Temporary exhibition
THE NEW SOCIETY OF ARTISTS
24 October - 26 January
From 24 October to 26 January the Museum of Russian Impressionism will present the exhibition ‘The New Society of Artists’, about the Silver Age creative association of the same name. The NSA was distinguished from many other unions and groups for its democratic principles: different styles and tendencies intersected in the exhibition halls, with the pictures of Alexandre Benois displayed next to works by Wassily Kandinsky.
Visitors will see paintings and graphics by the founders of the society, the creative duo Dmitry Kardovsky and Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya, along with pictures by Boris Kustodiev, Alexey Shchusev, Mikhail Vrubel, and other members of the association. The heightened
sophistication of the era will be emphasised by compositions consonant with the artwork, from Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov, Alexander Blok and Mikhail Kuzmin.
From 1903 to 1917 more than 200 authors took part in exhibitions by the St. Petersburg New Society of Artists, both young painters who recently graduated from the Academy of Arts, and established masters. The absence of a strict jury and freedom to choose an artistic language attracted painters and graphic artists, sculptors and architects. Over 14 years the association organized 10 exhibitions of contemporary art, including a personal show of works by Alexander Golovin and a posthumous exhibition by Mikhail Vrubel. These projects were notable for bold curatorial decisions: for example, at the fifth exhibition pictures by children appeared for the first time, beside the work of professionals.
Despite the commercial nature of the exhibitions, participants in the New Society of Artists were united by a love of art, a taste for finer things and the aspiration for self-improvement. Like the association’s own exhibitions, our museum halls will bring together
the academicians Pyotr Neradovsky and Eugene Lanceray, World of Art members Alexandre Benois and Alexander Golovin, the symbolists Nikolai Milioti and Nikolai Krymov, and neo-classicists Vladimir Shchuko and Ivan Fomin. Part of the exhibition will be dedicated to a favourite of the public from the 1900s, Konstantin Bogaevsky. His detailed ‘tapestry’ canvases with views of ancient Cimmeria will be accompanied by poems from the ‘great Pan of Koktebel’, Maximilian Voloshin.
On the museum floors −1 to 3 visitors can see more than 180 works of painting and graphics provided by 55 public and private collections from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok.These include major Russian collections including the State Russian Museum, the State
Tretyakov Gallery and the Krasnodar Regional Art Museum named after F.A. Kovalenko, as well as those from outside Russia, such as the Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts named after Gapar Aitiev.
Titles of the exhibition and catalogue sections were borrowed from iconic poetry collections of the Silver Age: ‘Rosary’, ‘Stone’, ‘Snow Mask’ and ‘Cimmerian Spring’... In the catalogue philologist Valery Shubinsky will explain the interweaving of literary and artistic worlds during the ‘Belle Epoque’. Materials by art historians Anton Uspensky, Ilya Pechenkin and Daria Manucharova will be dedicated to the New Society of Artists and the role played by architecture and architects in the association’s exhibitions, as well as that of
the creative couple Dmitry Kardovsky and Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya. A commentary by curator Olga Yurkina in the album section will introduce the society members and allow us to trace their professional, friendly and family ties.
The exhibition will feature tactile stations — this time, blind and visually impaired visitors may get acquainted with the works of Boris Kustodiev, Elena Kiseleva, Konstantin Bogaevsky and Nikolai Fokin. The impression will be complemented by fragrances based on pictures by olfactory artist Anna Kabirova. At the close of the exhibition, four tactile models created in cooperation with the museum’s inclusive programme partner — the Art, Science and Sport Charitable Foundation, as part of the Special View support programme for people with visual impairments — will be sent to local history and art museums in Perm, Volsk, Tyumen and Voronezh.
The curator is Olga Yurkina, specialist in the exhibition department of the Museum of Russian Impressionism.
The museum is grateful for the support of Vladimir Voronin, Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees, the founder and President of the FSK Group of Companies.