As a textile tycoon, Sergei Schukin amassed a world-class collection. Cabinet

28.06.2019

SHUKIN Sergei Ivanovich SHUKIN Sergei Ivanovich

SCHUKIN Sergei Ivanovich (May 27, 1854, Moscow - January 10, 1936, Paris), Russian merchant, collector of French art, founder of a public private gallery. Brother of D. I. Schukin (cm. Shchukin Dmitry Ivanovich) and P.I. Schukin (cm. Schukin Petr Ivanovich) .
Educated in Germany. Since 1878, he began to help his father in managing the firm "I. V. Schukin with his sons”, and after the death of his father in 1890 he headed it. Immersed in trading affairs, for the time being he did not share his brothers' passion for collecting, acquiring paintings only to decorate the house. The passion for collecting awakened in Sergei Ivanovich only at the age of more than forty. But very quickly he determined the main direction of his activity as a collector. With the work of the French Impressionists (cm. IMPRESSIONISM) Sergei Ivanovich was introduced by his brother Ivan, also a collector, who also lived permanently in Paris. In Moscow at that time, few people collected modern Western paintings, and the Impressionists were poorly known and practically not appreciated even in France.
The first acquisitions of Sergei Ivanovich in Paris in 1895-96 were quite traditional salon paintings. These were landscapes by little-known artists Fritz Thaulow, James Paterson, Charles Cotte, Lucien Simon. In 1897, the first painting by Claude Monet appeared in his collection. (cm. MONET Claude)- now widely known "Lilac in the sun." So he discovered the Impressionists and, with his characteristic temperament and passion of a businessman, began to collect their canvases.
When purchasing paintings, Sergei Ivanovich did not listen to any opinions. He defined his principle of choosing works of art as follows: "If, after seeing a picture, you experience a psychological shock, buy it." He made new acquisitions at Paris exhibitions, as well as directly in the studios of artists. It was said about Shchukin that he bought "fresh" canvases with still wet paints. In 1905 he purchased several paintings from his brother Peter, who decided to focus on Russian antiquities; among the works was the "Nude" by O. Renoir (cm. Renoir Auguste) .
The collection of S. I. Schukin included works by P. Gauguin (cm. Gauguin Paul), W. Van Gogh (cm. VAN GOGH Vincent), E. Degas (cm. DEGA Edgar), A. Marquet (cm. MARKE Albert), A. Matisse (cm. MATISSE Henri), C. Monet (13 canvases), P. Picasso (cm. PICASSO Pablo)(50 works), C. Pissarro (cm. PISSARRO Camille), P. Cezanne (cm. Cezanne Paul), P. Signac (cm. SIGNAC Paul), A. Rousseau (Customs officer) (cm. RUSSO Henri (Customs officer)). In total, by 1918 he had collected 256 paintings.
In the 1910s, S. I. Shchukin was elected an honorary member of the Jack of Diamonds Society of Artists, along with other artists, writers, theater figures and patrons, he was a member of the Society of Arts.
Shchukin's house in Bolshoi Znamensky Lane, where the gallery was located, was built back in Catherine's time. In 1882 it was purchased by the collector's father, Ivan Vasilyevich, and in 1891 it was presented to Sergei Ivanovich. Its premises were luxurious apartments with high ceilings, an abundance of murals and stucco, parquet, expensive chandeliers. Over time, all its walls from floor to ceiling in two or even three rows, in a continuous "carpet" hanging (frame to frame), were occupied by paintings.
The center of the gallery was a pink living room with paintings by A. Matisse (cm. MATISSE Henri); the paintings were hung by the author himself, who visited Moscow at the invitation of S.I. with a tambourine", "Girl with a tulip".
Matisse was Sergei Ivanovich's favorite artist, and Shchukin established friendly relations with him. They met back in 1906.
In the Shchukin Gallery, there were 38 canvases by Matisse, which entered the history of world art as "Russian Matisses". At the request of the collector, the artist made two huge panels “Dance” and “Music” for his Moscow mansion, which became landmarks in the master’s work.
S. I. Shchukin repeatedly demonstrated works from his collection at various art exhibitions.
After the death of his wife, Lydia Grigoryevna, on January 5, 1907, Sergei Ivanovich made a will, according to which his collection should be donated to the Tretyakov Gallery. He wanted his collection to be an addition to the collection of Western European paintings already in this gallery, collected by S. M. Tretyakov.
Even before the transfer of the collection to the city, since 1910, Shchukin's gallery became available for viewing. Visitors were allowed to view it on Sundays from 11 am to 2 pm. Students, high school students, reporters, writers, artists, artists, and collectors gathered for these Sunday viewings. The tours were conducted by Sergei Ivanovich himself.
In 1915, after his second marriage, Sergei Ivanovich moved to a house on the corner of Bolshaya Nikitskaya and Sadovaya, and the mansion on Znamenka was increasingly turning into a museum. After the new marriage, his plans for the collection also changed.
After the October Revolution on November 5, 1918, the gallery was nationalized and in the spring of 1919 it was opened to the public under the name "The First Museum of New Western Painting."
S. I. Shchukin at first remained at his museum, acting as director, curator and guide. The development of events forced him to leave Russia and settle in Paris, where he lived until his death.
The "Museum of New Western Painting" in 1929 was merged with the Morozov collection and moved to Prechistenka, to a mansion that once belonged to I. A. Morozov. In 1948 the museum was disbanded. The best paintings from the former Shchukin collection are now in the Hermitage and the State Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin. The heirs of Sergei Ivanovich dispute the legality of the nationalization.


encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

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    Shchukin Sergei Ivanovich ... Wikipedia

    Xan. Portrait of S. I. Schukin, 1915. State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg) Sergei Ivanovich Schukin (1854, Moscow 1936, Paris) Moscow merchant and art collector, whose collection laid the foundation for the collections of French modernist ... ... Wikipedia

    - (1854, Moscow 1936, Paris), entrepreneur, art collector. From a merchant Old Believer family. Hereditary honorary citizen. Brother i. He received his primary education at home, then secondary education in Saxony. Graduated… … Moscow (encyclopedia)

    Genus. 1854, d. 1936. Merchant, founder of a public private gallery. Brother of D. I. Schukin (see) and P. I. Schukin (see). Collector of French painting (in the collection of Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Degas, Matisse, Picasso, Pissarro, Cezanne, Signac, etc.). ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

