“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS

Askold Smirnov
"I hear the harp..."[1] The Era of Peter the Great and Its Role in the Evolution of Russian Music

#2 2022 (75)

The young Tsar Peter’s famed Grand Embassy, when the future Russian Emperor and his delegation toured Europe for 18 months, became a crucial factor in the evolution of Peter’s understanding of technology, politics and culture in general. It also broadened the overall education of his court. During this trip, the young sovereign and his companions were introduced to the kind of European music that was played to entertain the public in palaces and theatres, as well as to the traditions and latest trends for using music as part of palace ceremonies.

Yelena Mitrofanova
"Minutiae of Life" FROM PHOTOGRAPH TO 3D

#3 2021 (72)

There are certain quintessential artistic phenomena associated with the name Savva Mamontov that, to a great extent, defined cultural life in Russia in the 1880s and 1890s. These include the Abramtsevo (Mamontov) Artistic Circle, which made significant advances in set design, architecture, painting and decorative and applied art; the Russian Private Opera, the birthplace of the leading school of national set design and home to brilliant performers headed by Feodor Chaliapin; and the carpentry and ceramics workshops linked to Yelena Polenova and Mikhail Vrubel, which, in many ways, set the tone for Russian Art Nouveau.

Natella Voiskunski
Alexandra Khudyakova. "Love dolls like the Queen loved them"

#4 2019 (65)

The relatively new art of doll making has developed in a short space of time into a scintillating new form, combining aesthetic elements adopted from a range of older artistic genres with decorative attributes drawn from a wide perspective of history. This young form has reached a concentration of perfection in the work of Alexandra Khudyakova, an artist who creates a cornucopia of visual riches, one which can be as elaborate in its detail as it remains tantalizing and allusive in meaning.

 

Yekaterina Sosnina
Lermontov in Landscape. An issue of attribution relating to two watercolour landscapes among Mikhail Lermontov’s memorabilia from the poet’s Pyatigorsk museum

#4 2019 (65)

One of Russia’s oldest museums devoted to literature, the Lermontov Museum in Pyatigorsk was established in 1912 in the house where Lermontov spent the final months of his life and wrote his last poems. The famed “Lermontov House” itself has been preserved exactly as it was during the poet’s lifetime, while the museum itself currently consists of several sections situated in the four old estate houses on its compound.

Yelena Terkel
Vasily Polenov’s "The Patient". THE STORY OF GRIEF BEHIND THE PAINTING

#3 2019 (64)

“The Patient” differs significantly from the rest of Vasily Polenov’s work. A sophisticated landscape artist who also painted a number of works on New Testament themes, Polenov was fond of open spaces and light colours - his work, with few exceptions, feels imbued with joy, with positive emotions. “The Patient” is one such exception. He worked on the painting for some 13 years, during which time it closely reflected his personal sufferings: the artist was inspired by the loss of people to whom he was very close, both to begin the piece and later to resume work on it.

Zhanna Polansky
The "Ballets Russes" in lacework porcelain from the Thuringia factories

#2 2019 (63)

From the first factory production of porcelain figurines in Europe, ballet has been a favourite motif: porcelain is a perfect vehicle for conveying the dynamism, brightness of colour, and elaborateness of pose and gesture that is characteristic of the art form. Towards the end of the 19th century certain standard images of the ballerina began to develop, complete with indispensable attributes such as formal stage costume, the puffy tutu and pointe slippers. Its imagery became popular and continues to be drawn on by porcelain makers to this day.

Yulia Lisenkova
Judaica in Murano Glass

#2 2019 (63)

At the end of 2018, the “GRANY” Foundation published the album “Judaica. Murano Glass. Private Collection”, featuring about 300 items of Jewish ceremonial glassware produced by Venetian glassmakers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A major project brought together over many years, the unique quality of the collection is that all its pieces, which were intended for use in synagogues or in ceremonies at home, are made of glass - a material not widely associated with Judaica (unlike metals such as copper, brass, bronze and silver). Given its fragility and the fact that a great amount of such Jewish ceremonial ware was destroyed during World War II, such objects are rare. This extensively illustrated publication is the first of its kind to bring together so many pieces of Jewish glassware, complete with full descriptive texts in three languages (English, Russian, Hebrew).

Irina Medvedeva
"Living and working with Repin!" IN HIS MASTER’S FOOTSTEPS: THE LIFE AND ART OF MICHAEL WERBOFF

#1 2019 (62)

The artist Michael Alexander Werboff (1896-1996) began his creative life as a student of Ilya Repin. After leaving Russia in the first wave of emigration, his career flourished, first in France, then later in America: he went on to paint portraits of many outstanding individuals from world culture, as well as prominent public figures, including kings and presidents. Even as he gained recognition in the West, Werboff remained true to the traditions of Russian realist art, in particular to Repin’s influence as his mentor and spiritual father.

