Opening of the memorial plaque in memory of Irina Alexandrovna Antonova and the new exhibition hall "Director’s Office" Automatic translate

March 20, 2021 Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin opened a memorial plaque in memory of I. A. Antonova on the outer colonnade of the Main Building, and presented in her office a new exhibition hall "Director’s Office" - a memorial space dedicated to all directors of the museum. The opening is timed to coincide with the 99th anniversary of the birth of Irina Alexandrovna.

Irina Antonova dedicated 75 years of her life to the Pushkin Museum and became its true symbol. During the years of her leadership, the museum turned into the most important cultural center of the country and won wide international recognition, dozens of major exhibitions were held here, the festival "December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter", created by Irina Alexandrovna together with the great musician forty years ago, became legendary.

Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts A.S. Pushkin prepared a number of initiatives to perpetuate the memory of Irina Alexandrovna Antonova. The first of the planned activities was the installation of a memorial plaque in the space of the outer colonnade of the Main Building next to the memorial plaques dedicated to the founder of the museum I.V. Tsvetaev, the architect of the building R.I. Klein, as well as the main patron of the museum Yu.S. Nechaev-Maltsov. The board with a bronze relief was made by the People’s Artist of Russia, sculptor Georgy Frangulyan. The opening ceremony was attended by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Tatyana Golikova, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Olga Lyubimova and Director of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkina Marina Loshak.

In the office of IA Antonova, a new hall of the permanent exposition "Director’s Office" was opened. This room, directly adjacent to the Italian courtyard, has been the workplace of the head of the museum since 1946. The furnishings of the office as a whole have been preserved as they were under Irina Aleksandrovna. At the same time, the exposition is built in such a way as to emphasize the continuity and tradition in the management of the museum and remember the outstanding people who in different years headed the museum and made a decisive contribution to its formation and development. First of all, this is Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, whose selfless devotion allowed the building of the museum to be built and the foundations of its collection were laid; Nikolai Ilyich Romanov, who served as a leader in the difficult years after the Civil War; Sergey Dmitrievich Merkurov,which put the museum in order after the Great Patriotic War and turned it into an advanced scientific center. Their symbolic presence is created by various elements of the exposition - Tsvetaev’s solid writing desk has served as the director’s workplace since 1982, in the bookcases there are volumes from Tsvetaeva’s library and books with which Irina Antonova worked. On the table you can see the originals of archival documents related to various stages of the museum’s existence - from the initial concept to the reconstruction of the Main Building, carried out by order of A.N. Kosygin. Photographs of prominent leaders of the museum and photographs of more than a century of history are projected onto the window. In the office, recordings of conversations and interviews with IA Antonova are broadcast. Thus, visitors are symbolically immersed in the history of the museum, personified by its builders,leaders and advocates.

The Director’s Office will be open to the public from March 21, 2021 as part of the permanent exhibition of the Main Building. An excursion program has been prepared especially for the new hall.

The further plans of the museum: the creation of the International Center for Advanced Humanitarian Research named after I.A. Antonova in 1981.

I.A.Antonova passed away on November 30, 2020 and, according to her wishes, was buried in the Novodevichy cemetery next to her mother and husband.