    - (1853 1912), Russian merchant, collector of Russian and Oriental antiquities, founder of a private public museum. Brother of D. I. Schukin (see SCHUKIN Dmitry Ivanovich) and S. I. Schukin (see SCHUKIN Sergey Ivanovich). He received a good education in Russia and for ... encyclopedic Dictionary

    - (1855 1932), Russian collector of Western European art. Brother of P. I. Schukin (see SCHUKIN Petr Ivanovich) and S. I. Schukin (see SCHUKIN Sergey Ivanovich). Educated in Germany. Didn't run a commercial family business. Initially… Encyclopedic Dictionary - Sergey Ivanovich Lobanov Russian artist Date of birth: September 18, 1887 Place of birth: Moscow Date of death: 1942 Place of death ... Wikipedia

Great patrons and philanthropists

5.068 Shchukin Brothers

Gathering became the basis of the generous patronage of the Russian merchants, the Shchukin brothers - Peter, Sergey and Dmitry. Having presented Russia and the world with several unique collections of works of art, the brothers stood on a par with the creators of the P.M. and S.M. Tretyakov, with whom they were related.

The merchant family of the Shchukins came from the city of Borovsk, Kaluga Province. After the Patriotic War of 1812, part of the family settled in Moscow. Profitable trade in manufactory allowed the merchant of the 1st guild, Ivan Vasilyevich Shchukin, by the middle of the 19th century. found his own company, put together a sizable capital and become one of the largest wholesalers.

The merchant's six sons (there were four more daughters) received an excellent education in Russia and abroad, which allowed them to easily navigate art in the future. The brothers inherited the thirst for acquisition from their father, who sinned by collecting.

Three other brothers were less successful in this field for various reasons. Nikolay, who gradually collected antique silver and paintings, basically squandered his money either on the prima donna of the opera or at the card table. Vladimir died young from a serious illness. Ivan, an avid collector, got into debt and committed suicide in Paris, and his entire collection went under the hammer.

In 1878, the father of the family formed the I.V. Schukin and Sons, which was engaged in the sale of cotton yarn and fabrics throughout Russia and Persia. At first, Peter, Nikolai and Sergey, partly Dmitry, were engaged in commerce, but after the death of his father in 1890, everyone except Sergey retired. Sergei, on the other hand, showed himself to be a skillful and tough entrepreneur who did not miss his benefits. The business world nicknamed him "Minister of Commerce".

Of the brothers, Peter (1853-1912) was the most indefatigable collector. Indifferent to his own life, he invested all his money in the acquisition of items he liked. In the 1880s his collection was unsystematic. In Europe, Shchukin bought rare French books, lithographs, engravings, and in Moscow he was almost known as Plyushkin, although he was not close to that.

Seriously carried away by the history of art and educating himself, Pyotr Ivanovich eventually began to apply a scientific approach to collecting. In preparation for the purchase, he studied literature, consulted with specialists, until he himself turned into a consultant on antiquities.

The main things for the collector were Russian antiquities and works of Eastern and Western art, which could show "what influence East and West had on Russian culture" (http://kommersant.ru/).

Having singled out 7 departments in his collection - church, weapons, fabrics, carpets, tapestries and tapestries, jewelry, dishes, Shchukin acquired the richest collections of ancient Russian icons, silver ladles of the 17th-19th centuries, samovars, ancient weapons, orders, coins, cups, oriental carpets and fabrics ... There were many collections acquired by Shchukin from noble families.

Piotr Ivanovich collected a library on history and archeology; manuscript collection from the Gospel of the thirteenth century. to the letters of I.S. Turgenev; complex for the war of 1812; canvases of Russian painters D.G. Levitsky and V.L. Borovikovsky; portraits of A.D. Menshikov, G.A. Potemkina, A.V. Suvorov and other celebrities; french impressionist paintings. The collection of 46 personal archives of prominent statesmen, representatives of the nobility, science and culture was recognized as unique. Experts have repeatedly noted that Shchukin "managed to reflect the history of Russia in the 17th-19th centuries with amazing completeness."

When the collection ceased to fit in the merchant's possessions, Shchukin erected a two-story museum for him in 1895. Over time, two more houses were built. The museum complex cost the collector 200 thousand rubles.

In an effort to preserve the integrity of the collection, Shchukin donated his entire collection (according to the list - 24 thousand items, and according to art historians - at least 300 thousand), along with buildings and furnishings, in 1905 donated to Moscow.

For his gift, which became the basis of the branch of the Historical Museum - "Department of the Imperial Russian Historical Museum named after Emperor Alexander III - Museum of P.I. Schukin "Peter Ivanovich was awarded the Order of Stanislav 2nd class. and the rank of real state councilor. The philanthropist until the end of his life remained the custodian and trustee of the museum, bearing all the expenses for its maintenance and replenishment of the collections.

The doors of the museum were wide open. Artists, historians, writers, philologists found everything they needed here. Popularizing his collection, the philanthropist for 18 years daily compiled thematic catalogs of exhibits - the so-called. "Shchukin collections" (13 collections and books in the amount of 45 volumes).

The philanthropist died on October 12 (25), 1912 from purulent appendicitis. He was buried in the cemetery of the Intercession Monastery.

After the death of Pyotr Schukin, all the collections of his museum were transferred to the Historical Museum on Red Square, where they "dissolved" among other collections. “Today, the share of “Shchukin’s” things is approximately 15% of the entire “Gimovsky” collection, but they always occupy the first lines in the lists of masterpieces.” Many exhibits can also be found in the Armory, the Museum of Oriental Arts, the Tretyakov Gallery, the library of the Moscow Conservatory, the Historical Library ... (N.V. Aleksandrova).

Turning to Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin (1854-1936), it is worth saying right away that in 1912 he bought Impressionist paintings from his brother Peter, incl. and the "pearl" of the collection - "Nude" by O. Renoir.

Immersed in the trading affairs of the company, Sergei Ivanovich had no time to engage in collecting, but when he was over forty, he also became interested in collecting. At the same time, Shchukin immediately singled out for himself the main direction - the new French painting. Unlike most other collectors of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, he saw the "future" in the canvases of the Impressionists.

Having no art education and being an amateur in painting, the collector, nevertheless, unmistakably selected the best in the workshops of artists. “If, after seeing a picture, you experience a psychological shock, buy it,” was Shchukin's motto.

