State Russian Museum Exhibits Natalia Egorshina & Nikolai Andronov

Wednesday, 29 November 2006 09:46

St. Petersburg, Russia - The State Russian Museum presents the “Natalia Egorshina & Nikolai Andronov” exhibition in the Marble Palace.  The exhibition comprises circa 170 paintings & will be on display from 30 November, 2006 till the end of January 2007.

Within the framework of a single project Nikolai Andronov (1929-1998) and Natalia Egorshina (b. 1926) exhibition acquaints the viewers with two prominent artists, united by professional and personal fate.  Both Andronov and Egorshina belong to the generation of the “artists of the sixties”, who resolutely declared their civic-esthetic position, defended the truth in the art and the right for freedom of the art.

Alongside such famous works by Nikolai Andronov as a Fitter (1958) and the Seeing-Off (1965-67) - both in State Tretyakov Gallery, Lake.  Hunter's Family (1965) - State Russian Museum, the viewer will see a cycle of 'self-portraits', which constitute a special page in the artist's oeuvre, and plastically expressive 'windows', which combine different spaces and genres.

Natalia Egorshina has always been an original artist, avoiding the stereotypes.  We can hardly attribute her art to any artistic trend.  It is difficult to convert Natalia Egorshina’s painting - impulsive and improvisatory – to the language of words.  Though a subject is formally present it is not the main core of her paintings.  A line bending, tonal relations between an object and its background or an expressive gesture can be the main components of a portrait, landscape or a still-life.  The dynamics of her compositions transmits the elusive running of time; their seeming incompleteness reflects the transiency of impressions.  Her painting is metaphorical; it is filled with transformation, associations and something unmentioned.  It is as if her canvas records the process of creation of the image.  Egorshina’s painting shows an incipient and awakening world.

The artist’s art seems to be integral, but we can clearly distinguish the periods of development of the pictorial system.  The combination of a white surface of a canvas and quickly applied brush strokes of paint had been typical of her till the mid-1960s.  To a greater or less accuracy, these strokes depict people and real objects: Portrait of P. Nikonov (1961) and Portrait of D. Sarabyanov (1964, State Russian Museum)  Later on, her color spectrum remained mainly light, more over luminiferous.  The “light space” is fundamental for the artist and it is a basis of her compositions including one of the first works: Watering Head (1967-70).  With genuine artistry she reaches color integrity of the canvas.

Many of Natalia Egorshina’s paintings have light grotesque, poetic hyperbole and irony: Interior with a King Poodle (1972, State Russian Museum), Blind Man's Buff (1971, State Russian Museum), Around a Table (1967), Odessa.  Port (1966, State Tretyakov Gallery).  Other works: Kaluga (1966, Abramtsevo Museum-Preserve) and Rooster (1967) emphasize the role of fantasy and fabulousness, supported by interest in folklore.  Intuitive features and spontaneity of self-expression of folk painting attract Natalia Egorshina.  These features are typical of her creative credo.  All her works preserve free game principles.

Self-rejuvenation of plastic language has been a pattern of her creative path.  Remaining figurative, her painting absolutely transforms the depicted subject.  The object looses physical base and flesh, but its color and plastic features become refined.  Natalia Egorshina’s language is her world outlook.  It includes objective and subjective, reality and state of the author’s ego.

At the first glance the art of Natalia Egorshina doesn’t seem to be modern.  In fact, her works reflect the problems of the present epoch, expressed in intensive and sometimes dramatic interpretation.  The exhibition of Natalia Egorshina’s works enables to see true painting in its almost spontaneous beginning and incidental development, in anxious motionlessness and eternal incompleteness.  Her works are a painterly metaphor of eternal search, hope and doubt.

The Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, Abramtsevo State History-Literature and Art Museum Preserve, private collectors and the artist’s family have loaned the works for the exhibition.

The State Russian Museum today is a unique depository of artistic treasures, a leading restoration center, an authoritative institute of academic research, a major educational center and the nucleus of a network of national museums of art.

The Russian Museum collection contains circa 400.000 exhibits.  The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries.  The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art.

Visit The State Russian Museum at : http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/museum/