April 8 – June 10, 2016
The Jewish Museum presents the first large-scale exhibition project of the Avant-garde Center supervised by Andrey Sarabyanov – the unique collection of Avant-garde art collected in the regional museums of 19 cities: Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Elets, Ivanovo, Kirov, Kozmodemyansk, Kostroma, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Rostov, Samara, Saratov, Slobodskoy, Totma, Ufa, Cheboksary, Yaroslavl.
The pioneering project of the Fine Art Department of the People’s commissariat for education dedicated to the establishment of the Fine Art Museums contributed a lot to the appearance of the Avant-garde collection. It was initiated in 1918 by Vasily Kandinsky and supported by Alexander Rodchenko. The idea of creation of Contemporary Art Museums appeared in the world art sphere for the first time. To support the idea a special commission was buying paintings of the Avant-garde artists during several years and distributed them among the cities with art schools. 1926 paintings of 415 artists were bought from 1918 to 1920, 1211 of them were distributed among 30 museums of Russia. The plan of the Fine Art Department of the People’s commissariat for education was in tune with the utopian ideas of the early revolutionary years and like many undertakings of that period was soon rejected. However the project allowed to gather unique collections of Avant-garde in many Russian museums.
The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center sel ected more than 100 works of the acknowledged classics of Avant-garde: Kazimir Malevich, Vasily Kandinsky, Mikhail Larionov, Natalya Goncharova, Lubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Marc Chagall and less known masters: Victor Bart, Alexey Grischenko, Moisey Cogan, Alexey Morugov, Savely Schleifer and many others from the collection of the regional museum of Russia for this exhibition, all of them contributed a lot to the history of Russian Avant-garde art. A part of the works was specially restored for this exhibition.
This exhibition is the first from the two exhibitions dedicated to the collections of the regional museums. It covers the period fr om the establishment of Avant-garde in the middle of 1900s to 1918. The second part will cover the next decade (1918-1930s); it is planned for spring 2017.
The artists presented: Vladimir Baranov-Rossine, Victor Vart, Barbara Bubnova, David Burliuk, Natalya Goncharova, Boris Grigoriev, Aleksey Grischenko, Vasily Denisov, Kostantin Dydyshko, Anna Zelmanova, Vasily Kandinsky, Ivan Kliun, Moisey Cogan, Aleksey Kokel, Petr Konchalovsky, Aleksey Kravchenko, Pavel Kuznetsov, Aleksey Kuprin, Mikhail Larionov, Elza Lasson-Spirova, Mikhail Le-Dantu, Mikhail Leblan, Aristarchus Lentulov, Sergey Lobanov, Karimir Malevich, Ivan Malutin, Ilya Mashckov, Elena Mashckova-Fedorova, Avagim Migangian, Nickolay Milioti, Adolf Milman, Aleksey Morugov, Amshey Nurenberg, Alexander Osmerkin, Vera Pestel, Lubov Popova, Vasily Rozhdestvensky, Olga Rozanova, Sergey Romanovich, Nickolay Sinezubov, Vladislav Strzheminsky, Boris Takke, Nickolay Tarkhov, Vladimir Tatlin, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Robert Falk, German Fedorov, Vladimir Franketti, Valentina Khodasevich, Vasiliy Chekrygin, Marc Chagall, Boris Shaposhnickov, Alexander Shevchenko, Eduard Shimin, Iosiph Shkolnik, Savely Schleifer, Alexander Ekster, Valentin Yustitksy, Alexander Yavlensky, Georgi Yackulov, etc.
The project is realized with support of M.S. Gutseriev, the businessman and founder of SAFMAR Charity Fund.
As reference:
SAFMAR Charity Fund is among the largest noncommercial charity organizations of Russia. The founder of the fund is AO NK RussNeft which is headed by Mikhail Gutseriev, a famous Russian entrepreneur and art patron. SAFMAR Charity Fund is founded to realize socially important long lasting projects in the sphere of culture, art, education and spirituality development. The Fund program corresponds to the criteria of transparence, precision of strategy and consistency of realization. When carrying out its activities the Fund relies on the best traditions of the Russian practices in the sphere of benevolence. The Fund supports several large-scale good-will projects carried out together with many famous educational, scientific, museum and non-governmental organizations of Russia.