Exhibition "Muses of Montparnasse" about the legendary women of Paris

Curatorial group: Sylvie Buisson (Paris), Maria Salina, Alexey Petukhov, Natalia Kortunova, Irina Lebel (Paris)

July 15 at the Gallery of Art of the Countries of Europe and America of the XIX-XX centuries of the Pushkin Museum. Alexander Pushkin will open an exhibition dedicated to the legends of the Parisian district of Montparnasse - women who set the tone for one of the brightest eras.

Most of the works were provided by European and American private collectors and will be shown in Russia for the first time. Exhibition partner - Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

In total, the exhibition will feature more than 50 paintings, about 100 drawings, about 20 sculptures, more than 20 works of applied art, more than 10 artistic photographs, as well as archival documents and materials. Many of them are kept in private collections.

In the free and liberated environment of the Montparnasse area, the talents of artists and models, writers and collectors, and prominent secular figures were easily and quickly revealed. This exhibition is a story about the most important, famous and undeservedly forgotten characters of the Montparnasse art scene in the first decades of the twentieth century.

In the last decades of the 19th century, Paris was that rare place where women seeking to realize themselves in art could get an art education. While state institutions were accessible only to men, private "academy" schools opened special female classes. The graduates of these educational institutions have played a vital role in adding to the fame of Montparnasse as a center for contemporary art. Among the students of the Montparnasse academies in the 1900-1910s were the future creators of the Russian avant-garde. Works by Alexandra Ekster, Lyubov Popova, Maria Vasilyeva and a unique album of student drawings by Nadezhda Udaltsova open the exhibition.

Montparnasse housed both schools that taught painting and private academies - Filippo Colarossi and De la Grande-Chaumiere, where girls were taught the basics of sculptural art. Such famous masters as Camilla Claudel, Anna Golubkina, Vera Mukhina and others were engaged in these two educational institutions. Their works, like those of other Montparnasse sculptors, will be exhibited in a separate exhibition hall, reminiscent of a sculpture workshop.

The Sisters on the Brush set an example of solidarity to their male colleagues. The phrase "female art" meant not only creative opportunities, but also mutual assistance. From the 1900s to the 1930s, the most noticeable at the Parisian Salons were the artists Romain Brooks, Jacqueline Marval, Marie Laurencin, Tamara Lempitskaya, whose works will become a kind of core of the entire project.

The next room will take us into the atmosphere of the famous workshop on 21 rue du Maine, owned by Maria Vasilyeva. This place was familiar to anyone in Montparnasse, and its mistress seemed to manage to be in all places at the same time. At the festivities, she was expected as a dancer, the soul of the company and even a fortune-teller, eccentric and unpredictable. At art exhibitions, the bright and harsh manner of her paintings and collages was highly appreciated.

In 1924, Sonia Delaunay opened her Simultaneous Atelier in Paris. Along with painting and graphics, the artist turned to design and fashion early. In the fabrics, garments and interiors she created, the aesthetics of the avant-garde were combined with the bright decorative effect of the motif. This hobby has become a matter of life and a source of income. Aristocrats and representatives of the intellectual elite, actresses and movie stars aspired to dress in the Simultanny Atelier.

The heart of artistic Montparnasse was the intersection of the boulevard of the same name and boulevard Raspail - the intersection of Vaven. From the first years of the twentieth century, artistic cafes appeared here, among which the Rotunda was especially famous, where you could spend hours paying only for a cup of coffee, and the walls were covered with works by artists, often accepted as payment instead of money. Here bets and careers were made, novels arose, stars rose and faded. The Rotunda became the center of the new Babylonian pandemonium in Montparnasse. Many of its visitors, such as Jeanne Hébuterne, Kiki from Montparnasse or Yuki, have become “living legends”.

When an economic crisis broke out in the world in the late 1920s and totalitarian regimes began to gain strength, the carefree celebration in Montparnasse ended. The disturbing and wary atmosphere of the time was most sensitively captured by the surrealists. The last part of the exhibition, Leaving Montparnasse, tells about the participants in this movement - Claude Caon, Leonore Fini, Dora Maar.

“In the exposition, we wanted to bring together a gallery of the most striking images of those who in the 1900s – 1940s asserted the role of women in various fields of art, and show them in the most saturated“ center of attraction ”at that time - the Montparnasse district of Paris. It was at this time and in this place, in disputes and rivalry, through ridicule and misunderstanding, the foundations of our usual attitude towards women in art were gradually formed ”, - Marina Devovna Loshak, Director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin.

Project participants: State Tretyakov Gallery; State Russian Museum; Rostov Regional Museum of Fine Arts, State Central Museum of Cinema, Russian State Archives of Literature and Art, City Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Lyon, Camille Claudel Museum, Nogent-sur-Seine, galleries and private collections in Russia, Europe and the USA.

Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom

A branch of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Moscow opened in 1992. He oversees work in the Russian Federation and in the countries of Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Main areas of activity: open society and culture; rule of law and human rights; market economy and entrepreneurship; European and German-Russian dialogue.

Together with partners, the Foundation implements projects throughout the country: book fairs, exhibitions, film screenings, book publications, scientific conferences, podcasts, expert meetings.