100 years since the birth of Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova Automatic translate

Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin celebrates 100 years since the birth of I.A. Antonova. On Sunday, March 20, 2022, in the center of Moscow, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where Irina Aleksandrovna lived, and an updated exposition of the Director’s Office hall was opened in the Pushkin Museum and a series of concerts dedicated to the memory of I.A. Antonova. A special website has been launched, where a digital archive is collected, telling about the life of Irina Alexandrovna.

Irina Alexandrovna Antonova devoted 75 years of her life to the Pushkin Museum and became its true symbol. During the years of her leadership, the museum turned into the most important cultural center of the country and won wide international recognition, dozens of significant exhibitions were held here, the festival “December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter”, created by Irina Alexandrovna together with the great musician forty years ago, became legendary.

Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin continues to implement initiatives to perpetuate the memory of Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova. The first of the events scheduled for 2022 was the installation of a memorial plaque on the house where I.A. Antonov, at the address: Pokrovsky Boulevard, 14/5. The author of the project is the sculptor Georgy Frangulyan, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of Russia. The opening ceremony was attended by Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cultural Cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoi, Chairman of the Moscow City Duma Alexei Shaposhnikov, Deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Oleg Leonov, Director of the Department of Museums and Foreign Relations of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation Alexander Voronko, author of the memorial plaque Georgy Frangulyan and director of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin Marina Loshak.

In the office of I.A. Antonova, which is now open to visitors as a museum hall, the exposition has been updated. After opening in 2021, the “Director’s Office” exposition demonstrates the continuity and tradition in the management of the museum and tells about the outstanding people who headed the museum in different years and made a decisive contribution to its formation and development. For a while, the office space and all multimedia content will be dedicated to I.A. Antonova. On the table you can see photographs from the personal archive of Irina Alexandrovna related to family and museum life. Photographs are projected onto the window, illustrating important milestones in the work of Irina Alexandrovna in the museum: these are the exhibitions “Masterpieces of the Dresden Art Gallery” (1955), “Moscow - Paris. 1900-1930" (1981), showing "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci (1974); opening of the Museum of Private Collections (1994), Galleries of European and American Art of the XIX-XX centuries (2006) and the Educational Art Museum named after I. V. Tsvetaev in the building of the Russian State Humanitarian University (1997); celebration of the 100th anniversary of the museum (2012); as well as photographs with people from the world of art, with whom Irina Alexandrovna was friends and for whom she had deep respect. Recordings of piano concertos performed by Svyatoslav Richter are broadcast in the office.

The legendary director of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin was a real music lover. Among the talented people who made up her close circle, it was no coincidence that Svyatoslav Richter turned out to be. Irina Antonova and the outstanding pianist were connected by a long-term friendship, which resulted in the December Evenings International Music Festival. His programs combined music, plastic arts, theater and literature. I.A. Antonova was the first who dared to implement the idea of ​​synthesis of arts in the space of an art museum, thus reflecting the main vector of the development of culture of the 20th century. On the day of the 100th anniversary of the birth of I.A. Antonova, a series of concerts was held in the Pushkin Museum with the participation of stars whose names are inextricably linked with the history of the December Evenings - these are Yuri Bashmet, Alexander Rudin, Vladimir Spivakov, Yuri Martynov and Nikolai Lugansky.

Marina Loshak, director of the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkina: “Irina Alexandrovna Antonova has become an invariable component of the Pushkin Museum, its face and symbol - a part of the Pushkin myth in all its manifestations. It is difficult for me to name an institution like us, which would have grown so tightly with the image of a person, like the Pushkin Museum and Irina Alexandrovna Antonova. Irina Alexandrovna was absolutely fearless - as a professional and as a person. Throughout her professional life, she demonstrated very bright steps taken towards the new. These were the decisions and actions of a person who is willing to take risks. This happened at a rather difficult time when Irina Alexandrovna worked in the museum - in the Soviet years, when much of what we are now accustomed to was banned, therefore her conquests are especially valuable: the exhibitions “Moscow - Paris. 1900-1930" (1981), Moscow - Berlin. 1900-1950" (1996), shows associated with the names of the world’s largest artists, the arrival of "Mona Lisa" in the museum. The fate of Irina Alexandrovna is connected with every moment of her life directly with museum history. It is difficult for me to name another person who would make a similar contribution to the national culture. This is a certain tuning fork, which remains with us to this day.