Carrick, William Andreevich

William was born in Scotland in the city of Edinburgh in the family of forest trader Andrew Carrick. William's father lived and worked in St. Petersburg for a long time; his grandfather in the 1790s was known on the London Stock Exchange as a “merchant from Petersburg”. In 1825 , during a trip to Scotland, Andrew Carrick met his future wife, 15-year-old Jesse Lauder. Soon they were married, and on December 31, 1827, their first child, William, was born. When he was several weeks old, the Carrick family moved to Kronstadt , where they lived for the next 16 years.

In 1844, Carrick moved to St. Petersburg. There, William entered the Academy of Arts and began to study architecture under the leadership of Alexander Bryullov , but with much more diligence he attended the painting class. In 1853, he graduated from the Academy and received the title of "non-class artist with the right to produce buildings." After that, William went to Rome to continue his education. Despite the fact that during the Crimean War, the family business collapsed because of the blockade of ports, in 1856 he returned to St. Petersburg for a short time, after which, in the summer of 1857, he left, along with his younger brother George, to Edinburgh, where He was going to enroll in the medical faculty of a local university, and William wanted to master the craft of the photographer.

In Edinburgh, he met a photo technician, John MacGregor. In October 1857, they went to Russia, and some time later, in 1859, Carrick opened the first Russian photo studio in St. Petersburg at number 19 on Malaya Morskaya Street . He quickly gained fame, capturing the daily life of the country and becoming the first ethnographer-photographer in Russia. In 1862, Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich ordered a portrait to Carrick and, pleased with the result, bestowed a diamond ring on him ^[2] . In 1865, Count Michael Zichy hired Carrick to take pictures of him; photographs were printed and sold. In the same way he worked with other artists - Ivan Kramskoy , Viktor Vasnetsov and Nikolai Ge ; after his death, many of these works were published in his “Album of Russian Artists”.

In 1869, the first exhibition of his works was held in Moscow. Carrick and MacGregor traveled to the outback several times, for example, in 1871, they spent a month in Simbirsk province . They created a large collection of photographs reflecting the lives of Russian and Mordovian peasants, Tatars, Chuvash. In 1872, MacGregor died; Carrick was inconsolable, but in spite of everything he continued his work. In 1872, several of Carrick’s photographs were - anonymously, as “snapshots from Russia” - presented at the international exhibition in London. In the summer of 1875, Carrick again visited Simbirsk province. In 1876 he became a photographer of the Academy of Arts and received his studio in it. In 1878, an exhibition of his works in Paris was organized.

William Carrick died on November 11, 1878 in St. Petersburg from pneumonia .

William Carrick was married to the translator A. G. Markelova . He had two sons, Dmitry and Valery. In addition, he adopted Gregory, the son of his wife from his first marriage. Gregory became a photographer, and Valery ^[1] - the famous cartoonist . The wife of Valery Alexander (nicknamed “Sashura”) was a liberal and nihilist , and also the only one ^{[ when? ] a} journalist in the newspaper St. Petersburg Vedomosti .

Her great-niece Felicity Ashby , who lived in Edinburgh, was the keeper, researcher and popularizer of the heritage of V. Carrick. For Sovetskoye Photo magazine, she wrote two small articles that re-opened the pages of Carrick’s life and work to the reader.

Some pictures of Carrick:

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  Tool dealer

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  Bazaar in Kamenka

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  Knife Grinder

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  Forest scene in Simbirsk

• Editorial Board. V. A. Carrick, famous photographer (obituary) // World-wide Illustration : Journal. - 1879. - Vol . 21 , No. 531 . - p . 219-220 .
• Ashbee, Felicity, “The Carricks of St. Petersburg”, in The Caledonian Phalanx: Scots in Russia , (Edinburgh, 1987), pp. 91-105
• Howard, Jeremy, 'Carrick, William (1827–1878)', Oxford Online Dictionary , Oxford University Press, Oct 2006

• Short biography of William Carrick (not available link)
• Carrick's works in the National Gallery of Scotland
• (eng.) Early Photographers: William Carrick 1827-1878
• Ethnographic genre in Russian photography 1860s - 1900s
• “Basil (William) Carrick (1827–1878). Petersburg. "
• Carrick William Andreevich (1827–1878)