Sergels torg 13 februari, 1978

Gunnar Smoliansky is considered one of the most influential Swedish photographers. He was born in Visby, on the island of Gotland, and devoted himself to photography since the early 1950s. Smoliansky was an independent artist from the 1970s, working almost exclusively with the photographic image. His oeuvre is unique, although conscious of its place in the history of photography. He became acknowledged for his photography through his early independent work and a career that led him to work as a photographer’s assistant and attend night school under Christer Strömholm.

Smoliansky worked exclusively in black and white and always developed his photographs himself. Throughout his career, he transformed his photographed motifs into completed photos in the darkroom. Stockholm is the main focus of Smoliansky’s photographic world, particularly the areas of Södermalm and Saltsjö-Boo, the two parts of the city he lived and worked in for most of his life. From a geographic point of view, the photographs of Gunnar Smoliansky are quite restricted in range. This has not, however, kept him from being regarded as one of the world’s great photographers.

While imbued with a Swedish melancholy, Smoliansky’s work is also part of a broader European photo-documentary tradition. As with the work of André Kertész, his eye distills its subject. Form and line are used economically, while unorthodox camera angles and aerial views render the subject abstract.