Exhibition "Pushkin Museum. Five Centuries of Drawing"

From February 2 to May 12, the Custodia Foundation (Paris) will host the exhibition “Pushkin Museum. Five centuries of drawing. " This is the first large retrospective exhibition of the collection of graphics of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin in France, which will show more than 200 drawings by representatives of European and Russian schools of the 15th – 20th centuries. Viewers will see the works of Dürer, Veronese, Rubens, Tiepolo, Friedrich, Kandinsky, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Chagall, Malevich, Renoir, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh and other famous artists.

The graphic collection of the Pushkin Museum is the second largest and largest section of the museum collection. It includes more than 350,000 prints of various schools and eras and about 27,000 drawings of European and Russian artists of the 15th – 21st centuries. The foundation of the fund was the collection of the Engraving Office of the Rumyantsev Museum, and then it was regularly replenished through gifts, acquisitions, transfers from other museums and government institutions.

Abroad, the graphic collection of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin is less known than the collection of paintings by the Impressionists. The first steps to advance it were made in 2016. Items from the collection were shown at the 25th Drawing Salon in Paris. The museum presented 29 works that allowed the French audience to get the first idea of the largest Russian collection of graphics. This year the museum will also become a participant in the Drawing Salon - March 28 will be the day of the Pushkin Museum at the fair.

Exhibition "Pushkin Museum. Five Centuries of Drawing ”at the Custodia Foundation will be a larger continuation of this acquaintance. The exposition for the first time in such a volume will include the main graphic works of German, French, Italian, Dutch and Russian artists from the Pushkin Museum collection. The choice of venue is not accidental. Custodia Foundation has its own extensive collection of drawings and prints, is engaged in the study of its collection, holds exhibitions.

The exposition will occupy two floors of the exhibition space. The first will show drawings by masters of the 15th – 19th centuries, the lower floor will be devoted to the works of the 20th century. The choice of exhibits was determined by the task of presenting the history of European drawing over five centuries, drawing on the strengths of the Pushkin Museum collection. Each exhibition hall has its own theme and is built in a certain style.

The exhibition will open graphic works by artists of the early German school, among which are drawings by Albrecht Durer, and sheets by Italian authors of the Renaissance and the period of mannerism. In the section devoted to the XVII century, viewers will see the works of Dutch masters: Rembrandt, Rubens, Jan van Goyen, Allart van Everdingen and Nicholas Berchem, as well as three works by the French artist Nicolas Poussin. In the halls dedicated to the art of the XVIII century, France dominates, but the work of Italian masters is reflected here. The next section of the exhibition dates back to the 19th century and includes drawings by Caspar David Friedrich, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Camille Corot, Eugene Delacroix, the largest artist of European romanticism and continues with the works of Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, as well as Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon and others, including Russian, artists. In addition, this part of the exhibition will show the only graphic work of Vincent van Gogh in the Pushkin Museum’s collection - “Portrait of a Young Girl”, which corresponds to a pictorial portrait known as “Musme” and is stored in the Washington National Gallery.

The second part of the exhibition includes graphic works by European and Russian avant-garde of the early XX century - from Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to Robert Delaunay. In this era, national demarcations lost much of their significance: artists from France, Germany, Russia, Spain, and Italy participated on an equal footing in the process of forming the language of modern art, and the Pushkin Museum’s collection allows us to show different facets of this international phenomenon.

Viewers will see drawings by Paul Signac, Fernand Leger, Franz Marc, Giorgio de Chirico, Amedeo Modigliani and other famous artists. A separate room is dedicated to the drawings of Pablo Picasso, where six works by the master during the transition from the style of the “pink period” to early cubism will be shown. A selection of works by Russian artists also demonstrates the overall development of the school, including drawings by members of art groups from the turn of the century - The World of Art, The Blue Rose, the Union of Russian Artists, the work of avant-garde artists Kazimir Malevich and Vasily Kandinsky. While some of the authors, such as Marc Chagall, Vasily Kandinsky, Vladimir Tatlin, were successful abroad while they were still alive, others, such as Alexander Deineka, today will be a discovery for the public.

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Graphics Department of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin

Graphics Department of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin is one of the oldest in the museum. His funds are a rich collection of prints, drawings, books, posters, applied graphics. The department stores more than 380,000 graphic works of domestic and foreign masters of the 15th – 21st centuries.

The history of the department has more than 150 years and goes back to the engraving office of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum. The basis of his collection was the gift of Alexander II, who in 1861 signed a decree on the transfer of 20,170 engravings from the collection of the Imperial Hermitage to the Moscow Museum. Among the sheets transferred were works by prominent masters of the 15th - early 19th centuries, including Albrecht Dürer, Luke Leiden, Hendrick Goltzius, Rembrandt, Jose de Ribera, Marcantonio Raimondi, Jacques Callot, Francois Boucher, William Hogarth.

Custodia Foundation

The Custodia Foundation (Fondation Custodia) was founded in Paris in 1947 by renowned art collector Fritz Lugt and his wife. The foundation occupies the 18th-century Turgot mansion and has one of the world’s largest private collections of drawings and prints. In addition, the fund owns a collection of rare books, portrait miniatures, paintings, antiques, stained-glass windows and antiques.