Leonid Mikhailovich Volkov: The Hermitage…Extensive and Boundless…
8 December 2006 - 8 February 2007

On 8 December 2006, an exhibition by photographer Leonid Volkov entitled The Hermitage…Extensive and Boundless opened. Volkov graduated from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography and worked as a script writer, director and camera man in fiction films and documentaries at the Lenfilm and Lennauchfilm movie studios, as well as for Leningrad Television. He has won the State Prize of the USSR and also won prizes at many All-Soviet and international film festivals. In 1997, he was given the title of National Artist of Russia. Since 1998, L.M. Volkov has been a photographer of the State Hermitage.

For Volkov, the Hermitage is not merely a museum in which there are exhibitions, a place people take children, a place whose history people know and love. For him, it is a huge world of people and exhibit items with which he has long been well acquainted. Volkov touched on the Hermitage theme already in 1968, when he did a film about Giacomo Quarenghi. Then there were the films The Carved Stones of the Hermitage (1978), Borodino (1984), Wax Figures (1993), The Gonzaga Cameo (1994). Each of them not only showed Hermitage exhibit items but made their history come alive. Through concrete objects, the past has come closer to us. Something which occurred some time long ago miraculously has become close and familiar.

His huge experience of working in the cinema, his ability to see the panorama as well as the concrete details, to see the general and the partial view that goes into it, all of this certainly comes out in L.M. Volkov’s work as reporting photographer of the Hermitage. At the same time, he is a genuine artist who sees beauty in things and people, the play and combination of colors and forms. There are series of his photographs devoted to practically all of the diversity of museum life. He photographs everyday events: life that goes unnoticed by the superficial observer but without which the museum cannot exist; the formal state ceremonies and official protocol events. Photography series by L.M. Volkov capture for all time how the Hermitage lived at the turning point of two centuries.

From the Restoration of the Winter Palace Main Gate to Its original Appearance the series 2003 Larger view		Reinstallation of the decor of the General Staff Arch 2003 Larger view

Winter Palace
2001
Larger view

Restorer and artist Darya Sniatkova in the Gallery of Ancient Painting
2001
Larger view

Exploration of the Column before restoration
From the Restoration of the Alexander Column series
2002
Larger view

Georgy Vilinbakhow, Deputy Director of the State Hermitage, State Herald of the Russian Federation
2003
Larger view