Museum

Created in 1895 following an instruction from Tsar Nicholas II, the “Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III” publicly opened to big fanfare on March 7 (19, in the Old Calendar) 1898. From the very start the museum became a unique collection of true masterpieces of Russian art and a centre of enlightenment. The backbone of the collection was formed by the works of St. Petersburg masters that rank among the greatest accomplishments of Russia’s national artistic culture.

The epochal exhibition “Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky” runs at London’s National Portrait Gallery until June 26, bringing the pride of Russia’s 19th-century cultural pantheon to the UK. Its British curator Rosalind P. Blakesley recalls the origins, development and ambitions of this major Anglo-Russian cultural collaboration.

A landmark event happened on August 23 2008 in the village of Eliseikovo, in the Petushinsky District near Vladimir - the Levitan House of Landscape opened.

In the very heart of Paris, in the neighbourhood of New Athens, not far from the noisy and notorious Moulin Rouge cabaret, there is a Museum of Romantic Life (Musee de la Vie Romantique). A quiet patio on Rue Chaptal shelters an elegant mansion with a small garden closely planted with sweet-smelling roses and blooming mallows. The house was home to the Dutch artist Ary Scheffer1, who settled here after the July Revolution of 1830.

Russian artists, or as they are usually referred to “artists of Russian origin" - those who left Russia for good at the beginning ofthe 20 th century, and won recognition and fame abroad and whose artworks are represented in almost all world-famous museum collections - no doubt constitute an invaluable part of the Russian cultural heritage. Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), a renowned sculptor of the 20th century, is no exception. His bright extraordinary creative activity started in France and ended in the USA. In 1928, the outstanding Russian art critic Abram Efros called Lipchitz's sculptural work "the highest and most dominant point of the Russian intrusion" into the art of the West. Lipchitz became one of the most notable adepts and advocates of Cubism and he persistently applied Cubist principles in his works, gaining enthusiastic recognition from both connoisseurs and the general public. Over time Lipchitz drew back from the movement, though in his monumental and easel works continued to visualize expressive deformations of organic natural forms, boldly shifting flat planes, resulting in a structural angularity; later he came to a looser spatial play. Lipchitz's first solo exhibition was held in 1920 and many have followed since then. After his grand exhibition at New York’s MOMA, retrospective exhibitions have been organized all over the world - at the Tate Gallery in London, in many European cities, as well as in Israel and the USA. Lipchitz's sculptures are eyecatching attractions of many a square and public building, and the artist was decorated with special awards from a number of academies and universities. In 1946 Lipchitz was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honour. Lipchitz's heritage is carefully preserved in many museums, some of which are world famous, while others are of regional importance, like the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson, Arizona, situated close to the Mexican border. The author of the article, devoted to the unique collection of the sculptor’s work, is Dr. Lisa Fischman, Chief Curator of the University of Arizona Museum of Art.