The State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO presents an exhibition by Alexander Tyagny-Ryadno (b. 1956), marking the artist’s anniversary. The exhibition brings together works from different periods, tracing the evolution of his creative approach.

Born in Moscow and a graduate of the Moscow Aviation Institute, Tyagny-Ryadno began his career as a design engineer, but soon made a radical change of profession. His passion for travel played a part in this decision. “What is travel? You arrive in a new place and receive an adrenaline rush from every direction. That was exactly what my body needed,” — the artist explains.

He was initially drawn to cinema, but admission to the cinematography department of the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) required him to master photography and begin publishing his work in the press. After training at the Pravda Photo Club, he ultimately decided not to apply to VGIK, choosing photography over cinema and enrolling instead at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University.

His professional career as a photographer began in 1984 at the newspaper NTR: Problems and Solutions, where he created his first major series, Creators of Science, a collection of portraits of scientists. Later, while working for the newspaper Soviet Culture, he photographed numerous figures from the world of cinema, further expanding his gallery of portraits of prominent personalities.

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The exhibition features portraits of prominent figures, including Academicians Nikolay Basov and Andrei Sakharov; film directors and screenwriters Aleksei German and Savva Kulish; actors Margarita Terekhova and Sergei Bodrov Jr.; fashion designer Kenzo Takada, among many others. Remaining faithful to the tradition of the classical psychological portrait, Tyagny-Ryadno seeks to reveal the inner essence of his subjects through facial expression, gaze, and body language. Alongside his portraits, the exhibition also presents photographs capturing the rhythms of cities in Russia and abroad.

Photography critic Victoria Musvik has noted the artist’s ability to maintain a delicate balance, avoiding both excessive optimism and undue dramatization. Art historian Valery Stigneev emphasizes Tyagny-Ryadno’s gift for finding beauty in everyday life, transforming ordinary reality into compelling images while preserving a remarkable sense of measure.

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For many years, Tyagny-Ryadno worked exclusively in black and white, but in the 1990s he turned to colour photography. This transition is reflected in his monumental three-volume publication Photography – A Way of Life – Photography (2016): the first volume is devoted to black-and-white photography, the second to portraiture, and the third to his experiments with colour. These colour works—distinguished by their interplay of light and shadow, vivid accents, and unconventional perspectives—are brought together in the project Colorophoria, a term coined by the artist from the Latin words meaning “bearing colour.”

The exhibition “Alexander Tyagny-Ryadno. Maintaining Balance” offers a retrospective overview of the photographer’s creative career. His works are valuable documents of their time, capturing profound social transformations while preserving the cultural spirit of the era.

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About the Artist

Alexander Tyagny-Ryadno is a Russian photographer, Secretary of the Union of Photo Artists of Russia, a member of the Union of Journalists of Russia, and a member of the UNESCO International Federation of Artists (IAA/AIAP UNESCO). He is the author of more than 75 solo exhibitions and over 20 photobooks. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with many of Russia’s leading publications, including Izvestia, Forbes, Around the World (Vokrug Sveta), and GEO.