William Andreevich Carrick
(1827-1878)

William Carrick is considered a great Russian photographer despite his Scottish descent and British citizenship. No wonder: he moved permanently to Russia as a child, and spoke native-level Russian. Contemporaries described Carrick as a 'regular Russian man.'

Just a few months after William was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, his father, a timber merchant, moved his family to Kronstadt, near St Petersburg. William went to an English school in St Petersburg, then enrolled in the Imperial Art Academy, where he was taught by A.P. Briullov, S.V. Shchedrin, and P.V. Basin. He continued his education in Rome. Upon his return to Russia in 1856, Carrick developed a fascination with a new emerging art form, photography.

St Petersburg was the cradle of Russia's photography in the 1850s, packed with Russian and foreign-managed photography studios. Most Russian photographers had an academic background in the arts, and treated photography as a new art form.

In 1857-1858, Carrick went to his native Edinburgh where he met and made friends with a local photographer, G. McGregor. The two of them decided to go into business together in Russia. In 1859, they opened a studio at 19 Malaya Morskaya ulitsa, a very busy and upscale neighbourhood of St Petersburg.

In St Petersburg, competition was tough among photographers, and business came at a very high price. Carrick was in luck. In 1862, Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich ordered a photographic portrait from him, which came out excellent. The Grand Duke rewarded the photographer with a diamond ring.

Carrick was one of the first photographers in Russia to take pictures of common people in the city and the countryside. His series of 80 photographs of poor people garnered high praise from the royal family.

Contemporaries noted Carrick's talent, impeccable taste and acumen, his faultless selection of subject-matter, method, and angle. They applauded Carrick's ability to insightfully reproduce the typical facets of Russian life, producing photographs that qualified as 'invaluable ethnographic material.' Carrick was one of the very few 19th century photographers whose oeuvre was unanimously accepted and acclaimed without reservations.