Most Expensive Photos from Russia

In 2013, a collection of works by photographers from the Russia was auctioned at Sotheby’s in London, offering a glimpse into everyday life at the time.

This iconic photo by Antanas Sutkus¹ was taken in 1965 and has appeared on the covers of many magazines around the world. At the time, Sutkus the soviet photographer was asked to capture the official visit of writer Jean-Paul Sartre to the country. Sold for £7,250.

1. Antanas Sutkus is a Soviet photographer born on 27 June 1939 in Kluoniškiai, small village in USSR. He studied journalism in late 1950s concentrated on black and white portraits of ordinary people in their everyday life. He also photographed children: “Children have a world with its own laws, rules, its own happiness and sadness. To enter it, you need to feel that you are a kid. Adults and children are different stories.” A series of mid-1960s portraits of children, often with adults in the shot pointedly faceless and irrelevant, was collected in a 2020 book. He co-founded the Lithuanian Association of Art Photographers in 1969. He is well-known for his life-long survey, People of USSR, begun in 1976 to document the changing life and people of the USSR. ↩︎