Dmitry Losev
FATHER OF THE TOWN. Ivan Aivazovsky and Feodosia: A Lifelong Attachment

#1 2017 (54)

The artistic accomplishments of Ivan Aivazovsky gained him renown throughout Russia, as well as further afield in Europe and America. Yet for all such international fame, his attachment to Feodosia, the small town in Crimea where he was born in 1817 and where he would spend the greater part of his life, never diminished: he was a model citizen, whose contributions to the development of Feodosia remain appreciable today.

 

Shahen Khachatrian
THE AIVAZOVSKY BROTHERS

#4 2016 (53)

Prominent cultural figures not only glorify the power of the human spirit and the creative power of genius, but their country of birth, too, or the national culture to which they belong. This was never more true than with Ivan Aivazovsky. The fate of the marine painter of international fame is set off in some specific sense by that of his elder brother, Gabriel Aivazovsky, an outstanding educator, teacher and pastor of the Armenian Church. The brothers were friends, they helped one another and always recognized the undertakings which brought success to each of them. Born into an Armenian family living in the town of Feodosia in Crimea, they later met in Venice in 1840 and agreed to spell and pronounce their last name, Gaivazovsky, in Russian as “Aivazovsky” and in Armenian as “Aivazian”. The contribution of both brothers to international, as well as Russian and Armenian culture is widely acknowledged.

Natalya Zhirkevich-Podlesskikh
At Ivan Aivazovsky’s

#4 2016 (53)

At the beginning of autumn 1890, my grandfather, Alexander Vladimirovich Zhirkevich, a military attorney and a beginning writer, came to the resort town of Yalta for treatment. As was customary in those days, he stayed there for a while. Treatment alone was not enough for his vivacious nature; he was curious to see various places of interest in the Crimea. He admired Ai-Petri Mountain, delighted in the sea views (“Will I see you again, charming land?”), and spent a day in Sevastopol. He would visit Sevastopol again soon, with his young wife Katya, who had come from Vilna to join him. By then he and Katya had been happily married for two years and they had a little son named Seryozha4, whom they lovingly called “Gulya” at home.

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE ONE WHO IS NOT AFRAID

#3 2016 (52)

The “Tretyakov Gallery Magazine” and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art have been collaborators since the latter’s opening, with articles on the shows of Antony Gormley and Mark Rothko, and the exhibition of works from Frangois Pinault’s collection appearing in these pages. Co-editor Natella Voiskounski met with Garage Chief Curator Kate Fowle recently to discuss Garage’s Louise Bourgeois exhibition - one of the major events of the past exhibition season, which introduced Moscow viewers to the artist’s works from the last two decades of her life. Bourgeois was among the very few artists who represented both modern and contemporary art - she belonged to the 20th and 21st centuries equally, both chronologically and artistically.

Anna Dyakonitsyna
THE SCULPTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF ANTONY GORMLEY

#2 2016 (51)

The work of Antony Gormley, a classic of contemporary British art, has long enjoyed worldwide recognition - today he is one of the most sought-after modern artists in the world. Every year, different countries host from five to ten new exhibitions of his sculptures, including large-scale open-air projects. Several of his works are permanently exhibited in the UK: among them the piece that brought fame to Gormley - “Angel of the North” (1998) with wings measuring 54 meters, in Gateshead in the North East of England, as well as “Quantum Cloud”, mounted in Greenwich by the Thames, and “Another Place”, sited in 2005 on Crosby Beach in Merseyside.

Marina Vaizey
Science into Art, Art into Science

#2 2016 (51)

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.

Natalya Ilyina, Olga Kovaleva
The Artist’s Wife: Olga Serova

#3 2015 (48)

The Department of Manuscripts of the Tretyakov Gallery has about one hundred letters written by the Russian artist Valentin Alexandrovich Serov to his wife Olga Fyodorovna Serova. Purchased from the couple’s daughter Olga Valentinovna Serova in the 1930s, they form a key part of the great artist’s documentary heritage, and although his wife’s letters have not survived, the collection is testimony to the huge affection Serov felt towards his life companion.

 

Publication by Ivan Shakhovskoy
From "Memoirs" by Maria Favorskaya (Derviz)

#3 2015 (48)

The painter and graphic artist Maria Favorskaya (1887-1959) wrote her “Memoirs” in the 1950s. Her father Vladimir (von) Derviz (1859-1937), a watercolour artist, studied at the Academy of Arts together with Valentin Serov and Mikhail Vrubel, who became his lifelong friends. Vladimir Derviz also graduated from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, and in 1885 he married Nadezhda Simonovich (1866-1908), Serov’s cousin. With his inheritance from his father, a St. Petersburg senator, Vladimir bought an estate close to Tver, Domotkanovo. Nadezhda had always wanted to live in the country, and her husband, while enjoying painting watercolours of the surrounding countryside, actively participated in the work of the “Zemstvo” (local council) and, until his wife’s death, in the improvement of his household and those of local peasants.

