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To the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the formation of the collection of the avant-garde of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The collection of the avant-garde of the early twentieth century of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan (Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan) is the pride of the museum collection. It is represented by paintings by famous Russian artists of the early twentieth century V.V. Kandinsky, A.M. Rodchenko, A.V. Lentulova, N.S. Goncharova, M.F. Larionova, P.V. Kuznetsova, R.R. Falk, V.V. Rozhdestvensky, I.I. Mashkova, A.A. Osmerkin and others. The museum collection reflects almost all stages of the development of the Russian avant-garde: symbolism, cubism, futurism, primitivism, abstractionism, constructivism, etc.

The avant-garde collection began to take shape in 1920, after the Kazan Scientific and Industrial Museum was reorganized into the Central Museum of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The All-Russian Collegium for Museums and the Protection of Monuments of Art and Antiquities and the State Art Fund of the Department of Fine Arts of the People’s Commissariat of the RSFSR played a large role in shaping the collection of contemporary Russian art. In 1920, they transferred to Kazan the art department of the museum a number of works by leading Russian artists, representing, first of all, the latest art movements. This was part of the grandiose plan of the Fine Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat for Education to create museums of pictorial culture in the country, the first museums of contemporary art in the world’s art practice. In Kazan, as in the whole country (with the exception of Moscow), a special museum was not created, and the proceeds merged into the existing City Museum.

It is these receipts - the paintings of leading Russian avant-garde artists - that made up the core of the Kazan collection of the Russian avant-garde. The works were shown at the First State Exhibition of Art and Science in Kazan in 1920 in the building of the Kazan Art School.

The expansion of the museum collection of the Russian avant-garde took place in the second half of the 1920s - early 1930s. In 1930, a number of paintings were transferred from the State Russian Museum, including N.I. Altman, N.I. Kullbin. In 1932, from the State Tretyakov Gallery came the work of M.F. Larionova and V.V. Kandinsky (the latter was in the collection of the Museum of pictorial culture in Moscow before its disbandment). The next stage in the formation of the collection is associated with the reorganization of the museum in 1958, when the art department (Picture Gallery) acquired the status of an independent Museum of Fine Arts and later, in 1967, moved to its own building. The boundary of the 1950s - 1960s. was critical for the collection of the Russian avant-garde - a number of works were written off as not complying with the ideology of socialist realism, but museum staff managed to preserve the best part of the collection, and the written-off works saved by the young researcher A. Novitsky, 1990 - 1992 were returned to the museum. Liberal 1970s - 1980s became a period of active procurement of works from the heirs of the masters of the Russian avant-garde. In 2016, the museum’s collection was also replenished with the works of A. Rodchenko and V. Stepanova.

At the turn of 1910 - 1920s. a collection of works by the Kazan avant-garde also began to take shape, which appeared initially as a collection of works by teachers and students of Kazan state free art workshops. At this time, the graphic school flourished (the association "Sunflower" and "Horseman"). In the 1920-1930s. due to the liquidation of the workshops and the loss of the building, many works were lost. Unfortunately, the Kazan avant-garde has survived fragmentary. After the 1950s his collection was significantly replenished with works transferred to the museum either by the artists themselves or by members of their families (K. Chebotarev, A. Platunova and others).

The high quality of the Kazan collection of the Russian avant-garde is evidenced by the fact that her works are invariably in demand at many of the largest exhibitions of the Russian avant-garde, held in Russia and abroad.

Dina Akhmetova, art critic