Exhibition "Non-Departing Moscow. Ivan Pavlov"

April 15 at the Gilyarovsky Center, a branch of the Museum of Moscow, the exhibition “Never-Departing Moscow. Ivan Pavlov. The Moscow artist and engraver Ivan Pavlov sought to preserve the image of a leisurely merchant city in his works. Cozy wooden streets, markets and paved pavements are the main characters of Pavlov’s woodcuts and linocuts filled with a sense of nostalgia and love for the city’s history. For visitors to the exhibition, this is an opportunity to see Moscow that they did not know.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the world was changing rapidly, and large-scale transformations were also taking place in the urban environment of Moscow, which at that time had not been the capital for two hundred years. Powerful industrialization, the emergence of high-rise buildings, automobiles and telephones, the renewal of the lifestyle in general - all this made many residents yearn for the disappearing old city.

The artist and engraver Ivan Pavlov, who lived in Zamoskvorechye, was one of those who were interested in the phenomenon of “leaving Moscow”. His cherished dream was "to spread the forgotten art of engraving and to represent through this art the spirit of the old city." Keeping old streets, houses, temples and estates on paper, he not only recorded an important part of the history of the city, but also conveyed to the viewer his own perception.

“Ivan Nikolaevich Pavlov is one of the most important representatives of the engraving business in Russia. It was he who breathed new life into this genre that was losing popularity, moving away from the cold severity of the image and making his engravings more picturesque and emotional. He was a representative of the old art school, but he managed to apply his skills in the new reality of the early 20th century and transfer knowledge to students, for example, students of VKhUTEMAS,” emphasizes Ekaterina Sokolova, curator of the exhibition.

The works presented at the exhibition will rediscover the art of engraving for the public and allow a different look at the usual architecture of the capital. The breaking gates, which, like part of the Kitaigorod wall, were demolished, the famous and loved by Muscovites mushroom market, the monument to Alexander Pushkin, which was preserved, but moved to the other side of the square, are evidence of the previous era, the memory of which was preserved by Ivan Pavlov. Thanks to the artist’s works, one can see what has gone forever, and what remains and is living proof of the changing, but "non-leaving Moscow".

“When they called me and told me about the archive of Ivan Pavlov’s engravings, there was not a drop of doubt. I wanted to see with my own eyes that departing Moscow, which is leaving all the time, but cannot completely leave. Nostalgia is one of the interesting and yet unexplored phenomena of Moscow. Nostalgia for houses and estates, for the world of our childhood or youth. It seems that that image of Moscow has left real life and remains only in our memories.

Ivan Pavlov’s drawings are not only a work of art, not only a documented image of the outgoing city. Each sheet of engraving is a witness to the work of the master. His signature, lined sheets, hand-made passe-partout. We can touch the process of creating an engraving, the artist’s thoughts, his idea, mood, and feeling. At the exhibition in the Gilyarovsky Center, everyone will be able to understand what exactly hooked the artist and made him capture this or that corner of the city. And everyone has their own Moscow, and it always stays with us,” says Leonid Kondrashev, Deputy Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the City of Moscow, Chief Archaeologist of the City of Moscow.

For the works provided for the exhibition, the Museum of Moscow thanks Leonid Kondrashev, Deputy Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the City of Moscow, Chief Archaeologist of the City of Moscow, President of ICOMOS Russia, and Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Boris Belsky.