In a short time, Shchukin became a favorite client of the Parisian art dealers P. Durand-Ruel, A. Vollard and others, a welcome visitor to exhibitions.

8 paintings by P. Cezanne, 12 - C. Monet, 13 - E. Manet, 16 - P. Gauguin, 50 - P. Picasso, 38 - A. Matisse, paintings by E. Manet, P. Signac, A. Rousseau, V van Gogh, E. Degas, C. Pissarro, A. Sisley, A. de Toulouse-Lautrec and others - a total of 266 canvases were evaluated at the end of the 20th century. $ 3 billion by experts (http://collection.rin.ru/).

Having equipped a separate room in his house and attached two outbuildings to it, the collector occupied all the walls with paintings “from floor to ceiling in two or even three rows, in a continuous“ carpet ”hanging (frame to frame)”.

In 1907, Shchukin made a will, according to which his collection was donated to the Tretyakov Gallery.

Since 1909, the gallery has become available for viewing. The tours were conducted by Sergei Ivanovich himself. More than once he demonstrated his works at various art exhibitions.

In 1918, the gallery was nationalized, and in 1919 it received a sign "The First Museum of New Western Painting." Now the canvases are in the Hermitage and the State Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin (GMII).

In 1919, Shchukin went into exile. Then there were rumors that Shchukin would start a lawsuit about his ownership of art objects remaining in Russia, but the patron denied them: “I collected not only and not so much for myself, but for my country and my people. Whatever may be on our land, my collections must remain there.” (P.A. Buryshkin).

Dmitry Ivanovich Shchukin (1855-1932) was interested in art history while still at the gymnasium. Until the age of 35, he was engaged in commerce, but after the death of his father, he devoted himself entirely to art. He lived mainly in Germany, Italy, Spain, where he went to exhibitions, museums, studied catalogs and auction reports, etc.

At first he collected Meissen porcelain and sculpture, artistic enamel, gold snuff boxes, miniatures, and then switched to old painting and the Dutch of the XIV-XVIII centuries. (60 paintings by A. Watteau, F. Boucher and others), rare books, catalogs of European and Russian art auctions, French and Italian bronze figurines of the 16th-17th centuries. In total, Shchukin acquired 146 paintings, which he placed in a mansion specially bought for this.

Since 1897, Dmitry Ivanovich regularly donated paintings by old masters to the art gallery of the Rumyantsev Museum. In 1914, he announced his intention to donate the collection to this museum, but the war and the revolution prevented it.

In 1918, Shchukin received a safe-conduct for the collection, which became the First Museum of Old Western Painting, and was appointed assistant curator.

In 1923-1924. Shchukin's collections (606 items) were transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts and the State Museum of Ceramics in Kuskovo, and the patron was enrolled as the curator of the Italian painting department of the Museum of Fine Arts. Later, he donated his library to the museum.

The highlight of the exhibition life in Paris at the end of 2016 and at the beginning of 2017 was the exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation of the Sergei Ivanovich Schukin collection. It was really an event that the whole city gathered for: people came from the United States. And we can say with regret that Paris did what Russia should have done - to show the collection of the great Russian collector as fully as possible and in such a way that it was clear what role it played for the development of Russian art. But, consoling ourselves, let's say that in the person of Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin, Russia at one time did what Paris should have done. It was Sergei Ivanovich and his friend Ivan Abramovich Morozov, who created another largest collection of French paintings in Moscow, who acquired those works of modern French painting, without which it is already impossible to imagine the history of art of the twentieth century.

In the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, private collecting in Russia flourished. The main role in this process was played by the dynamically developing bourgeoisie, primarily the Moscow one. For her, collecting gradually became a patriotic mission, an example of which was Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, who formed the Museum of National Art. But foreign art of the 19th century in Russia was not very lucky: not many of our compatriots collected it. The exception here was Alexander Kushe-lev-Bezborodko, a St. Petersburg aristocrat who collected a good collection of French realists of the first half of the 19th century, who even had. But this is more of an exception that proves the rule. Western art of the 19th century is still represented in the collections of St. Petersburg and Moscow in fragments-tar-no. By 1917, no more than a dozen Muscovites and Petersburgers possessed works of modern French painting, and most of these collections were not available to the public. Even in their own environment, these people were rather an exception. In the gathering of modern Western painting, the public saw the extreme degree of extravagance of Moscow merchants famous for their whims. And it is characteristic that if we were talking now about Western collectors, then the motive of speculation would dominate in a critical attitude towards them: these things are bought in order to then sell them at a profit. And as for the Moscow merchants, evil tongues said that Shchukin had set off. And Shchukin himself, we know from his memoirs, showed his newly acquired Gauguin, not without pride, saying to his interlocutor: "The madman wrote - the madman bought." This is also a characteristic motive - it is rather a motive for wasting money on incomprehensible things, rather than speculation.

In fact, in Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century there were four people who had enough courage to buy unusual Western painting. These four people belonged to two entrepreneurial families - Morozov and Shchukin. Of these four, two left the stage - Mikhail Abramovich Morozov died at the age of 33, and his collection, by the will of the widow, moved to the Tretyakov Gallery, where Muscovites could already see the works of French realists from the collection of Sergei Mikhailovich Tretyakov. And Peter, the eldest of the two brothers, at some point lost interest in collecting modern French painting, and Sergei bought from him in 1912 those paintings that he liked.

One of the rooms in Sergei Shchukin's mansion. 1913 The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts / Diomedia

So, the Moscow collection of contemporary French art is primarily two people: Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin and Ivan Abramovich Morozov. They collected quite unique in terms of volume and quality collections of art that was completely unusual for most of the visitors to Moscow museums. Their role was all the more great in Russia because, unlike Germany or even France, there were no private galleries in Russia that promoted contemporary art, especially foreign art, to the market. And, if Shchukin and Morozov wanted to buy a new picture, they could not turn to a St. Petersburg or Moscow dealer, they did not even go to Berlin - they went straight to Paris. Moreover, in the Russian art space there was no museum that would dare to exhibit contemporary radical painting. If a Parisian already from 1897 could look at the Impressionists in the Luxembourg Museum in the collection of Gustave Caillebotte; if in 1905 the Ateneum Museum in Helsingfors (Helsinki) dared to buy a Van Gogh, and this was the first Van Gogh in public collections in the world; if Hugo von Chudi, curator of the National Gallery in Berlin, was forced to resign in 1908 under pressure from the German emperor himself for buying new French paintings, then not one of the Russian state or public museums dared to show call these pictures. The first place where the Impressionists in our country could be seen in public space was the personal museum of Pyotr Schukin, opened in 1905. In 1905, Shchukin transferred his collection to the Historical Museum, which made up a whole department called “Department of the Imperial Russian Historical Museum named after Emperor Alexander III. Museum of P. I. Schukin. The private museum has been operating since 1895.. But the main thing is that the collection of Sergei Shchukin assumed the role of the museum, which he made public since 1909: on weekends it could be visited, sometimes even accompanied by Sergei Ivanovich himself. And the memoirists left an impressive description of these excursions.

