Group “13”. In the alleys of the era

From February to June, visitors to the Museum of Russian Impressionism will be able to look into the “alleys” of Russian art of the 1930s - the world of early Soviet intellectuals and aesthetes - the artists of the “13” group. Their graphic and pictorial works, dedicated to the dynamic city life, reflected the art of the old masters, the principles of impressionism and post-impressionism. Guest curator Nadezhda Plungyan offers a new reading of the works of Vladimir Milashevsky and Daniil Daran, Tatyana Mavrina and Nikolai Kuzmin, Nadezhda Udaltsova and Alexander Drevin. The story about the group will be complemented by the works of Edgar Degas, Jean-François Millet and Otho Friesz, with whom “The Thirteen” were in mental dialogue.

Group “13” (1929–1931), named after the number of participants in the first exhibition, officially existed for only a few years, but the friendship and creative search of the artists continued until the 1970s. The project will help you learn more about the masters who chose the format of documentary drawing, chamber painting and book illustration for their statements. In contrast to the ceremonial plots of the socialist realists, the main theme of “Thirteen” was the changing everyday life: city streets and intersections with trams and people running errands, parks and racetracks, water stations and beaches.

The museum is not reconstructing the exhibitions of the association, but will recreate the art laboratory in which the “style of 13” was formed and developed - a quick drawing from life, in tune with the speeds of new times, often made with a match, without preparation and subsequent refinement. The artists did not continue the experiments of the avant-garde and distanced themselves from the tasks of proletarian art, reworking in their works the techniques of masters of past eras and early European modernism: from the intense shadows of Rembrandt and the expressive touch of Francisco Goya to the color line of Edgar Degas and the instant impressions of the Impressionists.

Eleven thematic sections of the exhibition will introduce the main representatives of the “Thirteen” and talk about the key phenomena in the context of which the association worked. Part of the exhibition will be dedicated to the Leningrad circle of the poet Mikhail Kuzmin and self-taught artists Yuri Yurkun and Olga Arbenina-Hildebrandt. A separate plot will be a book illustration, into which the group “13” introduced a tempo drawing. On the third floor, the museum will present paintings and graphics of the post-war years.

A number of discoveries await visitors: rarely exhibited works by Roman Semashkevich and Valentin Yustitsky, complemented by artistic references to Maurice Vlaminck and Louis Valta. Also for the first time, a picturesque portrait of “Thirteen” participant Antonina Sofronova, painted by Vladimir Milashevsky, who is known primarily for his graphic works, will be presented.

For the first time, the work of the group “13” will be represented in such a volume by works from museum collections, including the State Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin and others. More than 300 works of graphics, painting, decorative and applied art and books from 17 museums and 13 private collections will form a multi-layered story about the fate of independent Soviet artists.

The articles collected in the catalog by curator Nadezhda Plungyan, art historians Marina Borovskaya, Alexey Petukhov, as well as collector and researcher of book culture Mikhail Seslavinsky will complement the understanding of the “13” group, learn about its place in the Soviet artistic environment, connections with the Saratov creative community and passion participants by European masters. In addition, the publication will include archival documents and photographs, some of which will be published for the first time.

In 2024, the Art, Science and Sports Charitable Foundation will become a partner of the museum’s inclusive program as part of the “Un Certain Regard” program to support people with visual impairments. For a number of works from the exhibition, tactile stations will be made for blind and visually impaired visitors. Upon completion of the project, the models will become part of the permanent exhibitions of regional museums. The project will be accompanied by an extensive educational program, including events for adults, children and adolescents, as well as inclusive activities.

Curator: Nadezhda Plungyan - candidate of art history, curator, teacher at the Higher School of Economics.