Literary tourists with a Leica

Old but new to me, from the Summer 2004 issue of Cabinet magazine: Erika Wolf checks out some amazing photography from the 1930s. In 1935, the collaborative satirical writers Ilya Ilf (1897-1937) and Evgeny Petrov (1903-1942) traveled to the US from the Soviet Union on assignment as special correspondents for [Pravda]. They purchased a Ford automobile and embarked upon a 10-week road trip to California and back. [They] visited America as literary tourists, stopping at major attractions, staying in tourist motels, consulting with AAA for travel advice, and relying upon Russian-speaking tour guides to smooth their way. Like a good tourist, Ilf extensively recorded his trip with his Leica camera. Upon their return, the result was a series of illustrated articles entitled "American Photographs." Individual installments featured such thematic topics as the road, the small town, Native Americans, Hollywood (where they spent 2 weeks writing a screenplay for Lewis Milestone), advertising, African-Americans, and New York City. Wolf learned of Ilf's photographs from a 1936 review written by Alexander Rodchenko. I was intrigued by the images reproduced with the review—shots of rural highways and road signs that brought to mind the Depression-era images of Walker Evans. Fifteen striking shots accompany the piece.