#3 2010 (28)

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The life story of Isaac Levitan as an artist is in many respects similar to the life stories of other graduates of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Most of them offspring of peasants or bankrupt merchants, and very few from noble families, they usually came to Moscow from the remote provinces practically penniless, and often, after the loss of parents, like Levitan.

Levitan started using pastel sticks very early on. His youthful pieces such as the images of the little girls Nadya Yakovleva (1880, Russian Museum) and Lena Nenarokova (1880, Tretyakov Gallery) already have delicate pastel inclusions. However, it was not before the 1890s that Levitan's pastel explorations truly reached their creative peak. Among the pastels currently known and dated by the artist himself, "Storm" (1890, private collection, Moscow) is the earliest. From 1890 on Levitan created a number of remarkable pieces which established him as one of the premier masters of pastel art of the late 19th century.

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.

When in 1839 the world learned about the invention of photography, most artists did not think long before they recognized it as a purely scientific discovery. Few, if any, thought that photography would have an impact on the art of painting. Although the first photographs were the result of the collaboration between a scientist and an artist, and later many professional painters became photographers, and photography significantly influenced the art of painting, for a long time the artistic community was “opposed” to photography. However, if we look back at the state of painting prior to 1839, we can see a whole range of developments that seem to have broken the ground for the emergence of the new art.

The summer exhibition “Miró. The Colours of Poetry” at the Museum Frieder Burda (2 July to 14 November 2010) is dedicated to the artist Joan Miró, and shows around 100 works by the Catalan artist who so strongly influenced 20th century art. The pictures cover six decades of Miró’s work, and are drawn from various private collections and museums from all over the world. A large number of works owned by the Miró family itself are shown as well, a rarity in itself, while others come from the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca. The exhibition was curated by the worldwide expert on sculpture Jean-Louis Prat, a close friend of Miró who organized exhibitions for him during his lifetime, while the artist’s grandchild Joan Punyet Miró attended its opening.