Portrait

In 2008, the Alexander Radishchev Art Museum in Saratov acquired a graphite pencil drawing, on a small sheet of yellowed paper (19 x 13.5 cm), that was catalogued as “I. Repin (?). Portrait of a Man”. It depicts a middle-aged man in pince-nez sitting at a table; he is holding a pencil, or perhaps a quill, in his right hand, and resting his chin on his left hand. The man’s head is turned to the left ever so slightly - deep in thought, he does not look at the viewer; his hair is a little dishevelled, and he seems ready to get back to his work. The artist’s signature and the date, “Ilya Repin. 90”, are in the lower right-hand corner, with “23 Apr.” inscribed below, in the centre of the sheet. An attribution of such significance clearly required confirmation by specialists: this article follows attempts to establish the provenance of the work.

Marking the 175th anniversary of the birth of Ilya Repin (1844-1930), the Tretyakov Gallery is staging a major exhibition of the artist’s works on Krymsky Val. Running until August 2019, it brings together more than 170 paintings and 130 drawings from 27 Russian and foreign museums as well as a number of private collections, featuring both works for which Repin has always been famous and pieces that will be new to the general viewer, including some never shown at the Tretyakov before. Presented chronologically, it follows the evolution of the artist’s career from his academic period through to his final compositions of the 1920s. It gives particular prominence to Repin’s large-scale paintings “dedicated to Russia” - to the fate and fortunes of its prominent individuals, to the Russian people as an entity, and to the nation itself - that cover the period from the aftermath of the 1860s reforms through to the revolutions of the 20th century.

The exhibition “Masterpieces of Russian Graphics from the Collection of the Historical Museum. Drawings and Watercolours, 18th-19th Century” at the Tretyakov Gallery showcases the volume and quality of the graphic art held by this unique Moscow institution. It offers a comprehensive and lively overview of a vast and diverse collection, tracing the evolution of Russian graphic art from its inception in the 18th century through to the end of the 19th century.

The exhibition’s title makes clear that this is the first truly extensive show of works by the brilliant Italian master in Russia. The artistic legacy of Modigliani is scattered all over the world, in museums and private collections - and only international exhibition projects would have a chance to present any significant number of works by this artist, even if for a limited time only. Over 20 museums and private collections in Europe and America participated in the Moscow project. Ultimately, the exhibition organizers have managed to present 25 paintings, one sculpture, and 27 drawings, accompanied with the archive materials. (Russian museums own only two works of the master - drawings in the Pushkin Museum collection).

Dmitry Zhilinsky (1927-2015) is rightly considered a key figure in the history of Russian art. His unique artistic method emerged as a truly extraordinary reflection of its time and provided a new direction for the Soviet school of painting for decades to come. When, soon after he painted them in the mid-1960s, Zhilinsky first showed his "Group Portrait of Student Sculptors", "By the Sea. Family", and particularly "Gymnasts of the USSR", he was acclaimed as one of the principal innovators among Soviet artists of his time.