Dmitri Kessel
Plates contributed
The 8 plates attributed to Dmitri Kessel in the 1955 MoMA Master Checklist (Exhibition #569).
| ID | Country | Section | Year | View |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| photo-0009 | China | Lovers | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0121 | Italy | Work | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0126 | China | Work | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0143 | Belgian Congo | Work | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0156 | China | Work | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0268 | China | Relationships and community | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0424 | France | Rededication, peace, and the future | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0446 | China | Rededication, peace, and the future | — | Clervaux |
Notes
Eight plates in the catalog (count verified by strict-match grep against data/photographs.csv 2026-05-19): photo-0009 (#12 Lovers, China, LIFE/American, 140 x 144 cm), photo-0121 (#127 Land, Italy, LIFE/American, 61 x 53 cm), photo-0126 (#132 Land, China, LIFE/American, 34 x 30 cm), photo-0143 (#150 Work A, Belgian Congo, LIFE/American, 48 x 38 cm), photo-0156 (#163 Work A, China, LIFE/American, 34 x 32 1/2 cm), photo-0268 (#279 Ring Around the Rosy, China, LIFE/American, 18 x 19 1/4 cm), photo-0424 (#439 Voting, France, LIFE/American, 18 x 14 1/4 cm), photo-0446 (#461 Couples, China, LIFE/American, 18 x 14 1/4 cm). All eight credited LIFE/American. Country distribution: China x5, Italy x1, Belgian Congo x1, France x1. OCR at #279 rendered ‘Dmitir’ — corrected to Dmitri. Checklist nationality ‘American’. ICP (fetched 2026-05-19) gives ‘American (b. Russian Ukraine)’ (src-icp-dmitri-kessel-archive). Wikipedia pointer (fetched 2026-05-19) records emigrated to US 1923, naturalized 1929 (src-wikipedia-kessel-pointer). DATE DISCREPANCY: src-nyt-1995-kessel-obit (in repo, verified:false) gives birth Aug 26, 1902, Kiev / death March 19, 1995, Paris; src-wikipedia-kessel-pointer gives birth Aug 20, 1902, Kiev / death March 26, 1995, Southampton, NY. Year-level dates (1902/1995) consistent across all sources. Day-month and death-location unresolved pending a successful fetch of the NYT obituary. Wikipedia confirms eight FoM plates: ‘In 1955, curator Edward Steichen selected eight of Kessel’s photographs for the Museum of Modern Art’s traveling exhibition.’ Research file: research/photographers/dmitri-kessel.md
External biography
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/dmitri-kessel
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src-moma-exh-0569-master-checklist -
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src-wikipedia-kessel-pointer