congress, USA.