Relatives of veterans donated 15 paintings to the museum

September 10, within the framework of the exhibition “Glory - Do Not Fade! Traditions - to live! " in the Gallery of Siberian Art of the Irkutsk Art Museum. VP Sukachev, a ceremony of donating paintings to the museum took place. The relatives of the artists - participants of the Great Patriotic War, whose works are on display, decided to donate 15 paintings to the museum.

A large-scale exhibition dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Victory was supposed to open in early May, but due to the pandemic, it began work only on August 13. The exposition brought together works of 45 authors from the funds of the museum, the collection of the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, family and private collections. Thanks to the research work of the museum’s researchers, the names of the artists who participated in the Great Patriotic War, who were not previously known, were discovered; many data about the authors were clarified as a result of painstaking work in the archives. During the exhibition, a voluminous catalog was published and presented, including data on 93 veteran artists, whose creative biography is associated with the Irkutsk region. To date, this is the most complete and detailed publication of this kind.

The exhibition will end its work on September 20, but now the relatives of the artists who have provided the works for the exhibition have expressed a desire to donate some of them to the museum fund. Now the works will be provided with appropriate care and viewers will be able to see them. The museum collection of works by veteran artists is in need of replenishment, as exhibitions dedicated to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War are held annually.

“The works of artists will be studied, they will be shown at exhibitions, where schoolchildren, students, art critics can see them, and this is incredibly important for preserving memory. And, of course, this is an expression of confidence in the Irkutsk Art Museum, the employees who work here and give their lives to this important cause. I congratulate us on this event and thank everyone who made such a decision for themselves - to donate works that probably occupied an important and valuable place in family meetings, ”Olesya Polunina, Deputy Minister of Culture and Archives of the Irkutsk Region, noted at the donation ceremony.

As a result of the donation action, the museum collection was replenished with works by Mikhail Omelchenko, Mikhail Bodnaryuk, Ivan Brovkin, Gleb Yuzhakov, Mikhail Tarasov, Gennady Kazakov, Dvigomir Isakov.

“I am glad that my father’s painting will belong to the city, and, accordingly, the memory of it will remain for centuries,” said Evgenia Titova, the daughter of the Great Patriotic War participant, artist Mikhail Omelchenko.