Shchukin and Morozov were two people belonging to the same circle - these are the Old Believers, that is, they are a very responsible, morally strong Russian bourgeoisie, who at the same time were so daring to acquire art that did not have stable reputation. In this respect they are similar. Similar are the lists of names that made up their collection. In essence, they collected practically the same series of masters. But here the differences begin, the differences are fundamental, very important, defining for the Russian artistic process.

The Shchukin brothers made their first acquisitions at the very end of the 19th century: in 1898 they bought paintings by Pissarro and Monet. Then their younger brother Ivan Shchukin, who also published in Russian magazines under the pseudonym Jean Brochet, Jean Schuka, lived in Paris, lived his life and collected his collection. And it was such a bridge for Moscow collectors to Paris. The real Shchukin collection began with the Impressionists, but, as the Louis Vuitton exhibition showed very well, in fact, Shchukin collected a lot, collected a mixed picture of modern Western painting, but with At the time of acquiring the Impressionists, he gradually narrowed his taste and focused precisely on them. Further, his collecting was reminiscent of the takeoff of a Soviet space rocket, which shoots off a new stage, rising up. He began to get really interested in the Impressionists, then, around 1904, he almost completely switched to the Post-Impressionists and in about five years he bought eight works by Cezanne, four by Van Gogh and 16 Gogh. genes, and Gauguin extra-class. Then he falls in love with Matisse: the first Matisse comes to him in 1906, and then comes the Picasso strip. In 1914, for obvious reasons, due to the outbreak of the World War, Sergei Ivanovich, like Ivan Abramovich, stopped buying paintings abroad - ordered things remain there, such as, for example, matis -Sov-sky "" from the Pompidou Center or Matisse's "Woman on a high stool" from the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

If Shchukin is such a monogamous collector, very rarely returning to what he had already experienced (the exception was the purchase of impressionists from his brother in 1912), then Morozov is a person who collects very measuredly and strategically. He understands what he wants. Sergei Makovsky recalled that for a long time there was an empty space on the wall of the Morozov collection, and when asked why you hold it like that, Morozov said that “I see blue Cezanne here.” And one day this gap was filled with a completely outstanding semi-abstract late Cezanne - a painting that is known as " Blue Landscape" and is now in the Hermitage. If we turn this thing over, then, in general, little will change, because only a very large visual effort will make us make out in this series of strokes the contours of a tree, a mountain, a road, and maybe house in the center. This is Cezanne, who is already freeing himself from figurativeness. But what is important here is that Morozov collects in a different way: he has a certain ideal image of the master, the ideal image of the collection, and he is ready to lie in wait in order to get the right picture. Moreover, this is a very arbitrary choice, a personal one, because, for example, in 1912 in St. Petersburg, the greatest painting of the impressionistic era, Edouard Manet, was exhibited and sold for a very large sum - 300 thousand francs. Benois was very sorry then that none of the Russian collectors dared to exchange money for a masterpiece. Both Shchukin and Morozov could do it, but Shchukin no longer collected Impressionists, and Morozov had his own idea of ​​what he wanted from Manet: he wanted a landscape, he wanted a Manet plein air painter rather than an interior scene.


Edward Mane. Bar at the Folies Bergère. 1882 Courtauld Institute of Art / Wikimedia Commons

Differences continue in other areas as well. For example, Shchukin bought almost nothing from Russian art. Moreover, he was not particularly interested in art outside of France. He has works by other European artists, but against the general background they are completely lost, and the main thing is that they do not express the main trend of his collecting. Morozov compiled a collection of Russian paintings, which is not much inferior to his French collection. He collected a very wide range - from late Russian realism, such a work of the union of Russian artists depicting our nature, Vrubel, Serov, Symbolists, Goncharova and Chagall - he was one of the first, if not the first Russian, who bought the Shaga-la thing. Different was their financial strategy, their ways of choosing. We know from Matisse that Morozov, when visiting a dealer in Paris, said: “Show me the best Cézannes” and made a choice among them. And Shchukin climbed into the store, into the gallery and looked through all the Cezannes he could find. Morozov was known in Paris as a Russian who does not trade, and in one gallery he left a quarter of a million francs during his collection. Igor Grabar, not without irony, writes in his memoirs that Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin liked to say, rubbing his hands, "Good pictures are cheap." But in fact, it was Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin who paid a record amount on the market of modern painting: in 1910, he paid 15,000 francs for Matisse's Dance, and 12,000 for Music. True, he supplied the document with the indication "the price is confidential."

This variety, which can be seen everywhere - Shchukin's expansiveness and Morozov's quietness, acquisition strategy, choice - would seem to stop where we turn to the list. They really brought together beautiful impressionists. True, there is practically no Edouard Manet in Russian collections. In a certain sense, this is a mystery, because by this moment, when our compatriots began to collect, Edouard Manet was already an extra-class figure, he was a star. And Muratov once wrote that Edouard Manet is the first painter, for a full-fledged idea of ​​which one has to swim across the ocean. That is, he does not just diverge among the collections - he goes to the United States, and American collectors for European and Russian in particular - this is such a disturbing object of irony: there from time to time slips There are references to Chicago pork merchants who will come to Paris and buy everything. So, with Edouard Manet, our compatriots somehow got along very simply. I have already told about how we didn’t buy the “Bar at the Folies Bergère”, but, apparently, the point is that Edouard Manet was not the ideal impressionist for the Russian viewer and Russian collector and Claude Monet. And Claude Monet, good, really was quite a lot of both Shchukin and Morozov. Further differences begin, because Morozov, with his penchant for lyrical landscapes, loved Sisley. They collected practically the same post-Impressionists, the great trinity - Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, and Morozov had a little less Gauguin than Shchukin, but the American art historian Alfred Barr believed that that the quality of the Gauguin collection was almost higher. In fact, this is an extremely difficult competition, because the taste of these two merchants was extremely sophisticated, though different, and we are now approaching this fundamental difference.

