Stiftung Museum Kunst Palast to host ' BONJOUR RUSSIA '

Written by Robert Weller Monday, 11 October 2010 23:55

Duessldorf, Germany - The Stiftung Museum Kunst Palast, Duesseldorf, with the support of E.ON AG, presents a unique show featuring outstanding works of Russian and French modern art. For this exhibition, curated by Sir Norman Rosenthal, Exhibitions Secretary, Royal Academy of Arts, more than 120 masterpieces from the collections of four principal Russian museums – the State Hermitage and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, as well as the State Pushkin Museum and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow – will be shown together for the first time in Germany. On Exhibition September 15, 2007 - January 6, 2008.

Since it is the main sponsor as well as being a company whose relations to Russia go back many years, E.ON was able to be of great assistance in making this unique exhibition a success. The "Bonjour Russia" exhibition is already the twelfth exhibition in the brief history of the museum kunst palast thus far which has been sponsored by E.ON AG within the scope of its public-private partnership with the city of Duesseldorf. The exhibition is under the patronage of German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

"The prominent modern classics on display from time to time in Germany do not always come from New York. ... The exhibition of Russian and French masterpieces at museum kunst palast testifies not only to the profound cross-fertilization among artists and illustrates influences on them, special paths they took and interesting parallel developments, especially in the development of Russian painting [...], but also provides evidence of the fascination which a Picasso, Cézanne or Matisse was able to exert on the Russian elite. We hope that the exhibition, with its attractive supporting program, will not only afford all visitors a great esthetic experience, but also illustrate the significance of an ongoing cultural interchange among nations." (Dr. Wulf H. Bernotat, Chairman of the Board of E.ON AG)

The exhibition, whose only venue in Germany is Duesseldorf, will be devoted to the years from 1860 to 1925 in Russia and France, not only uncovering parallels and reciprocal influences, but also the different developments in both countries. The spectrum of the Russian works on display will range from the realism of Ilya Repin and Serov to Cézannism, Fauvism, Neo-primitivism, Cubo-Futurism and the groundbreaking experiments in abstraction culminating in the Suprematism of Malevich and others.

Key works by the most important pioneers of modern French and Russian painting will be on display, for example the Portrait of Jeanne Samary by Renoir, Mont Sainte-Victoire by Cézanne, the Portrait of Dr. Rey by Van Gogh, Her Name is Vairaumati by Gauguin, The Dance and The Red Room by Matisse, Guitar and Violin or Bathers by Picasso, The Red Jew by Chagall, 17 October 1905 by Ilya Repin, Composition No. 7 by Kandinsky, The nude by Tatlin, and the triptych of Black Cross, Black Circle and Black Square by Malevich.

"The exhibition will focus on the changes that took place in Russia under the influence of their Parisian masters. Here it should not be forgotten how quickly the pupils overtook their masters, opening up new horizons in art not only for Russia, but also for the whole of Europe, and exploring realms hitherto unimaginable in art. (Sir Norman Rosenthal)

Thanks to the largesse of the Russian museums, works can now be brought together – first in Duesseldorf and then at the Royal Academy in London – which express the magnificent history of modern art as well as the richness of Russian public art collections in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The Lenders
The Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg, founded by Czar Nicholas II in memory of his father Alexander III in 1895, holds in its comprehensive collections the history of Russian art from medieval icons to the avant-garde.

The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow holds extensive collections of Russian art focusing on painting of nineteenth-century realists surrounding the group of artists known as the "Wanderers" or "Itinerants", as well as portraits of personalities from the world of Russian culture and art, gathered together by the wealthy dealer and textile manufacturer Pavel Tretyakov. His collection was bequeathed to the city of Moscow together with that of his brother Sergei Tretyakov in 1892.

