Portrait

Valentin Serov’s drawings at the Tretyakov Gallery

Maria Krivenko

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2015 (48)

Marking the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth, the Valentin Serov exhibition distinctly divides the gallery space into two sections - his paintings and drawings. Such a decision is dictated by the unique nature of Serov’s gift, as one of the few Russian artists who excelled equally in these two forms.

Valentin Serov’s drawings at the Tretyakov Gallery

Marking the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth, the Valentin Serov exhibition distinctly divides the gallery space into two sections - his paintings and drawings. Such a decision is dictated by the unique nature of Serov’s gift, as one of the few Russian artists who excelled equally in these two forms.

“The Most Moving Painter of the Human Face”

Olga Atroshchenko

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2015 (48)

The Tretyakov Gallery has prepared a major exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of Valentin Serov’s birth, with the works of the prominent Russian artist displayed on two levels at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val until January 17 2016. Serov proved himself as a remarkable easel and monumental painter, and graphic artist, as well as a theatre and applied arts designer. He painted landscapes and historical compositions, illustrated books and designed stage productions, but his portraiture dominated. His art made an enormous contribution to the formation of new movements, namely the Russian versions of Impressionism and Art Nouveau.

“The Most Moving Painter of the Human Face”

The Tretyakov Gallery has prepared a major exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of Valentin Serov’s birth, with the works of the prominent Russian artist displayed on two levels at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val until January 17 2016.

THE FORCE OF TRUTH. The Tkachev Brothers

Anna Dyakonitsyna

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#1 2011 (30)

A retrospective exhibition of the artist-brothers Alexei and Sergei Tkachev, running in the Engineering Wing of the Tretyakov Gallery from April 15 through July 17, presents the oeuvre of two figures who in many respects define the trajectories of the Russian school of painting in the second half of the 20th and at the start of the 21st centuries. The exhibition features around 180 pieces representative of the main stages of their work and the main directions of their artistic explorations. The pictures on view include large-scale “exemplary” compositions, the results of the brothers’ collective effort from the gallery’s collection, as well as earlier paintings, from their Moscow studio, created by one or the other brother independently, and a large assortment of sketches. All this is but a fraction of the vast body of work created by the artists who continue working to this day.

THE FORCE OF TRUTH. The Tkachev Brothers

A retrospective exhibition of the artist-brothers Alexei and Sergei Tkachev, running in the Engineering Wing of the Tretyakov Gallery from April 15 through July 17, presents the oeuvre of two figures who in many respects define the trajectories of the Russian school of painting in the second half of the 20th and at the start of the 21st centuries. The exhibition features around 180 pieces representative of the main stages of their work and the main directions of their artistic explorations.

DRAWING TECHNIQUE: From Orest Kiprensky to Kazimir Malevich

Irina Shumanova, Yevgenia Ilyukhina

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#1 2011 (30)

Pencil drawing is one of the oldest art forms, the source of all visual arts, recording the inception of an idea and the stages of its further development. But drawing also has a life of its own as an independent art form with a distinctive language, specific rules and history. Pencils come in many different varieties - silver, lead, graphite, black chalk, wax, coloured pencils, lithographic pencils and other types - and the word also refers to a large number of similar media which can be categorized as the techniques of “dry drawing”, like charcoal, sanguine and sauce. There is an almost limitless variety of techniques involving the use of these materials, and they serve to show off a particular artist’s individuality, sense of form, innate talent and level of skills. A drawing in pencil, charcoal, sanguine or sauce is the best reflection of its creator’s temperament and character. From the vast variety of pencil and pencil-related techniques every epoch chooses those that suit it best. The age of classicism treasured the austere beauty of linear drawing, romanticism - the contrasts and the picturesque quality of strokes; for the “Peredvizhniki” (Wanderers) artists, pencils were “modest workers”, and the modernist movement re-invented the selfsufficiency of lines and the aesthetic value of the process of drawing as such.

DRAWING TECHNIQUE: From Orest Kiprensky to Kazimir Malevich

The Tretyakov Gallery thanks Ivan Kardashidi for support of the exhibition

Anna Antonova, Lydia Tornstensen and Yevgenia Plotnikova also contributed to the publication.

Pencil drawing is one of the oldest art forms, the source of all visual arts, recording the inception of an idea and the stages of its further development. But drawing also has a life of its own as an independent art form with a distinctive language, specific rules and history.

Ilya Mashkov - Nikolai Zagrekov A Master and His Disciple

Olga Malkova

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#2 2011 (31)

The exhibition “A Master and His Disciple” opened at the Mashkov Fine Art Museum in Volgograd on June 10 2011. It charts the relationship between the Soviet master Ilya Mashkov, and his pupil Nikolai Zagrekov, who studied under Mashkov at Vkhutemas, the Arts and Crafts Workshops, from 1919 to 1921. Zagrekov went on to work and achieve fame in Germany, and the exhibition addresses points of comparison between the subsequent work of the “teacher” and the “pupil”.

Ilya Mashkov - Nikolai Zagrekov A Master and His Disciple

The exhibition “A Master and His Disciple” opened at the Mashkov Fine Art Museum in Volgograd on June 10 2011. It charts the relationship between the Soviet master Ilya Mashkov, and his pupil Nikolai Zagrekov, who studied under Mashkov at Vkhutemas, the Arts and Crafts Workshops, from 1919 to 1921. Zagrekov went on to work and achieve fame in Germany, and the exhibition addresses points of comparison between the subsequent work of the “teacher” and the “pupil”.

America in Leon Bakst’s Life and Art

Yelena Terkel

Article: 
EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATIONS
Magazine issue: 
#2 2011 (31)

America in the eyes of the artists, actors and musicians of the Silver Age of Russian culture was an enigmatic and fabulously rich country - a country to go to on a tour or to earn money. Only a handful of such artists gradually came to view the New World as not just a source of income but also as a special cultural hub with distinct traditions and roots. One such was Leon Bakst, the Russian artist of international renown who spent the second half of his life in France.

