Exhibition "Yuri Annenkov. Revolution Behind the Door"

The Museum of Russian Impressionism continues its research in the field of Russian avant-garde and opens the exhibition “Yuri Annenkov. The revolution behind the door. " The work of the famous artist, illustrator of the poem “The Twelve” Alexander Blok, a brilliant portrait painter, in whose works the images of the Silver Age of Russian culture are captured, will be presented for the first time in such a volume: more than 100 paintings, graphic portraits and sketches for productions from leading museums and private collections in Russia and France.

The exposition will show the most significant trends in the work of Yuri Annenkov in Russia and after his departure to France in 1924. Viewers will see Annenkov, a painter, theater artist, book illustrator - a tireless experimenter, whose work reflected the turbulent and difficult period of Russian history in the first half of the 20th century.

Annenkov is one of the most expensive Russian artists, his works are in the main state museums of Russia, France and the USA and are shown at international exhibitions, books are popular among Russian and French-speaking audiences. However, the author himself, like many artists of the Russian emigration, for a long time did not receive due recognition in his homeland.

Nowadays, interest in the work of Annenkov is growing again - not only in Russia, where he always had a lot of secret and obvious connoisseurs, but also in Europe, where since the late 1990s his works have regularly appeared at auctions, including Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

For the first time, works from the collection of the National Center for Arts and Culture of Georges Pompidou in Paris, created by the master in exile and not previously exhibited in Russia, will be shown. The exhibition will also include works from major Russian museums: the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin, State Central Theater Museum. A. Bakhrushin, St. Petersburg Museum of Theater and Musical Art, Our Artists Gallery, VAC Foundation, Moscow Museum of Modern Art and other museum institutions and private collections.

Yuri Annenkov won the greatest fame in Russia and the world as a portrait painter, a gallery of images of his contemporaries will be presented in the first part of the exposition. Viewers will see works from the author’s album “Portraits” and the folder “Seventeen Portraits” in which the artist captured the largest political and cultural figures of those years: Leo Trotsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Isadora Duncan, Anna Akhmatova, Maxim Gorky, Korney Chukovsky and others. Many of these portraits have become part of popular culture: they are published on the covers of modern publications as iconic images of bright personalities and symbols of the historical period as a whole.

The second part of the exposition will be devoted to the theater - one of the key areas of Yuri Annenkov’s activity both before and after emigration. As a set designer and costume designer, he designed more than 70 productions, while the most important thing on the stage was not just the reproduction of reality, but the transfer of the emotional state of the characters. The innovative and always spectacular design of the performances brought Annenkov considerable popularity, the artist worked with the best theater directors of his time: Nikolai Evreinov, Fedor Komissarzhevsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and others. At the exhibition, the museum will show sketches of sets and costumes for productions of Russian and French theaters, as well as for mass shows in Petrograd ("Anthem to Liberated Labor" and "Capture of the Winter Palace").

The third part of the exhibition will present visitors to Annenkov, an illustrator of books and a cartoonist, whose main expressive tool was the line. The artist ironically interpreted the images and masterfully used the techniques of generalizing them, minimizing the secondary details to a minimum and leaving the essence. This facet of his talent was revealed thanks to Korney Chukovsky, whom the artist had known since childhood. It was he who introduced Annenkov to Mikhail Kornfeld, the publisher of the popular Satyricon magazine. Witty cartoons and cartoons printed on the pages of the weekly magazine helped the artist gain popularity in art circles. Annenkov received wide recognition after publishing illustrations for Alexander Blok’s poem “The Twelve,” some of which will be on display.

The exhibition was called “Yuri Annenkov. Revolution Behind the Door ”in the French translation of his autobiographical“ Tale of Trivia ”. Its title accurately reflects the described events, when the revolution took place literally "here and now", behind the door of the apartment. So a significant part of the works presented at the exhibition was performed by the artist in the revolutionary years: they reflected the energy of the era, the rapid demolition of the old paradigm and the active formation of a new one. The name of the exhibition is metaphorical: leaving the young Soviet state in the summer of 1924, Annenkov left behind the conditional “door” the revolution and its consequences.

Among the famous works presented at the exhibition: “View of the Pantheon from the Luxembourg Gardens” (Center Pompidou), “June. Forest ”(State Tretyakov Gallery),“ Portrait of Fyodor Komissarzhevsky ”(Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts),“ Portrait of M.E. Zarnekau (nee Pistolkors) ”(State Museum Association“ Artistic Culture of the Russian North ”) and many others.

Each section will be complemented by interactive elements: a volumetric layout repeating the scenography of the artist’s most famous performance “Gas”, tactile stations based on paintings, a workshop of the artist-printer, and audio recordings of Korney Chukovsky’s fairy tales in an author’s performance, which will help to better understand and feel the exhibition for all categories of visitors, in including guests with various disabilities. According to documentary sources, the favorite flavors of Anna Akhmatova, Isadora Duncan and other characters of Yuri Annenkov’s paintings will be recreated. The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive educational program for children and adults, as well as include inclusive events.

In addition to the illustrated catalog, the Museum of Russian Impressionism will publish the first fundamental study of the work of Yuri Annenkov, written by the largest researcher of his artistic heritage, Irina Obukhova-Zelinsky.

The curator of the exhibition is Anastasia Vinokurova, a leading specialist in the exhibition department of the Museum of Russian Impressionism.

The scientific consultant is Anna Lvovna Dyakonitsyna, senior researcher at the painting department of the second half of the 20th century at the State Tretyakov Gallery.