Painting over the cracks: Russian art on show in London
Published 26 January, 2008, 18:25
The most talked-about art exhibition in years finally opens to the public in London. 'From Russia' features the best modern paintings from the galleries of Moscow and St Petersburg. The priceless canvases on show include works by Cézannes, Gauguin, Picasso, Kandinsky and Chagall.
More than $US 2 billion worth of Russian and French masterpieces are on display. It's the first time many of them have been exhibited in the west.
British guarantees
The show has been surrounded in controversy. Right up until the last moment there were doubts about whether it would go ahead.
Descendents of the paintings’ original owners were calling for compensation. Britain was forced to pushed through legislation to protect the paintings and to convince Russia that the works would not be seized.
Russia has had bad experiences in the past with its art works being held for ransom abroad.
Mikhail Shvydkoi, head of Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography, rests assured that Russia has full guarantees from the British side.
Relations between Russia and the UK have deteriorated since the murder of former Russian security services officer Aleksandr Litvinenko. The hotel where he was allegedly poisoned is just across the street from the exhibition.
The organizers of the show hope that those who come to see it will focus on the art and not on politics.
The exhibition will last for about three months. Half a million people are expected to go and see it. It's hoped they'll observe an unspoken cultural ceasefire once they step inside the Royal Academy on Piccadilly.
French connection
As a whole, the show follows the link between French and Russian art from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century.
At the heart of the exhibition is the story of two Russian collectors: Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shukin. Their paintings were forcibly nationalized after the Russian Revolution. Some say the Soviet seizure of this private art collection was one of the biggest heists in history. Others say great art should belong to the people.
For many, the exhibition's highlight is Matisse’s The Dance.
Actress Eve Pierce said if it wasn't for her age she would have danced out of the exhibition as she loved it so much.
Irina Antonova, the director of the Pushkin Museum, hopes the British art connoisseurs will discover some new names.
“Malevich and Kandinsky are well known here. But not painters like Udaltsova, Popova, Yakovleva, Altman, Konchalovsky, though they are great Russian painters,” she said.
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