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Inspired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition Man Ray: When Objects Dream (on view through February 1, 2026), we focus today on a series of photograms—unique, camera-less contact prints—in our collection by Nikolai Sedelnikov (Russian, 1905–1994). In his watershed book Malerie, Photographie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film) of 1925, László Moholy-Nagy celebrated the photogram as a productive rather than reproductive use of photography, which could “transform the everyday object into something mysterious.” He also applauded its potential usage within typographical design. A few years later, Sedelnikov, a VKhUTEMAS student and founding member of the Oktiabr’ (October) group, created his own photograms for use in book jacket designs, such as those shown below. Sedelnikov’s photograms were mounted and signed by the artist, possibly at a later date and in recognition of their unique status and inherent visual interest.
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