Drawn to street photography, Roberta Fineberg visited Moscow for extended periods in 1989-1990, witnessing Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev's politics of "Glasnost/Perestroika" ("Openness").
The celebrated Soviet dancer Maya Plisetskaya was living in Spain, and during Glasnost/Perestroika she returned to Moscow to appear once again on the Russian stage. Plisetskaya, 64, remained youthful and beautiful, on- and off-stage. This is a black-and-white artist portrait of Maya Plisetskaya, legendary Russian ballet dancer and choreographer, in the ballerina's dressing room at the Bolshoi in Moscow.
Maya Plisetskaya, 1989 by Roberta Fineberg is a 14" x 11" gelatin silver photograph -- signed, matted, and framed for a public art exhibition in 2004 at the Empire State Building, New York City.
Provenance: RF Archive
Artist's Bio:
As a visual artist, Roberta Fineberg (RF) focuses on the themes of serendipity, inventiveness, and the development of ideas for her photography, video, installations, works on paper, and painting. Drawn to experimentation, she explores diverse mediums and concepts such as the ephemeral (Butterfly Series), stolen moments (documentary photography), play, timelessness, the enduring, and the significance of matter.
RF, living in New York City, began her career as an editorial photographer while studying in Paris. In France she contributed both photography and writing to publications, landing a column (photos and text) with The Saturday Review while exhibiting photographs in public spaces. Roberta Fineberg’s freelance photography appeared in Le Monde, Jeune Afrique, Paris Match, L’Officiel Femme, Ms, Weltwoche, Vanguardia, among others with images licensed through stock agencies. Photographs were selected for cover art at W.W. Norton, St. Martin’s Press, Harcourt, Bookspan, Simon & Schuster, etc. Print Regional Design Annual New York (2003) awarded her for book jacket photography for If Wishes Were Horses. In 1997 Macmillan published City Riders: A Story of Riding and Friendship her first book of black-and-white photographs and a story about three teenage girls in the 1990s who rode horses at the now-defunct Claremont Riding Academy and oldest stable in New York City.
In 2023, RF created an interactive installation, works on paper on the female body, in a public space. In July 2022, Fineberg’s Double Helix was included in a Sotheby’s auction in New York City and exhibited in the preview show Contemporary Discoveries. Selected exhibitions include Time Gallery New York (2022), Phyllis Harriman Gallery New York studio shows (2020, 2022), CADAF online art fair (2020), Gallery122 New York pop-up group show (2018), Curate NY online group show (2013), Paris Photo: Photos, Femmes, Feminisme group show (2010). Fineberg’s photography is in private and public collections, including portraits of women writers at the Bibliothèque Nationale and Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand in Paris, France. She was awarded 15 laurels (2020-2023) from independent film festivals worldwide for her experimental video, You Will Never Beat New York (2020).
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