Platino-Palladium printing – is a unique process with incredibly broad and subtle tonal scale, that allows to reliably convey not only the image but also the feeling of light and air on the print. The image made using this technique (platinotype) consists of multiple tiny particles of metal – pure metal, which does not oxidize. That explains why artworks done in this technique are also called “Pure” photography.
Platinum and palladium are much more inert than the silver used in the conventional bromine-silver prints and for this reason the work done in platinotype have good archival preservation. Prints made 150 years ago, retain freshness and quality, timeless. It is believed that 500 years – is a very realistic term of “life” for such kind of photographs.
This enhances the value of the work even more, not only from an artistic point of view, but also from the point of collectors. Prints by recognized masters reach up to tens of thousands dollars at the world’s leading auctions on pictorealism.
Urgis Levdik - Zanarewski is a member of the Russian Artist Union. He belongs to the rare, ancient family of Zanarewski and is a photographer of fourth generation. His great grandfather, Zanarewski Maxim Longinovich opened his first photographic studio in Rila, Kursk province, in 1891. Before the revolution in 1917, his grandfather Alexander Maksimovich Levdik-Zanarewski studied photography and sculpture in Paris at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. On his return to the already Bolshevik Moscow, he headed the first photo lab in the “Izvestia” newspaper. The father of photographer – Valentin Levdik-Zanarewski, didn’t become a professional photographer, but was involved with photography through out his life.
This exhibition – is the result of the author’s creative exploration of the rare and difficult technique of platinum-palladium printing that was invented at the time of his great grandfather.