Suzanna Serova
A master of Children’s Portraiture

#3 2015 (48)

Artists have always been drawn to the singularity of childhood, that time in an individual’s life when one’s perception of the world is not yet clouded, and when a child looks at everything in it with happiness and trust. In Western European art, images of the Madonna and child express the inseparability of motherhood and childhood, the connection of both blood and spirit that demands protection, love and empathy.

 

Marina Vaizey
Science into Art, Art into Science

#4 2014 (45)

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.

Dorothy Moss
Contemporary Portraiture in the United States: Through the Lens of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's "Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition"

#2 2014 (43)

CULTURAL HYBRIDITY, IDENTITY, DIVERSITY, INNOVATION, TECHNOLOGY, ACCESSIBILITY, COMMUNITY - THESE ARE SOME OF THE KEY CONCEPTS AND CONCERNS THAT ARE NOT ONLY AT THE CORE OF THE SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY'S IMMEDIATE INITIATIVES BUT ARE ALSO PRESSING ISSUES IN BROADER DISCUSSIONS ABOUT GLOBALIZATION AND THE ROLE OF ART MUSEUMS IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY.

Natella Voiskounski
A Renaissance Assassinated

#2 2012 (35)

The exhibition "Boris Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv 1915-1931" at the Ukrainian Museum in New York explores the destinies of Kharkov modernism through the life and artwork of one of its most pre-eminent figures. The tally of years, as on a tombstone, defines the brief period of the development and flourishing of modernism in Kharkov.

Natella Voiskounski
The Cone Sisters: Collectors for Pleasure

#1 2012 (34)

The New York Jewish Museum's show last year, "Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore", proved breathtaking. The exhibition displayed only a small part of what has been called "a collection of collections" of exquisite paintings, graphic works, prints, sculpture, furniture, embroidery, rugs, and textiles. But the core of the collection, its pride and glory, is Matisse, whose portraiture, still-lifes, sculpture and landscapes were on view. The exhibition told the fascinating story of the two sisters who, led by a female instinct for buying beautiful and often useless — or at least unnecessary — things, developed a perfect taste for genuine art and became distinguished collectors of 19th- and 20th-century modern European art. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," wrote the British poet John Keats, and once the Cone sisters had experienced the joy of art, they cherished this sublime feeling throughout their lives.

Natalja Jevsejeva
A Shared Creativity
Romans Suta and Alexandra Belcova

#4 2011 (33)

There are a number of successful artistic couples in 20th-century Russian art: Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Mikhail Matyushin and Yelena Guro, Natalya Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, Alexander Drevin and Nadezhda Udaltsova, Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. Latvian art had Alexandra Belcova (Aleksandra Beltsova) (1892-1981) and Romans (Roman) Suta (1896-1944). Three years ago, in October 2008, their former apartment in Riga became a museum – due to the efforts of their daughter, Tatiana Suta, who preserved her parents’ art and, with the participation of the Latvian National Museum of Art, their vast collection of paintings, drawings and decorative porcelain can now be seen by the art-loving public.

Giovanna Dal Bon
The European Peregrination of Zoran Mušič

Special issue. ITALY–RUSSIA: ON THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES

Last December Venice paid homage to Zoran Mušič (1909-2005) with an exhibition, “Estreme figure”, commemorating the centenary of his birth. Hosted by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, it saluted an artist of international standing, viewed as one of the key figures of the 20th century, who hailed from Dalmatia and became Venetian by adoption. With an oeuvre spanning almost the whole of the last century, his austere, minimal style is indicative of a process of paring things down to their essence. The city on the lagoon proved a source of inspiration and constant point of reference for the artist throughout his career, as a place of fusion between East and West.

Natella Voiskounski
Man Ray – Alchemist of Art

Special issue N2. USA–RUSSIA: ON THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES

The Spring 2010 exhibition “Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention” at the Jewish Museum in New York was a highlight of the city's artistic season, revealing in particular the artist's Jewish identity. Man Ray, later titled a “prophet of the avant-garde” in America, was born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Pennsylvania, the eldest child in a Jewish family of Russian origin. Emmanuel was nicknamed “Manny”, and from 1912 onwards, when the Radnitzky family took the surname Ray, he began to use “Man Ray” to label himself as an artist; while never completely rejecting them, he nevertheless came to free himself from his familial roots. As Man Ray he concentrated on building up an artistic identity which found its realization in creative photography, the visual arts, film-making, poetry, literature and philosophy.

