Filonov : “Witness of the Unseen? in the State Russian Museum

Sunday, 23 July 2006 20:15

St. Petersburg, Russia - On July 17, 2006 the State Russian Museum opens the “Witness of the Unseen” personal exhibition of Pavel Nikolayevich Filonov (1883-1941). It is one of the most representative exhibitions of Filonov ever.  It comprises 160 artworks of the major master of Russian avant-garde.

Among the exhibits are such seminal works as Banquet of Kings (1913), Dairy Maids (1914) and Flowers of the World Flowering (1915), Head (1925), Images (1940). Painter, graphic artist and theatrical designer, Pavel Filonov was born in Moscow and trained in St Petersburg.  During the first decade of the artist's career, he worked on a cycle of painterly and graphic works entitled Chant of the World Flowering in which he expressed his ideas mainly in figurative images.

In the early 1920s, however, Filonov turned to abstract art.  The late 1920s and 1930s were the most difficult years in the artist's life and are characterized by a diversity of stylistic devices.  The years of political repressions (1930s) were a gloomy period in the artist’s life.  His art was officially neglected. Pavel Filonov died of starvation in the besieged Leningrad on December 3, 1941. The artistic heritage of Filonov was saved and preserved by his sister Yevdokia Glebova.  In 1977 Glebova donated her collection to the State Russian Museum.

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