Lev Borodulin

Sport

I was a sportsman, played basketball.

Even played for the Moscow team.

Probably my love of sports photography began with this.

LEV BORODULIN. SPORT.

Lev Abramovich Borodulin (1923-2018) is a legendary sports photographer and classic of Soviet photography.

Lev Borodulin was born in Moscow. He began studying at the art department of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute in 1940, but was called to the front in the second year of his course. After the war Borodulin completed his course at the Polygraphic Institute and took a serious interest in photography. These were difficult years, in the country’s history and in the history of Russian art. Criticism of ‘formalism’ had begun in the 1930s and now reached its height, finally erasing the remnants of modernism in Russian photography. Most of the Soviet photographers who then held leading positions in their profession were left unemployed.

Lev Borodulin turned to sports photography, which was less affected by ideological restrictions, and tried to revive ‘formalist’ principles in this genre of photographic art. His work was greatly influenced by classic masters of Soviet modernism such as Alexander Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich and Arkady Sheikhet.

Borodulin’s choice of sport as the main theme of his work also ensured a certain freedom to travel abroad.

The first of Borodulin’s photographs to be published appeared in 1947, in the student newspaper ‘Stalin’s Printer’. Having already gained experience as a photo reporter with the magazine ‘Sporting Life of Russia’, in the late 1950s he began working for ‘Ogonyok’, the main illustrated publication of the USSR. Borodulin worked in its editorial office for 15 years, and in that time travelled almost the entire globe. Photographing world championships in various sports and the Olympic Games, he created images that have become classics of Russian and world sports photography.

In 1964 the English-language Photography Year Book dubbed Borodulin ‘Star of World Photography’ and in 1967 the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun declared him photographer of the year, while in 1972 Borodulin was awarded a special gold medal at the Munich Olympics for achievements in the field of sports photography.

In 1972 at the peak of his fame Lev Borodulin emigrated to Israel, where he continued his chosen occupation, becoming one of the most famous Israeli photographers.