Natella Voiskounski
A LINE THROUGH TIME
FROM KAZIMIR MALEVICH TO JULIE MEHRETU

#1 2011 (30)

The exhibition “On Line: Drawing Through the 20th Century” was quite a notable event in New YorkÕs MOMA 2010-2011 calendar not so much because of the eye-catching works on display, but rather, for its cognitive value. The title given to it says much to an attentive and interested viewer who would recognize KandinskyÕs essay with the same title; besides, it uses a term from the Internet, a kind of a homonym that is familiar to everybody.
The second part of the title marks the scope of the introduction within a century-long period of transformation of drawing, its “groundbreaking history of an art form”, starting with revolutionary innovative processes at the beginning of the 20th century and following its development along the same lines up to the present day; it is formulated by “pushing the line of drawing into real space, expanding its relationship to gesture and form and invigorating its links with painting and sculpture, photography and film, and, notably, dance and performance”.

Natella Voiskounski
Man Ray – Alchemist of Art

#2 2010 (27)

The Spring 2010 exhibition “Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention” at the Jewish Museum in New York was a highlight of the city's artistic season, revealing in particular the artist's Jewish identity. Man Ray, later titled a “prophet of the avant-garde” in America, was born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Pennsylvania, the eldest child in a Jewish family of Russian origin. Emmanuel was nicknamed “Manny”, and from 1912 onwards, when the Radnitzky family took the surname Ray, he began to use “Man Ray” to label himself as an artist; while never completely rejecting them, he nevertheless came to free himself from his familial roots. As Man Ray he concentrated on building up an artistic identity which found its realization in creative photography, the visual arts, film-making, poetry, literature and philosophy.

Giovanna Dal Bon
The European Peregrination of Zoran Mušič

№1 2010 (26)

Last December Venice paid homage to Zoran Mušič (1909-2005) with an exhibition, “Estreme figure”, commemorating the centenary of his birth. Hosted by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, it saluted an artist of international standing, viewed as one of the key figures of the 20th century, who hailed from Dalmatia and became Venetian by adoption. With an oeuvre spanning almost the whole of the last century, his austere, minimal style is indicative of a process of paring things down to their essence. The city on the lagoon proved a source of inspiration and constant point of reference for the artist throughout his career, as a place of fusion between East and West.

Alexander S.C. Rower
Calder: Sculptor of Air

№4 2009 (25)

From 23 October 2009 to 14 February 2010 the Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome) will present over 160 works by Alexander Calder, including mobiles, stabiles, monumental sculpture, oil and gouache paintings, bronze, wire and wood sculptures and jewelry in an exhibition curated by Alexander S.C. Rower, President of the Calder Foundation.

Anna Dyakonitsyna
And the White Snow as a Clean Sheet of Paper…

№4 2009 (25)

Shortly before the Christmas and New Year celebrations, a show of Francisco Infante and Nonna Goryunova titled “Snow Meridian” opened at the Krymsky Val building of the Tretyakov Gallery. It is mounted in a special project section, which is the final stop in the enfilade on the upper storey housing the permanent exhibition “20th-century Art” and also serves as an entry to the section of the newest art trends located on the first storey. The borderline position of the exhibition space – between modern and contemporary art, tradition and experiment – determines the context framing the contemporary artists' exhibition as a part of the personal shows programme.

Anatoly Vilkov
Return of a National Treasure

№4 2009 (25)

Any visitor to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow will surely have noticed the icon of the “Virgin Hodegetria with Scenes of Her Life”; set in a case with a glass front panel, the icon is in a place of honour, to the right from the altar, in a cabinet specially made for the purpose. The discreet setting of the icon, by way of sharp contrast, strongly highlights the mighty spiritual force emanating from this sublime image. Few people know today that already in the 16th century the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria became known as a miracle worker, and in the 17th century its fame spread all over Russia.

Jasper Rees
Succession at the Met

№3 2009 (24)

For decades, no figure in the museum world has been better known or more highly esteemed than Philippe de Montebello. On 31 December of last year, after 31 years as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he stepped down from his post. A day later, it fell to a new director to fill his shoes. As if Thomas P. Campbell was not already aware of the task ahead, an exhibition at the Met enshrined in six crowded rooms showed just how high the bar had been set.

Karen Lemmey
Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

№2 2009 (23)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was the foremost American sculptor of the late 19th century. From humble roots, through his prodigious talent, he rose in society, eventually counting some of Americaʼs most influential figures in art and literature, diplomacy and economics, technology and social policy among his friends and patrons. The exhibition “Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art”, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 30 June through 15 November 2009, draws from the Museumʼs collection of nearly four dozen works by the accomplished artist, many of which were acquired directly from the sculptor or from his widow, soon after his death in 1907. Organized thematically within a chronological framework, the exhibition charts his illustrious career with works representing the entire range of his oeuvre, from early cameos to innovative painterly bas-reliefs, to character-penetrating portrait busts and statuettes derived from his public monuments.

 

 

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