It is indicative that both loved Matisse, but if Shchukin experienced passion - 37 paintings, then Morozov bought 11, and of them there were quite a few early things where Matisse was not yet a radical, where he was a very subtle and careful painter. set. But Morozov had almost no Picasso: against more than 50 paintings by Shchukin, Morozov could put up only three paintings by Picasso - however, each of these paintings was a masterpiece characterizing a certain turn. This is "Harlequin and his girlfriend" of the "blue" period; this is "", which was sold by Gertrude Stein and bought by Ivan Morozov, a thing of the "pink" period; and this is a unique cubist “Portrait of Ambroise Vollard” of 1910: similar to this image in the world, in my opinion, there are only two more portraits - Wilhelm Uhde and Daniel Henri Kahnweiler. That is, here, in the unsympathetic Picasso to him, Morozov made an absolutely sniper choice.

Morozov collected things of extra-class and at the same time characteristic, things with such a biography. For example, his Boulevard des Capucines by Claude Monet in 1873 is very likely the same Boulevard des Capucines that was exhibited at the first impressionist exhibition at Nadar's studio in 1874. There are two versions of Boulevard Capuchinok: one is kept in the State Museum. Pushkin in Moscow, the other is in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.. There are different opinions on this matter - American art-Vedas prefer to call this canvas " Capuchin Boulevard" from the museum in Kansas City, but the quality of the picture personally allows me to assume that there was precisely ours, that is, the Moscow Monet. “Drying the Sails” by Derain from the collection of Ivan Morozov was exactly the picture that was reproduced on the spread of the magazine “Illustration” on November 4, 1905, along with other nails of the Autumn Salon - the works of the Fauvists. And this list can be multiplied: Morozov really selected things with a biography.

What was the fundamental difference between these collections and how did this difference affect our art? Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin presented the development of modern French painting as a permanent revolution. He chose things not just characteristic - he gave preference to things radical. When he began to collect Matisse and follow the logic of Matisse, the most important choice was the choice of an elementary simple picture. On his European trip, while visiting the Folkwang Museum in the city of Hagen in the Ruhr region of Germany, Shchukin saw a thing that had just been commissioned by Karl Ernst Osthaus, the owner and founder of this museum, in fact one of the first institutions dedicated to strictly contemporary art. Karl-Ernst Otshaus commissioned a large painting from Matisse, "Three Characters with a Turtle". The plot is completely incomprehensible: three characters, three human-like creatures - there are some ambiguities even with gender - they feed the turtle or play with it. The entire range of colors is reduced to blue, green and flesh; The drawing looks like a child's. And this unheard-of simplicity of Shchukin absolutely subdued - he wanted the same, the result of which was the painting “Bowl Game”, coloristically and from the point of view of the drawing, very close to the painting by Osthaus, where the turtle was no longer there and were three boys who roll balls, as is customary in the South of France. And this thing, blatantly laconic and defiantly primitive, gave rise to the acquisition of one after another of the radical things of Matiss: “Red room”, “Conversation”. But of course, the culmination of these purchases is "Dance" and "Music". The same can be said about Picasso. Shchukin acquired dozens of things from the early Picasso, who was on the verge of cubism, 1908-1909; heavy, terrible, brown, green figures, as if hewn with an ax from stone or wood. And here he was also biased, because entire periods of Picasso's work passed his attention, but the radicalism of the primitive Picasso exceeded all other limits. He made a colossal impression on the Russian public, which formed its own image of this enfant terrible, this troublemaker of world art.

Morozov bought the same artists, but chose different things. There is a classic example, cited already at one time in the publications of the art critic Al-bert Grigoryevich Kostenevich. Two landscapes from the collections of Shchukin and Moro-zo-va. They depict the same motive. Cezanne was very fond of painting Mount Sainte-Victoire in Provence, and if we look at a later thing that belonged to Shchuka-well, then we can hardly find the outlines of the mountain - this is more of a mosaic collection of strokes in which we must by our will of the contemplator to construct this mountain, thus becoming an accomplice of the painting process. Mount Sainte-Victoire, painted several decades earlier by Cezanne and acquired by Morozov, is a balanced, classically calm, different, clear picture, reminiscent of Cezanne's wish to remake Poussin in accordance with nature. In short, Morozov presented French painting after impressionism as an evolution, Shchukin as a revolution. And the fact is that the Morozov collection remained a mystery to the vast majority of viewers and artists, because Ivan Abramovich was not a particularly hospitable collector. This collection was not created without the advice of his artist friends.


Vincent Van Gogh. Red vineyards in Arles. 1888 Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin / Wikimedia Commons

For example, one of his Van Gogh masterpieces, "", was bought on the advice of Valentin Serov. But in general, Morozov's palace on the Pre-chi-stenka, where the Russian Academy of Arts is now located, was closed to visitors. But Sergey Ivanovich not only bequeathed the collection to the city, since 1909 he began to let everyone in there, even before that he was happy to invite students of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture to show them fresh acquisitions . The fact that it was the revolutionary concept of the French art of Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin that was in sight, was discovered, of course, is the most important factor in the radicalization of the Russian avant-garde. Returning from Moscow, David Burliuk wrote to Mikhail Matyushin:

“... we saw two collections of the French - S. I. Shchukin and I. A. Morozov. This is something without which I would not dare to start work. We are at home for the third day - everything old has gone to pieces, and oh, how difficult and fun it is to start all over again ... "

Here, in fact, is the best illustration for understanding what the collections of Moscow collectors were for the Russian avant-garde. It was a constant ferment, it was a constant irritant, it was a constant object of controversy.

Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin was a very enterprising businessman, bold, daring, and, apparently, this economic policy continued in his collecting activities. Well, for example, who was really friends with Matisse and helped him with pleasure - in fact, of course, he paid for work, for works - Shchukin tried to ensure that Matisse received these money without having to cede a commission to the gallery. The fact is that the leader of the Fauvists became one of the first masters of modern painting, who entered into such an integral agreement with his dealer Bernheim-Jeune that, in general, everything he produces belongs to the gallery, is sold through the gallery, for which, naturally, he was entitled to a substantial annual sum. But this agreement had exceptions. If the artist accepted an order directly from the buyer, bypassing the dealer, he was obliged to increase the amount, but Matisse had the right to write portraits and decorative panels directly, bypassing the gallery commission. And if we look at the Shchukin collection of Matisse, we will see that "Dance" and "Music", the most expensive things, are panels, and huge canvases, which, in general, of course, are not quite portraits , for each of which Shchukin took 10 thousand francs out of his wallet, they qualify precisely as portraiture. For example, "Family Portrait", depicting members of the Matisse family; "Conversation", which is a portrait of Matisse and his wife; some other things and, finally, the last Matisse, bought by Shchukin before the war, “Portrait of Madame Matisse” in 1913, for 10 thousand francs too. So Shchukin very enterprisingly helped his beloved artist and friend, bypassing Bernheim-Jeune's purse.

Several memoirists brought to us a description of Shchukin's manner of leading excursions. You can find an ironic portrait of the collector in Boris Zaitsev's story "The Blue Star". There, the heroine, before suddenly after visiting the gallery, a declaration of love takes place, listens to Shchukin's tour:

“Visitors of three kinds wandered through the halls: again artists, again young ladies and modest herds of sightseers, obediently listening to explanations. The car ran for quite some time. She liked being alone, out of the pressure of tastes; she carefully examined foggy-smoky London, brightly colored Matisse, from which the living room became lighter, the yellow variegation of Van Gogh, the primitive of Gauguin. In one corner, in front of Cezanne's harlequin, a gray-haired old man in pince-nez, with a Moscow accent, said to a group of people around:
“Cezanne, sir, after everything else, like, for example, Monet, it’s the same as after sugar - a rye bread, sir ...
<…>
The old man, the leader of the tourists, took off his pince-nez and, waving it,
said:
- My last love, yes, Picasso, sir ... When he is in Paris, I
they showed me, so I thought - either everyone went crazy, or I went crazy. So his eyes tear, like he's ticking with a knife, sir. Or walking barefoot on broken glass...
Tourists hummed merrily. The old man, apparently not the first to say this and who knew his effects, waited and continued:
“But now, sir, nothing, sir ... On the contrary, after broken glass, everything else seems to me like marmalade ...”

What distinguishes the collection of Ivan Morozov from the collection of Sergei Shchukin is Morozov's focus on decorative ensembles. He had several of them, and if Morozov collected panels unusual for Claude Monet, depicting the corners of a garden in Montgeron, from various galleries, then he ordered the rest of the ensembles himself. After all, he was in fact the first in Russia to commission a complete monumental and decorative ensemble to a modern prosperous painter with a not yet fully established reputation. In 1907, he agreed with Maurice Denis to create a cycle of pictorial panels for the dining room of his palace on the plot of the story of Psyche. The initial price of the project was 50 thousand francs - this is a lot. Five pan-nos were to be made, which Denis, apparently with the help of apprentices, practically completed during the year. When these panels arrived in Moscow, it became clear that they did not quite correspond to the interior, the artist had to come, and he decided to add eight more panels for 20,000 more, and then, on the advice of Morozov, put statues in this space Maillol's work, and it was a very correct decision. When Alexandre Benois, who at one time was very fond of Maurice Denis and promoted his work in Russia, entered Morozov's dining room, as he later recalls in his memoirs, he realized that this was exactly what should not have been done. Denis created the embodiment of a compromise of modern art, painting, which one of the modern researchers called touristic, postcard views of Italy, caramel-sweet painting. But the very fact of the appearance in Moscow of an integral ensemble made by a contemporary French artist, it seems to me, caused a polemical reaction from Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin.

Maurice Denis. The second panel "Zephyr carries Psyche to the island of Bliss". 1908 State Hermitage

It is against the background of Maurice Denis that we must consider the extremely radical Matisse. Actually, after Maurice Denis, who appeared at Morozov, Shchukin orders "Dance" and "Music" as a maximally avant-garde response to the art of compromise. “Dance” and “Music” are placed by Shchukin on the stairs of his mansion, that is, in public space. And this is a terribly important place, because a person entering the Shchukin Museum immediately receives a very distinct tuning fork: everything that then begins after "Dance" and "Music" will be perceived through the prism of "Dance" Tsa” and “Music”, through the prism of the most radical artistic decision at that time. And all art that can be perceived as the art of evolution will go under the sign of revolution. But Morozov, it seems to me, did not remain in debt. Not being a radical and not being prone to such sharp gestures as Shchukin, he, in my opinion, acted in the best of his traditions, but no less radically. In the early 1910s, on the stairs of his mansion, that is, in an almost public space, a triptych by Pierre Bonnard “By the Mediterranean Sea” also appears. Pierre Bonnard at this point least of all has the reputation of a radical. Pierre Bonnard creates a painting that is very pleasant, sweet, enveloping, giving rise to a feeling, especially this triptych, a feeling of warm comfort of the Mediterranean summer. But, as Gloria Groom has so well shown in her study of the decorative aesthetics of the turn of the century, Bonnard's Japanese screen-orientated triptych actually questions the basic principles of European painting to a much greater extent than Matisse's "Dance" and "Music". Matisse's "Dance" and "Music", denying a lot in the pictorial language, in the pictorial vocabulary, do not question the centripetal idea of ​​composition, a structure that is distinct, clear, in essence, geometric. And Bonnard, in his work oriented towards the Japanese tradition, blurs this very centrifugalness. After all, we can put five more panels on different sides, and the feeling of integrity will not be lost. And in this sense, it seems to me that Morozov's answer to Shchuka-well is very subtle and very accurate.

I said that Shchukin was not fond of decorative ensembles, but this problem of synthetic art, which plagued the early twentieth century, did not pass by the Shchukin collection. In his collection, Gauguin was concentrated in a large dining room, in the same place where Matisse also hung; Van Gogh hung on the same wall as Gauguin. And we know from photographs and from the testimonies of contemporaries that Gauguin's paintings hung very tightly. Actually, Shchukin did not have much space for paintings in his large palace: the collection grew. But the density of this exposure was associated not only with the tradition of hanging paintings back to back at exhibitions of that time, but, obviously, with the fact that Shchukin intuitively understood the synthetic nature of Gauguin's work. Hung next to dozens of paintings by Gauguin appeared as something integral, like a fresco. It is no coincidence that Jacob Tugendhold shrewdly called this installation "Gauguin's iko-no-stas". He got into the top ten - in fact, as a Russian critic of that time, he already understood very well in 1914 what a Russian icon is, how much it simultaneously returns spirituality to art and is part of the integral ensemble of the temple. And in this regard, the Shchukin collection, despite the fact that it does not follow Morozov's trend, in general, participates in the same process - an attempt to create holistic, integral, synthetic art on the basis of modern painting.

