Vintage Russian photo exhibition on display at Purdue

An exhibition of photographs capturing life in Russia in 1909 is on display until March 13 in Stanley Coulter Hall, Room 220. The exhibition, titled “Empire and Empathy Vintage Russian Photographs of Russia,” is part of a collection of 400 photographs created by Murray Howe and preserved by Howe’s great-grandson, Andrew Murray Howe V.

The exhibition is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment. The exhibition is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, the School of Languages and Culture, the Department of History and the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance.

Andrew Howe will give a presentation on the collection at 4-5 p.m. March 9 in Stanley Coulter Hall, Room 239. A reception will follow the presentation to enjoy the art and free refreshments.

Andrew Howe graduated with a bachelor’s degree in construction management technology from Purdue in 1980. He has been acknowledged as a real estate development expert and has been written on in numerous magazines, including the Engineering News-Record. He is also the author of the best-selling humorous book “The Politician’s Essential Excuse Book,” which hit No. 1 on the Amazon list of Hot New Releases in Entertainment. Howe still possesses and wears the gold ring his great-grandfather received from the tsar’s jeweler during the trip to Russia.

About the exhibition

The following description of Murray Howe’s photographic visit in Russia was provided:

In 1909, on the cusp of a revolution that would bring down Russian’s Romanov dynasty, Murray Howe, an American journalist, went on an assignment to Moscow and St. Petersburg to document an exhibition of America’s fastest Standardbred racehorses owned by industrialist C.K.G. Billings. They were guests of the tsar.

Howe brought his Graflex camera to document the trip in a series of articles for the Horse Review Magazine. On his arrival, Howe couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast – the grand palaces, the onion-shaped spires that topped churches, the opulent finery of the Russian court and its upper classes offset by the grim faces of former serfs, barely feeding and clothing their families.

Howe’s love of the Russian people caused him to turn the Zeiss lens of his Graflex to the everyday people on the streets of Russia at a time when others were photographing buildings and royalty – providing a rare glimpse into the people he grew to love.

The stark division between the rich and the poor would eventually propel a restless, frustrated and starving population to rise up in 1917 and overthrow the monarchy of Tsar Nicholas and his German-born wife, Czarina Alexandra. Howe (1869-1941) captured that wide chasm between wealth and poverty during his trip to Russia in 1909. More than 100 years later, his sepia-toned images provide a frank look at the have-nots of imperial Russia and raise the question of how long a tsar could straddle that great divide.

For more information, contact Soledad Morales, program coordinator for the School of Languages and Cultures, at morales2@purdue.edu or 765-494-3843.