Works of impressionist painters such as Monet and Renoir, among others, as well as unique collections of paintings by Gauguin, Cézanne, van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso made by Sergei Shchukin und Ivan Morosov were an inestimable enrichment to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Catharine the Great laid the foundations for the incomparable splendor of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg by purchasing hundreds of artworks from Europe in the mid-eighteenth century.

The exhibition in Duesseldorf will be presented in four sections.

Russian Realism and the Influence of French Naturalism
The first section of the exhibition will illustrate the development of Russian art, focusing on Realist painting and on the need for a national identity which arose end of the nineteenth century – "Russian-ness" in art and culture.

This chapter of the exhibition will relate Russian art to major French works which were either acquired in Paris or in St. Petersburg on various occasions, or were shown in Moscow. Paintings by Carolus-Durand, Rousseau, Corot, Tissot and Daubigny will be on display. By the same token, works by Russian artists will be examined who traveled outside Russia to France and to Paris in particular.

The first section of the exhibition will focus on the key figure of Ilya Repin, one of the most important members of the so-called "Wanderers" or "Itinerants", a group of Russian Realists. Additional artists worthy of mention are Valentin Serov, Isaac Levitan, Mikhail Nesterov and Mikhail Vrubel.

The Morosov and Shchukin Collections
The second section of the exhibition will present masterworks from the two great Moscow collections – those of Ivan Morosov and Sergei Shchukin – and will demonstrate their distinctive strengths. There is no doubt that the collections of these two Moscow textile merchants exerted a major influence on the development of the Russian avant-garde. These collections displayed many facets of Monet, Renoir and, especially in their post-impressionist phase, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, as well as great works by Matisse and Picasso.

The Dance by Matisse – commissioned by Shchukin to decorate the large stairway in his Moscow villa – will be the centerpiece of this second part of the exhibition.

Sergei Diaghilev and the "World of Art"
The third part of the exhibition will be devoted to the famous theater impresario and exhibition organizer Sergei Diaghilev. He played an important role not only in the "World of Art" movement, but also in promoting the presentation of modern French art in Russia and the idea of Russian art and culture in Western Europe, particularly in Paris.

This section will present artists such as Léon Bakst, Boris Kustodiev, Nicholas Roerich, Alexander Golovin und Valentin Serov, as well as impressive portraits of such great Russian creative personalities as Vsevolod Meyerhold, Feodor Chaliapin and Anna Akhmatova. It will also link the world of the “Wanderers” to the emerging, unique Russian avant-garde.

Modern Russian Art: From Primitivism to Abstraction
The last part of the exhibition will present a kaleidoscope of artistic innovation in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The highly individual work of Kandinsky and Chagall will be explored as well as the bold Russian innovations of Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova. Daring new interpretations of Cubism, as well as Italian Futurism, led to outstanding Russian Cubo-Futurist works, not only by Larionov and Goncharova, but also by Ivan Puni, Pavel Filonov and a remarkable group of experimental women artists, including Olga Rozanova, Lyubov Popova and Aleksandra Exter.

Vladimir Tatlin's unique three-dimensional constructions heralded the appearance of Constructivism, and Kazimir Malevich, with his Black Square, considered to be an “icon of modern art”, paved the way for the purely abstract style of Suprematism.

“Modern French art undoubtedly offered a constant touchstone for the development of Russian art at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The many different ways in which so many Russian artists of both sexes successfully combined these Western influences with the richness of their own cultural heritage not only created a superb blossoming of Russian art, but also left a profound mark on the development of modern art history.” (Sir Norman Rosenthal and Ann Dumas)

Catalogue:
Verlag Palace-Editions will be publishing a catalogue for the exhibition, with a preface by Sir Normal Rosenthal and Ann Dumas, as well as articles by Lydia Iovleva, Hubertus Gaßner, Albert Kostenevich, Vladimir Lenyashin, Christina Lodder, Yevgeniya Petrova, Alexei Petuchov/ Anna Posnanskaya.

Visit The Stiftung museum kunst palast at : www.museum-kunst-palast.de