Thanks to the solo exhibition Earth and Sky, audiences are given a first opportunity to explore a large-scale retrospective of the work of Viktor Mikhailovich Ilyin (1957–2017) — a Kazakh and St. Petersburg–based photographer of international renown and one of the most compelling figures in Russian art photography. The exhibition materials span more than twenty-seven years of the artist’s prolific creative career.
Earth and Sky
1994
Victor Ilyin’s creative legacy occupies a singular place in the history of St. Petersburg photography, for many reasons. In his works, viewers will not find the familiar cityscapes typical of classical St. Petersburg photography. His photographic vision was shaped by the vast expanses of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where he spent a significant part of his life. It is therefore unsurprising that the subjects of his photographs are consistently imbued with wide, open spaces of land and sky. It is on the delicate boundary between these two elements that most of his unhurried philosophical narratives unfold, ingeniously conveyed to the viewer. Each visual story is unique, yet together they form a reflection of the quintessence of the artist’s worldview, shaped by the works of his favorite musicians, writers, filmmakers, and visual artists.
The breadth of Victor Ilyin’s genre range is limited to portraiture and landscape, yet his subjects remain highly individual. The origins of this individuality lie, on the one hand, in his deliberate rejection of serial work in favor of the single, autonomous image. As the artist himself noted, “this is cinema in a single frame.” On the other hand, it stems from Ilyin’s characteristic aspiration to bring each work to the highest degree of artistic expressiveness using the means available to photography. In creating his works, the artist frequently employs photomontage, layering, and toning in shades of blue and ochre-brown. Yet the primary instrument always remains the artist’s unique vision of the world — resulting in works that possess the power of artistic truth and a profound emotional impact on the viewer.
Portrait with Shiny Balls
1993
Journey into the Past
2001
Already in his early works of the mid-1980s, created during his membership in the SPLAV Photo Club, Viktor Ilyin’s interest in the theme of memory emerges, explored through the lens of personal experience. This theme would remain central to his work for many years. It first appears in In Memory of My Father (1984) and is further developed in the 1990s in works such as From My Memories (1990), In the Dungeons of Memory (1996), and A Journey into the Past (2001).
The recognition he received in 1989 at the International Photography Salon in Beijing, where he was awarded a bronze medal for In Memory of My Father, confirmed both the relevance of his visual explorations and the high technical and aesthetic quality of his photographic prints.
Viktor Ilyin’s family was compelled to move to Leningrad in 1990. It was prompted by the collapse of a vast country and the dramatic processes that accompanied it, affecting all the republics of the former USSR. At the same time, this period marked the beginning of a new phase of the artist’s creative activity. For a short time, genre photographs documenting life in St. Petersburg in the 1990s appear in his portfolio. In these works, space is tightly confined by the framework of events shaping the social lives of the figures depicted, while the atmosphere is emphasized through a dark tonal palette.
Viktor Ilyin’s landscape photographs are mesmerizing in their extraordinary atmosphere. Captured at moments of transition from one time of day to another, the images are filled with the crystal-clear light of early morning, the flowing evening glow, and the lethargic, enveloping light of a grey day. Light becomes the central element of the landscape, shaping both the overall atmosphere and the psychological state of the figures within it. It is light that draws the viewer in, conveys the emotional charge of the image, and places the viewer in the position of the subject.
The photographer’s numerous portrait works, whose subjects are often people close to Ilyin, alongside landscape photography, remained the foundation of his artistic exploration throughout his forty-year creative career. Viktor Ilyin’s portraits were first brought to wider attention by art historian Henri Vartanov in Photography magazine. In his article Quenching the Thirst (No. 2, 1994), devoted to an analysis of the state of color photography in the USSR, Vartanov examines the techniques of hand-coloring black-and-white photographs employed by Russian artists.
Analyzing the photograph Girl, Henri Vartanov notes “the significance of the girl’s character, as she looks at us slightly from above with her life-wise, sorrowful eyes far beyond her years.” Such a gaze is characteristic of nearly all the figures in Viktor Ilyin’s portraits. It is always visible to the viewer, yet never intrusive or demanding. Rather, it is the gaze of a person standing on the threshold of anticipated change and consciously accepting it.
Viktor Ilyin’s creative and life journey came to an end in 2017. However, the collection of his works preserved in the ROSPHOTO museum holdings continues to impress today with its coherence and exceptional artistic value.
Viktor Ilyin was born in Chelyabinsk in 1957. He spent many years living in Kazakhstan. His interest in photography began at the age of fourteen after a trip to Leningrad with his father in 1971.
His father introduced him to the fundamentals of photography, followed by a long period of self-directed learning and continuous development of both technical and artistic mastery. In 1979, he graduated from the Novosibirsk Electrotechnical Institute with a degree in Electrical Power Stations and Substations. He completed his military service in the Far East. Ilyin married in Kyrgyzstan, in the city of Frunze, to a violinist with the Symphony Orchestra of the Opera and Ballet Theatre. He worked as an electrical engineer at a metallurgical plant in Temirtau.
In 1983, he joined the well-known Soviet photography club Splav at the Metallurgists’ Palace of Culture in Temirtau and began participating in republican and all-Union exhibitions. Soon thereafter, his works were first published in periodicals and exhibition catalogues. In 1985, Viktor Ilyin presented his photographs for the first time at an international competition — the EUROPA-85 International Photo Salon, held under the auspices of the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP) in Reus, Spain. In 1989, he was awarded a bronze medal for one of his works at the International Photo Salon in Beijing.
In 1990, the family moved to the settlement of Nurma in the Tosno District of the Leningrad Region. At that time, Ilyin worked as a railway machinery technician at the Tosno Track Maintenance Division. In 1992, Viktor Ilyin became a member of the Union of Photographers of Russia.
The period from 1991 to 1994 was particularly successful for the fully matured artist: he participated in 100 international photo salons held in more than thirty countries worldwide. At the same time, he was actively involved in Russian photography competitions and held 14 solo exhibitions. Viktor Ilyin passed away in 2017.
Don’t Shoot!
1989
Father’s Secure Hands
Last updated on 16.01.2026
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