In early February, the Moscow Museum of Russian Impressionism will open the exhibition “Avant-garde. On a cart in the 21st century. This is a reconstruction of a large-scale traveling exhibition of avant-garde art, held in the Vyatka province a hundred years ago.
Starting from Sovetsk, she arrived in Yaransk, then it was supposed to be shown in five more cities in the region, but there were no longer enough funds for the further journey. Some of the items returned to their owners and now belong to large institutions, but a number of works have remained in the local museum of local lore. Among them are the works of Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Rozanova and other important figures of the avant-garde.
“This story is like a detective story. In 1996, I made an exhibition “Graphics of the 1920s-30s from the museum’s collection” in the Kirov Regional Museum. And then I discovered in our funds a previously unknown work by Wassily Kandinsky. Of course, we began to look for where this thing came from in Kirov, ”the director of the Kirov Museum, curator of the Avangard. On a Cart in the 21st Century”, Anna Shakina, Candidate of Art History.
According to her, the museum staff had lists, according to which 77 works were received from the Yaran Museum of Local Lore. So, back in the Soviet years, there was an order according to which local history museums were to transfer their collections to regional museums, where there are relevant specialists, restorers, and so on. Then the museum received these works. But for some reason, Yaransk kept part of the collection for himself, including three works by Kandinsky.
According to the 1921 catalog, the exhibition in Sovetsk contained 322 works by 55 authors. Among them, about 160 items are by Kazan artists, several works by local Vyatka authors, but the rest is a selective avant-garde from Moscow. Thus, the museum of a tiny town (today less than 16 thousand people live in Yaransk) received a collection of masterpieces, the current value of which would be measured in tens of millions of dollars.
Read more in the exclusive Izvestia material:
History is at the forefront: what “surprises” hides the most expensive Russian art
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
