Types of Vyborg from the Museum of South Karelia presented by the Pavlovsk Museum

ST. PETERSBURG. Until August 31, an exhibition of drawings by a Finnish artist bearing a Russian surname, Victor Svetikhin, is open in the Concert Hall of the Pavlovsk Museum-Reserve. The exposition includes 20 graphic works by the artist, made in watercolor and ink. The initiators of the exhibition were the Finnish colleagues of the Pavlovsk Museum employees working in the Museum of South Karelia. This museum is located in the Finnish city of Lappeenranta.

The exhibition is dedicated to the city of Vyborg, since all the drawings placed in the exhibition depict the most beautiful places in this small town. It is especially interesting that visiting this exhibition you can see the fortified city as it looked about a hundred years ago. Before the visitors of the exhibition there are views of the fortress walls of the ancient castle, the corners of the Monrepos park, famous for its beauty, peasant houses located on the Karelian Isthmus.

The Museum of South Karelia for the first time presented works of graphic art from its collection in the Pavlovsk Palace. This collection appeared in the museum at the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war, it was evacuated from the historical museum of Vyborg. At this time, the collection consisted of approximately 900 drawings and paintings by Victor Svetikhin. Such a solid collection of works by the artist, whose life was connected with Vyborg, thanks to a large order received in 1912 by Svetikhin from the city’s ethnographic museum.

The artist was instructed to sketch all the remarkable corners of Vyborg and its environs. The result of this work was 250 landscapes, most of which were made using the watercolor technique. Viktor Svetikhin earlier, even before receiving the order, painted a significant number of landscapes with views of the city. Many of them were also acquired by the museum.

Ludmila Trautmane © Gallerix.ru