Ceramics

Mikhail Vrubel’s creative fascination with ceramics began in 1890, soon after his arrival in Moscow in autumn 1889. There, thanks to his old friends Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin, he became close with Savva Mamontov, a vivid and multifaceted character, someone who was possessed of a special sensitivity to new trends in art along with an ability to recognise talented people and understand the essence of their gift. A major entrepreneur and patron of the arts, in the 1870s and 1890s, he collected a circle of artists, later known as the Abramtsevo Circle, which spanned the generations: Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov, Viktor Vasnetsov and the sculptor Mark Antokolsky from the older generation; Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin, Yelena Polenova, Apollinary Vasnetsov, Mikhail Vrubel, Mikhail Nesterov and Ilya Ostroukhov, among others, from the younger generation.

The reign of Catherine the Great saw English faience in all its diversity take the Russian market by storm. Its attractive price, compared to porcelain, and superior artistic design made English faience extremely popular with the Russian nobility: indeed, as the natural scientist and diarist Andrei Bolotov wrote, by 1796 many had started “buying, and filling their homes with English faience crockery”. It was accepted as perfect for everyday purposes, combining quality, practicality and elegance, and by the 1830s faience was commonly found in many households. Unlike porcelain, which was reserved for special occasions, “Faience dinnerware is not a luxury: it is used every day,” the writer Yevdokim Ziablovsky wrote in his work “Russian Statistics”.

Valery Maloletkov, a famous master of contemporary applied arts, People’s Artist of Russia and member of the Russian Academy of Arts, recently celebrated his 70th birthday. Maloletkov’s work in ceramics, ranging from portraiture and genre scenes to works inspired by history and literature continues to expand the possibilities of the form. His artistic career started with a group of young ceramic artists at the Vorontsovo Experimental Design and Production Plant. Passionate about discovering new means of artistic expression, mastering different materials and techniques of decor, and widening the possible volume-spatial, plastic, constructive and colour possibilities of clay, he grew increasingly close to a number of talented Moscow artists, including Vadim Kosmachev, Vladimir Petrov, Lyudmila Soshinskaya, Tatyana Gan and Suren Malyan.

November 27 2010 marked the 160th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable Russian artist Yelena Dmitrievna Polenova (1850-1898), the sister of the famous landscape painter Vasily Polenov. To mark the artist’s anniversary, the Tretyakov Gallery prepared the exhibition titled “She lived in the magical world of the fairy tale”, which presented the most original and innovative of Polenova’s works, alongside archive documents, memorial photographs, books and magazines which revealed the artist’s singular social and artistic efforts.

THE GENIUS OF JOSIAH WEDGWOOD, THE 18TH-CENTURY BRITISH CERAMICIST WHOSE TASTES, AND TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS, CAME TO DEFINE THE ART OF HIS GENERATION, IS THE SUBJECT OF THE EXHIBITION "UNRIVALLED WEDGWOOD" AT MOSCOW'S MUSEUM OF THE APPLIED AND FOLK ARTS RUNNING THROUGH NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 2014, PART OF THE ONGOING UK-RUSSIA YEAR OF CULTURE. IT BRINGS TOGETHER WORKS FROM THE LADY LEVER ART GALLERY IN LIVERPOOL WITH PIECES FROM THE HERMITAGE AND OTHER RUSSIAN COLLECTIONS - CATHERINE THE GREAT WAS AMONG WEDGWOOD'S FIRST INTERNATIONAL COLLECTORS.