I.S. Ostroukhov

Ilya Semenovich Ostroukhov was a leading collector in the Moscow art world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His collection, which later became the Icons and Paintings Museum, located in Ostroukhov's home on Trubnikovsky Pereulok near the Arbat, was referred to in a 1914 city-guide as one of Moscow's foremost attractions[1], and was frequented by art lovers, which gave considerable trouble, as well as pleasure, to its owner. Ostroukhov was by that time a well-known landscape artist, first actively involved in the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers) movement, who later rebelled against and broke with that group, creating in 1903 together with fellow malcontents who had split from the movement the Union of Russian Artists, concentrated primarily on the Moscow tradition of painting.

Sergei Diaghilev, whose aim was to popularize Russian art, looked up to the selfless enthusiast Pavel Tretyakov, who devoted his whole life to collecting Russian art. From the very start Tretyakov inspired in Diaghilev a great respect. In 1901 Diaghilev wrote in an article “On Russian Museums”: “Studying the superb collection of the Moscow gallery, one can easily notice that Tretyakov, for all his sensitivity and fondness of his creation, nevertheless belonged to a certain time... He felt it was his duty to showcase all of Russian art... Thus, his collection is an amazingly comprehensive journal spanning 30 years of his life as a collector.”

THE COLLECTION OF IVAN POKHITONOV'S LETTERS TO PAVEL TRETYAKOV AND ILYA OSTROUKHOV AT THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY'S DEPARTMENT OF MANUSCRIPTS IS THE MOST COHERENT SET OF DOCUMENTS TO BE FOUND IN THE BODY OF ARCHIVAL MATERIALS, INCLUDING LETTERS, BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION, COMMENTS AND REVIEWS, RELATING TO POKHITONOV'S LIFE AND ART. OTHER COLLECTIONS INCLUDE THOSE AT THE CENTRAL ARCHIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART (MOSCOW), THE RUSSIAN MUSEUM'S DEPARTMENT OF MANUSCRIPTS (ST. PETERSBURG), THE ARCHIVE OF THE KOVALENKO REGIONAL ART MUSEUM IN KRASNODAR, AND THE STATE ARCHIVE OF THE KRASNODAR REGION (KRASNODAR). THESE LETTERS REVEAL NEW DETAILS OF THE ARTIST'S BIOGRAPHY AND SHED LIGHT ON MANY ASPECTS OF HIS CREATIVE METHODS.