(b Zhitomir, Ukraine, 1894; d 1979). Photographer, brother of (1) David Shterenberg. He began his apprenticeship as a photographer in 1909 and fought in World War I. After working in B. Tapuskyansky’s studio in Tashkent he joined the art and photography department of the Red Army in 1919. He began working as a photojournalist while living with his brother David in Moscow in 1926, concentrating on post-revolutionary social issues. He made his name, however, as a portraitist, showing a fondness for extreme close-up, an economic range of tone, strong chiaroscuro and soft focus, as in Worker (1936; see exh. cat., p. 71). He joined the group Oktyabr’ (October) along with Aleksandr Rodchenko and Boris Ignatovich. Accused of formalism, he returned to photojournalism, becoming well-known for his photographs of collective farm life and Uzbek landscapes, but he later returned to portraiture. He continued to work as a photographic correspondent for the news agency Novosti until the end of his life.

Part of the Shterenberg family