Tretyakov Gallery

Sergei Diaghilev, whose aim was to popularize Russian art, looked up to the selfless enthusiast Pavel Tretyakov, who devoted his whole life to collecting Russian art. From the very start Tretyakov inspired in Diaghilev a great respect. In 1901 Diaghilev wrote in an article “On Russian Museums”: “Studying the superb collection of the Moscow gallery, one can easily notice that Tretyakov, for all his sensitivity and fondness of his creation, nevertheless belonged to a certain time... He felt it was his duty to showcase all of Russian art... Thus, his collection is an amazingly comprehensive journal spanning 30 years of his life as a collector.”

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.

The Tretyakov Gallery celebrated this anniversary, a major event for our museum community, at its conference centre on December 21 2015. During the decade of its existence, the Pavel Tretyakov Award has been bestowed on 30 individuals whose lives have all been inextricably linked to this very museum, and who revere the name of Pavel Tretyakov.

The publication of the "Spain-Russia" special issue of the "Tretyakov Gallery" Magazine and its presentation on October 26 2015 at the Tretyakov Gallery's Mikhail Vrubel Hall was a major event in the "On the Crossroads of Cultures" programme of the GRANY Foundation.

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?