Museum

Russian art forms one of the most significant parts of the Art Museum of Estonia's foreign art collection in terms of both the number of exhibits and their artistic and historical value. It includes about 350 paintings, 120 sculptures, 870 engravings and drawings and around 200 items of applied art, created between the 17th century and the 1950s. Despite the large number of works, they do not form a single whole reflecting the development paths of Russian art, but are rather a reflection of the complicated history of the formation of the collection. The museum's Russian art collection includes both valuable works by famous masters and unassuming creations by third-rate, nearly forgotten painters. Many items in this collection need complementary research, attribution or reattribu-tion, or closer definition of a work's title or creation period.

The opening of the Paul Klee Centre in Bern in July 2005 was an important page in the history of 21st century museum life. In the eyes of its creators, this contemporary museum was to act as a cultural forum, enabling visitors to develop their creative potential through in-depth acquaintance with the artistic legacy of Paul Klee.

In June 2010 the town of Plyos marked its 600th anniversary. 50 years ago, in 1960, the day for the festivities was set on August 30, which coincided with the centenary of the birth of Isaac Levitan, the illustrious landscape artist. Many artists from Moscow and the city of Ivanovo responded to the artist Boris Prorokov's call to donate their paintings to Plyos. The new picture gallery, an establishment operated on pro bono basis, was opened in 1961; initially it was accommodated at a Plyos agricultural college, on Sobornaya Hill, in a building which before the revolution was occupied by a governmental agency. Later, in 1962, the gallery moved to the Voskresensky church near Torgovaya Square, not far from a boat quay.

2012 has been a great year for the arts in Oslo – and in Norway. The new museum at Tjuvholmen (Thieves’ Islet) with its expected “Astrup Fearnley effect” should change the art scene in Oslo. Some of the city’s best galleries have already moved out to be under its wings and more will follow. With its density and its attractiveness to also other creative industries, not to mention all side-effects such as cafés, restaurants and shops, it will establish this new part of the city in years to come as Oslo’s first “gallery district”. Similar developments have previously happened in several cities around Europe, where the arrival of a major art institution has become a new hub of the creative wheel: London’s Tate Modern is such an example, where previously derelict neighbourhoods around the old power station were revitalized, and today are jointly presented as “Better Bankside”.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS IN RUSSIA WAS AN INITIATIVE OF PETER THE GREAT. WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION'S NEW CAPITAL, THERE WAS AN INCREASING NEED TO LEARN ABOUT EUROPEAN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL TRADITION, AND THE MASSIVE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS GENERATED A DEMAND FOR QUALIFIED ARCHITECTS AND PAINTERS. THE WORKFORCE OF EUROPEAN PROFESSIONALS RECRUITED FOR THE TASK SOON PROVED INSUFFICIENT IN NUMBER, AND A SCHOOL OF DRAWING, CALLED "THE ACADEMY" BY PETER, WAS SET UP UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ST. PETERSBURG PRINTING-HOUSE. HOWEVER, THE TSAR ENVISIONED AN INSTITUTION OF LEARNING WITH A CURRICULUM INCLUDING ARTS, SCIENCES AND CRAFTS.