The Shchukin collection was an absolute problem for the Russian audience. The art that was presented there was extremely unusual, it violated conventions, it destroyed ideas about harmony, and it, in essence, denied the huge layers of modern Russian painting. With all this, we will not find in the Russian press a large number of negative reviews about Shchu-kin. Still, it seems to me that the collector, even a weirdo, belonging to an extremely influential economic clan, was spared from direct attacks in the press. There are exceptions, they are significant. For example, in 1910, the wife of Ilya Efimovich Repin, Natalya Borisovna Nordman, who wrote under the pseudonym of Severov, published what we can now qualify as a “Live Journal” or a blog, the book “Intimate Pages”, in which intimacy means exactly trustworthiness, which seems to distinguish these Internet forms of modernity. The book told about travels, about visiting Yasnaya Polyana, but, in particular, there is a very interesting episode that tells how Repin and Nord-man came to Shchukin in the absence of a collector and visited his museum. We know that Repin reacted extremely painfully to modern French painting. But here the intonation of a person is important, who, in general, broadcasts the ideas of a politically and socially advanced section of the Russian intelligentsia, which still keeps the precepts of the second half of the 19th century. Contemporaries were shocked by this book and, in particular, by the description of Shchukin's visit, I would say, due to such an absolutely self-critical tendentiousness of the statement:

“Shchukin is a philanthropist. He has weekly concerts, in music he loves the very last word (Scriabin is his favorite composer). In life-in-pi-si the same. But he collects only the French... The latest mods hang in his office, but as soon as they begin to be replaced by new names on the French market, they are immediately moved further to other rooms. The movement is constant. Who knows what names hang in his bathroom?
<…>
In all the beautiful old rooms, the walls are completely covered with paintings. In the great hall we saw many Monet landscapes, which have their own charm. Sizelet hangs on the side - the picture depicts different colored squares up close, monotonously from a distance it is a mountain.

Here I must explain that there is no artist Siseleta, and, most likely, Natalya Nordman describes the painting “Mount Saint-Victoire” by Cezanne. The excursionists are led by the housekeeper, who, having released all her stock of bewilderment and mixed up the names, suddenly somehow went out and got bored and asked her son Shchukin for help.

“And here we have a young man of 22 years old, he puts his hands in his pockets somehow in a Parisian way. Why? Listen - and in Russian he speaks burr, like a Parisian. What is this? Raised abroad.
After we learned that there were 4 brothers - they didn’t stick anywhere, they didn’t believe in anything.<…>Shchukins from the French lyceum with Russian millions - this strange mixture has deprived them of their roots.

Let me explain that there is nothing close to the truth in this characteristic. Both the education and professional experience of the Shchukin brothers do not give any reason to speak of their rootlessness or superficial Frenchness. Before us is the image of a collector of modern French art, reflecting the stereotypes of a significant part of the Russian intelligentsia, feeding on the legacy of the 19th century:

“Shapeless, rude and arrogant Matisse, like others, will fade into the background. And here is the grimace of suffering on the artist's face - his soul is yearning, tormented, Paris's mockery of the Russians. And they, these weak Slavs, so willingly allow themselves to be hypnotized. Turn your nose and lead where you want, just lead. I want to leave this house as soon as possible, where there is no harmony of life, where the king’s new dress rules.”

After going to Shchukin, the Repin family went to a student exhibition at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and a very significant conversation took place there, about which Nordman actually writes very penetratingly:

“After visiting Shchukin's house, the key to modern Moscow art was found. A student exhibition at a school of painting and sculpture is a particularly strong symptom. “What did Repin say?” Curious faces reached out to me. I kept silent. “Do you often visit the Shchukin Gallery?” I suddenly asked. They looked at each other, looked at me, and we all laughed. Of course, as is almost always the case, we laughed about different things. “Often, Shchukin constantly invites us in groups. And what, do you see an imitation?“ I again kept silent. Only this, and suddenly I felt somehow even angrily: “I don’t want to pass into the offspring of green, or black, or blue.” Pity for me to the point of contempt was expressed on the faces of the students: “You are demanding the impossible!”

When Natalya Severova and Repin exchanged opinions about what they saw:

“‘I think that their demands are huge - they want a complete liberation from tradition. They are looking for spontaneity, superforms, supercolors. They want genius." “No,” I said, “not that. They want a revolution. Every Russian person, whoever he may be, wants to overturn and tear off something that chokes and crushes him. So he rebels."

Here, in a striking way, a person who is completely out of tune when describing the collection, looking over the heads of his interlocutors, defines the very mission that the Shchukin collection fulfilled in the Russian context. It really was a collection that personifies the revolution.

But the problem of explaining the Shchukin meeting remained. In fact, there was a war going on for the Shchukin assembly. The avant-garde artists really wanted to offer the public their vision of the Shchukin collection as a realm of experiment and revolution, and on the other hand, to prove that their art did not owe everything to Shchukin. But the supporters of the modernist compromise position turned out to be more successful, especially the critics of the Apollon magazine, who were able to formulate the rhetoric that allowed a relatively wide range of readers to reconcile and even fall in love with the masters from Shchukin. The only way along the way was to prove that the choice of collectors, Shchukin or Mo-ro-zov, is based not just on a whim, but is actually based on a subtle traditional taste. Therefore, when we read reviews of the Shchukin and Morozov collections written by Muratov, Tugend-hold, Benois and other critics of this circle, we are constantly confronted with images of the museum. This is a museum of personal taste, this is a museum of the history of painting. The second important aspect is the image of the collector. And in this sense, what Benois writes about Shchukin is extremely important:

“What did this man have to endure for his “quirks”? For years he was looked upon as a lunatic, as a maniac who throws money out the window and gets "swindled" by Parisian swindlers. But Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin did not pay any attention to these cries and laughter and walked with complete sincerity along the once chosen path.<…>Shchukin didn’t just throw money around, he didn’t just buy what was recommended in the leading shops. Each of his purchases was a kind of feat associated with painful hesitation in essence ...<…>Shchukin did not take what he liked, but took what he thought he should like. Shchukin, with some kind of ascetic method, just like Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov in his time, educated himself on acquisitions and somehow by force broke through the barriers that arose between him and the worldview of the masters who interested him.<…>Perhaps, in other cases, he was mistaken, but in general terms he now emerges victorious. He surrounded himself with things that, by a slow and constant influence on him, illuminated for him the present state of contemporary artistic affairs, which taught him to rejoice in what our time has created truly pleasing.”