America in Leon Bakst’s Life and Art

America in the eyes of the artists, actors and musicians of the Silver Age of Russian culture was an enigmatic and fabulously rich country - a country to go to on a tour or to earn money. Only a handful of such artists gradually came to view the New World as not just a source of income but also as a special cultural hub with distinct traditions and roots. One such was Leon Bakst, the Russian artist of international renown who spent the second half of his life in France.

Pavel Tretyakov: The Collector’s Library

Zoya Shergina

Article: 
HERITAGE
Magazine issue: 
#2 2011 (31)

On the history of the collection of books in the
Tretyakov Gallery’s academic library

In agreement with Pavel Tretyakov’s will, after his death in 1898, some of the books from his personal library became the property of the gallery, which had earlier been donated to the city of Moscow. There are several surviving documents that refer to this transfer. The most important is a 19-sheet “Inventory of Pavel Tretyakov’s Library”, rounded off with a handwritten note confirming that “the books and art publications listed herein were delivered by Pavel Tretyakov’s heir and included into the library of the Gallery of brothers Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov on November 1 1899”, signed by Ilya Ostroukhov and Yegor Khruslov1. This date can be regarded as the founding date of the modern academic library of the Tretyakov Gallery. Over time Tretyakov’s personal collection of books was complemented with a large number of publications acquired later. Today it is kept as a separate memorial fund2 - what sort of book collection had it been, and what part of it is deposited in the academic library?

Pavel Tretyakov: The Collector’s Library

Once more the fingers touched the cherished pages;
My heart is stirred again - I’m aflutter,
What if a wind or other person’s hand
Dash the withered flowers I thought I’d hidden for ages.

Afanasy Fet

Pyotr Zakharov-Chechenets in the Tretyakov Gallery: A Historical Chronicle

Lyudmila Markina

Article: 
EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATIONS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2011 (32)

I came across the idea of this article by sheer chance, when a group of reporters from Grozny “descended” upon the Tretyakov Gallery. Unprepared, I was to give an interview about the art of Pyotr Zakharov-Chechenets. In the introductory room, my attention was caught by an old photograph featuring the interior of the gallery in 1898, which showed that Zakharov-Chechenets’s portraits fitted in perfectly with those hanging beside them, including masterpieces of Russian art of the 1830s-1840s by Karl Briullov and Fyodor Brum. Almost all of his best works in the collection were purchased by Pavel Tretyakov. What was it that attracted the demanding collector? Images of the people who were “dear to the nation’s heart”? Or the quality of the artist’s craftsmanship? How, and under what circumstances, were his paintings acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery? Looking for answers, I researched at the department of manuscripts of the Tretyakov Gallery, and in the newspaper and dissertation departments of the Russian National Library.

Pyotr Zakharov-Chechenets in the Tretyakov Gallery: A Historical Chronicle

I came across the idea of this article by sheer chance, when a group of reporters from Grozny “descended” upon the Tretyakov Gallery. Unprepared, I was to give an interview about the art of Pyotr Zakharov-Chechenets. In the introductory room, my attention was caught by an old photograph featuring the interior of the gallery in 1898, which showed that Zakharov-Chechenets’s portraits fitted in perfectly with those hanging beside them, including masterpieces of Russian art of the 1830s-1840s by Karl Briullov and Fyodor Brum.

Nikolai Ge: Iconography. The Artist’s Image in Self-portraits and Portraits by His Contemporaries

Elmira Akhmerova

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2011 (32)

Vibrant and extraordinary, Nikolai Ge’s personality fascinated his contemporaries. His image is captured in numerous portraits by two generations of artists - Ivan Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Grigory Myasoyedov, Nikolai Yaroshenko, as well as Leonid Pasternak, Viktor Borisov-Musatov, Nikolai Ulyanov, and Alexander Kurennoi. There are also Ge’s self-portraits and photographs from different stages of his life. Many of his contemporaries left written descriptions of Ge’s appearance - the list includes his friends and students, fellow artists, and the family of Leo Tolstoy, with whom the artist became especially close during the last ten years of his life.

Nikolai Ge: Iconography.

Vibrant and extraordinary, Nikolai Ge’s personality fascinated his contemporaries. His image is captured in numerous portraits by two generations of artists - Ivan Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Grigory Myasoyedov, Nikolai Yaroshenko, as well as Leonid Pasternak, Viktor Borisov-Musatov, Nikolai Ulyanov, and Alexander Kurennoi. There are also Ge’s self-portraits and photographs from different stages of his life.

Pavel Tretyakov and Nikolai Ge

Tatiana Yudenkova

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2011 (32)

The relationship between Pavel Tretyakov and Nikolai Ge has never been examined in any detail in publications devoted to the art collector. Alexandra Botkina barely touches upon the subject in her memoir, while Sofia Goldstein states definitely that Ge’s late work, so highly valued by Leo Tolstoy, was never appreciated by Tretyakov. When art experts write about Ge, they stress that the master’s art stood alone as original and ahead of its time, deeming the details of the relationship between the artist and the collector less of a priority.

Pavel Tretyakov and Nikolai Ge

The relationship between Pavel Tretyakov and Nikolai Ge has never been examined in any detail in publications devoted to the art collector. Alexandra Botkina barely touches upon the subject in her memoir, while Sofia Goldstein states definitely that Ge’s late work, so highly valued by Leo Tolstoy, was never appreciated by Tretyakov.1 When art experts write about Ge, they stress that the master’s art stood alone as original and ahead of its time, deeming the details of the relationship between the artist and the collector less of a priority.2

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