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The State Russian Museum Exhibits Great Art From Foreign Collections |
| February 16th, 2010 01:35:05 am |
St. Petersburg, Russia - The State Russian Museum opened the Time to Gather exhibition in the Benois Wing of the Mikhailovsky Palace. The exhibition comprises more than 300 works of art from private collections of Europe and the USA, including about 200 paintings, graphic and sculptural works, 80 objects of decorative and applied art and 50 photographs. Not a single museum, even as large as the Russian Museum or the Tretyakov Gallery, can amass all the national wealth. Unfortunately, the lacunae in the major museum collections are inevitable. The exhibition will be on display till May 12, 2008.
It is our great fortune that people of different class and social standing all over the world are inclined to surround themselves with works of art. Some of them admire separate works of art embellishing the walls of their rooms while others, enjoying the process of art collecting itself, form sort of small or even large museums. More often than not, such collections significantly add to the museum funds. Regrettably, the viewers, even though they have an access to private collections can, possibly, acquaint themselves only with the individual artworks contributed to various shows. That's why today, when the collections of major museums are already well known through exhibits, exhibitions and publications, the time has come to introduce the viewers to the wealth kept in private hands and inaccessible for them.
 The Russian Museum intends to hold a whole cycle of exhibitions dedicated to private collections. We shall begin this series with the showing of Russian artworks owned by foreign collectors. All of the artworks happened to be outside Russia at different time, though, taken out of the country absolutely legally, without breaking any laws or code of ethics.
Those people who collect Russian art abroad are its committed admirers. Most of them started their search for artworks at the time when in America, England or Germany they knew about Russian art almost nothing. First and foremost, one has to possess keen understanding and taste to appreciate the merits of this or that artwork or an artist.
There aren't too many foreigners among such people. For most of them Russia is their former homeland. They know and love Russian art from their childhood. Having emigrated to America, England, Israel, Germany or elsewhere, they've retained their love for and devotion to the art of their roots.
However, there are foreign collectors of Russian artworks today who have no ethnic or historical connection to Russia. The first exhibition dedicated to Russian art from foreign collections comprised painting, sculpture and graphic art of the 18th - mid 20th centuries, objects of decorative and applied art and photography.
 To see authentic works which were formerly unknown is always a great fortune, especially the works by such Russian artists as Fyodor Rokotov, Orest Kiprensky, Alexei Venetsianov, Vladimir Borovikovsky, Alexander Ivanov, Ivan Shishkin, Valentin Serov, Ilya Repin and Konstantin Korovin.
Moreover, any newly discovered work reveals unexpected facets in the creative personae of the artists and contributes to our knowledge of history of Russian art in general. Within the walls of the Russian Museum, with their authenticity being expertly proved, these works will now begin a new life.
The gold and silver items constitute one of the most interesting sections of the exhibition. Many of such items are authentic rarities of historical and artistic significance. Many exhibits, including those from the workshops of Faberg, are a true revelation to the art connoisseurs and to the experts as well. Unfortunately, due to our national history reasons, the collections of the State Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery lack the entire layers of important artistic trends and movements represented here, such as painterly and graphic works created by Alexander Yakovlev, Dmitry Stelletsky, Boris Anisfeld, Phillip Malyavin, Yury Annenkov and Pavel Mansouroff after their departure from Russia.
The State Russian Museum today is a unique depository of artistic treasures, a leading restoration center, an authoritative institute of academic research, a major educational center and the nucleus of a network of national museums of art.
The Russian Museum collection contains circa 400.000 exhibits. The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art. Visit The State Russian Museum at : http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/museum/ |
Source Reference
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/State_Russian_Museum_Foreign_Collections.html |
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