/ Friends of Matisse / Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin

Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin called Matisse "a modern Michelangelo" - whether it was irony, or the truth, only he himself knows. The Moscow merchant and collector, who ardently loved French painting, took a liking to the artist's works at first sight.

"Joy of Life": from canvas to reality

In the spring of 1906, he saw the canvas "Joy of Life" and wanted to get acquainted with the artist. It was an idealistic landscape in red and yellow, against which figures of naked bodies dancing and making love were depicted. This work touched Shchukin.

In those days, few people liked the paintings of Matisse. He was called a rude, impudent dropout, but nevertheless it was Matisse who attracted Shchukin's attention. The collector became so carried away that he began to correspond with the artist, although before he was content with buying paintings from merchants.

Shchukin bought 37 works by Matisse and sent the same number of messages to the artist. Sergei Ivanovich bought paintings, taking them directly from the workshop, sometimes they were unfinished, or even barely begun works.


Mansion of patron of the arts Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin, Matisse Hall

In the summer of 1908, the collector took a liking to a fresh painting called Ball Game and two half-finished still lifes. Working on the latter, Matisse almost went bankrupt. It was a huge canvas (two meters long) called "Red Room", depicting a woman setting the table. The artist painted fruits from nature, which he bought in Paris for a lot of money. To make them spoil more slowly, Matisse ventilated the room all the time, because of which he had to work in a coat and gloves all winter.

The Perfect Cartridge

Matisse considered Shchukin to be his “ideal patron”, since after meeting him, the artist forgot about the long years of need. Sergei Ivanovich asked me to notify you about each new work - rarely did anyone follow the master's work like that!

Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin comes from a merchant family of the Old Believers. Brother of Dmitry and Peter Schukin.

He received his higher education in Germany (Higher Commercial Academy, Gera, Thuringia, ca. 1876). In partnership "I. V. Schukin with Sons "he became the successor of his father. He made his fortune during the all-Russian strike of 1905, buying up all the manufactured goods in a moment of panic and thus seizing a monopoly on the market.

In the autumn of 1919 he emigrated to Germany, then settled in Nice. He died in Paris in 1936.

Collection

Shchukin is one of the well-known patrons of the Silver Age. Unlike most other Russian collectors at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Shchukin bought paintings to his taste, preferring the Impressionists and then the Post-Impressionists.

Shchukin’s interests in post-impressionism turned after 1904, since that time he often travels to Paris and even transfers a separate large amount to a special account in Berlin in order to promptly pay for purchases - this money was very useful to him when Shchukin ended up in exile.

Since 1909, Shchukin opened his mansion to everyone who wanted to get acquainted with the collection, which caused alarm among the teachers of the Moscow School of Painting, who were worried about the purity of their students' eyesight.

The beginning of collecting

In 1882, Shchukin bought the mansion of the princes Trubetskoy in Bolshoy Znamensky Lane, 8; then he sold the princely collections of weapons and paintings by the Wanderers, in exchange for several Norwegian landscapes by F. Thaulov, which became the embryo of the future collection.

Unlike his brothers, gambling collectors, Sergei Shchukin began to show interest in collecting only when he entered his forties, focusing exclusively on contemporary art, and after a while focusing on one French school. In a short time he became one of the most beloved clients of the Parisian art dealers. Shchukin maintained contacts with the most famous of them, Paul Durand-Ruel (they were introduced by a distant relative, the artist Fyodor Botkin), and Shchukin acquired most of his Cezanne paintings from Ambroise Vollard (he had 8 of them in total).

Paintings by Monet

It is believed that the first painting by Monet, bought by him in November 1898 - "Rocks in Belle-Ile" (GMII). It was the first painting by Monet to appear in Russia.

By the mid-1900s, he had acquired eleven paintings by the master (among them Lilacs in the Sun and Rocks in Belle-Ile), and a little later, the famous Breakfast on the Grass.

Subsequently, his collection was enriched with paintings by J. Whistler, Puvis de Chavannes, P. Signac, Henri Rousseau.

Paintings by Matisse

Shchukin developed especially close cooperation with Henri Matisse, to whom Shchukin ordered the panel "Music" and "Dance", as well as "Harmony in Red (Red Room)", specially ordered by Shchukin in 1908 for the dining room.

The paintings of Matisse in the mansion, including The Bowlers, were placed under the supervision of the artist himself during his visit to Moscow.

Paintings by Gauguin

In the dining room of the Shchukin mansion, 16 Gauguin paintings hung in dense hanging - they were shifted one to the other so closely that at first the viewer did not even notice where one ends and the other begins. The impression was created of a fresco, an iconostasis, as Apollon magazine noted. 11 of them came from the Gustav Fayet collection, Shchukin bought them in bulk at the Druet Gallery. True, Shchukin was able to appreciate this artist only after some effort: having bought the first canvas, he hung it in his office and got used to it for a long time, examining it alone. But, having tasted it, I bought almost the entire Tahitian cycle.

Paintings by Picasso

Since Picasso refused to be exhibited, Shchukin got acquainted with his works by visiting private houses, in particular, the “salon” of Gertrude Stein and the meetings of her brothers Leo and Michael. Shchukin's purchases included: Absinthe Drinker, Old Jew with a Boy, Portrait of the Poet Sabartes, other works of the pink and blue periods, as well as the cubist Woman with a Fan, Factory in the village of Horta de Ebro. Shchukin's collection was replenished with "Picasso" from the Stein collection, which was sold out in 1913.

The fate of the collection

1882 - Sergei Shchukin buys the first paintings.

1909 - The collector opens his halls to the public.

1919, spring - the collection is opened to the public under the name "The First Museum of New Western Painting".

1929 - the collection is combined with the Morozov collection ("Second Museum of New Western Painting") and moved to the former mansion of Ivan Morozov, which is named GMNZI (State Museum of New Western Art).

1948 - GMNZI is disbanded in the wake of a campaign against cosmopolitanism. Many paintings are under threat of destruction. But still they are divided between the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum.



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