«To evaluate significance of Boris Smelov’s works for St Petersburg iconography we need to refer to the cultural and historical context. The Petersburg archetype first appeared in fine art in the works of  “Mir Iskusstva” (World of Art) artists, and A.Ostroumova-Lebedeva and M.Dobuzhinsky most vividly present the two opposite poles of this archetype. There are two absolutely different cities. While A.Ostroumova-Lebedeva shows ceremonial, majestic, austere St Petersburg, full of classical perfection and harmony, M.Dobuzhinsky depicts a disharmonious, hostile city, overfilled with contradictions and oddities, thus “The City’s Grimaces” is the name of one work from his St Petersburg cyclus. However, in both cases we see a completely strange Petersburg, observed with double attention from an uncommon angle, and spiritualized by the artists’ keen love. The city takes on the attributes of a living creature, and since then it has become possible to speak about the “soul” of St Petersburg, whereas in the XIX century it was all about its physiology.
Boris Smelov started his career as a photographer of Dostoevsky’s and Gogol’s St Petersburg (a mirage city, a phantom, rising from fog, the end of the earth, the edge of death, evoking fear and horror of real life (Petropolis – necropolis), chaotic blindness, and cosmic ultravision). By the way, at that time he took interest in Dobuzhinsky’s works, and embodied metaphysical anxiety in his subjects. Later he acquired and managed to depict an eschatological feeling in a ceremonial, classical Petersburg, the Petersburg of A.Ostroumova-Lebedeva, thus putting together the two opposite poles of St Petersburg iconography. It is the transpersonal worry, embodied in the stable harmony of classics, which gives delicate tragedy and sophisticated attraction to Boris Smelov’s still lives.
Boris Smelov is an iconic figure in Leningrad photography. For many photographers in 1970 -1980s he was an ideal craftsman, who, on one hand, was free from ideological environment, and on the other hand, formulated and solved artistic problems by means of photography, therefore he relieved photography from the craft restraints and introduced it into the family of fine arts. In pre-perestroika years Smelov was already recognized as a classic of Leningrad independent culture».
Not so long ago I asked Olga Korsunova: “Was Borya a fan of photography?”
“No, it was not fanaticism, it was a way of life”.