Zvantseva School. Laboratory of Modernism Automatic translate

This summer, visitors to the Museum of Russian Impressionism will be able to peer into the classrooms of Elizaveta Zvantseva’s St. Petersburg school, whose students shaped the face of early Russian modernism. The exhibition "Zvantseva’s School: A Laboratory of Modernism" features works by renowned teachers at the studio — Léon Bakst, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin — in dialogue with works by their students, from renowned Marc Chagall and Mikhail Matyushin to the now nearly forgotten Fausta Shikhmanova and Raisa Kotovich-Borisyak.

The first major study of the Zvantsev School — one of the most popular art studios of the early 20th century — will demonstrate how student experiments in color and form changed the era’s pictorial language, and will continue the conversation begun by the projects "Dobychina’s Choice" and "Russian Wilds."

Elizaveta Zvantseva, a student of Ilya Repin at the Academy of Arts and a graduate of private Parisian studios, opened her own school in Moscow in 1899 and in St. Petersburg in 1906, where she invited artists from the "World of Art" group to teach. Zvantseva’s school, which operated in the capital of the Russian Empire until 1917, found itself at the epicenter of modernist explorations and became a laboratory for mastering the principles of post-impressionism, Art Nouveau aesthetics, and symbolist imagery. Among the artists who studied there were avant-garde artists Elena Guro and Olga Rozanova, post-impressionist landscape masters Nikolai Tyrsa and Alexander Rusakov, and graphic designers Nikolai Kuzmin and Vladimir Dmitriev.

The exhibition will open with iconic works by the school’s students — their expressive style, with its vibrant colors, expressive forms, and intricate lines, was already recognizable to their contemporaries. The central sections will be devoted to the methods of three teachers and will reveal the individual styles of each. While Léon Bakst, who collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev’s "Russian Seasons," taught his students "beautiful line" and the combination of bright, open colors, the Zvantsev school adopted the mysticism and psychologism of urban subjects from Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, who studied painting in Munich. From 1910, the school was headed by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, who introduced students to the symbolism of local color and, at the same time, developed theories of the "icon-like" trichromatic system and spherical perspective.

The story of Elizaveta Zvantseva’s school will be illustrated by over 170 paintings and graphic works, as well as books designed by Zvantseva’s students. A work by Nadezhda Lermontova — a portrait of another student, Varvara Klimovich-Toper, from a private collection — will be on display for the first time. Visitors will also see a unique sketch for the ballet "Scheherazade," which captivated Parisian audiences — the costume of the Blue Sultana from the collection of the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Musical Art. Works by students and teachers will be donated from 57 public and private collections in Russia and Belarus, including the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Volgograd Museum of Fine Arts named after I. I. Mashkov, the Vyatka Art Museum named after V. M. and A. M. Vasnetsov, and others.

Blind and partially sighted visitors will be able to explore the works of the Zvantsev group in detail using four tactile stations created in collaboration with the Art, Science, and Sport Charitable Foundation, a partner in the inclusive program, as part of the "Special View" support program for people with visual impairments. The 3D models will be complemented by fragrances inspired by the paintings from the Flame Moscow perfume studio. Olfactory compositions will be dedicated to a resting peasant woman from a painting by Magda Nachman, wildflowers from a still life by Olga Rozanova, an urban industrial district interpreted by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and the Volga steppes by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. A special online project will accompany the multisensory stations, in which deaf-blind artist Irina Povolotskaya will present her reflections on various categories of painting. Upon completion of the project, the tactile exhibits will be sent to museums in Kazan, Veliky Novgorod, Veliky Ustyug, and Krasnodar.

To coincide with the exhibition, two new publications from the Museum of Russian Impressionism will be added to the shelves of the "Subscriptions at the Museum" bookstore. The exhibition catalog, featuring articles by art historians Alexander Borovsky, Igor Smekalov, and Sofia Bagdasarova, will provide insight into Elizaveta Zvantseva’s school and its place in modernist art, as well as the development of female education in Europe and Russia up until the early 20th century. A specially prepared anthology for the exhibition will bring together theoretical articles, memoirs, and correspondence from Zvantseva’s students, both students and teachers.

Curator: Vera Ryabinina, specialist in the exhibition department of the Museum of Russian Impressionism, co-curator of the exhibition “Russian Wild Ones.”

The museum thanks Vladimir Voronin, Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees and founder and shareholder of the FSK Group of Companies, for his support.

Age limit for the exhibition: 6+.