International Artists Promotion Group

Alena Dergiliova

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Aleksandr Fayvisovich

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Alena Filippova-Kargalskaya

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Alexander Grishkevich

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Vitaly Gubarev

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Mikhail Kaban-Petrov

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Mikhail Kocheshkov

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Yuri Larin

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Ksenia Lavrova

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Aleksandr Pavlovets

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Rinat Sharafutdinov

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Vladimir Shichkov

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Andrey Shustov

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Givi Siproshvili

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Leonid Stroganov

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Anastasia Vostrezova

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Evgeni Yali

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IT WAS IN 1912…

In 1900, the most important event in the French-Russian artistic relationship was the Paris International Exhibition, where Russia enjoyed an unprecedented place of prominence.
Between 1906 and 1917, a whole host of artists and personalities linked Russia to Europe. Thanks to the inspirational work of Sergei Diaghilev, Europe discovered dance, music and the audacious paintings from Russia. The retrospective fall show that he organized in 1906, which encompassed 750 paintings representing Russian art from the 15th to the 20th century, exhibited the work of young painters such as Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Alexei Jawlensky, Pavel Kuznetsov and Léon Bakst.
It was in 1912 that Chagall’s work was exhibited at the Autumn Salon, and Yakov Tugendhold, a writer for the modernist publication St. Petersburg Apollon, praised the young Chagall, saying his works are filled with “rich fire colours like the Russian countryside images, expressed to the grotesque, fantastic, to the limits of the irrational. Chagall senses the imperceptible but terrible mystique of life. Those are the images of Vitebsk – a sullen, dull province, a modest hair salon, a lovers’ rendezvous a bit awkward under a misty moon and street sweepers, a dusty illusion of life on the streets of small villages. Chagall creates beautiful legends by capturing glimpses of the simple and common life.” It is thus not surprising that, in 1913, the Autumn Salon welcomed “Russian Popular Art in the image, the toy and the spice bread, an exhibition organized by Miss Nathalie Ehrenbourg.” These objects came mainly from the collections of members of the art world (Ivan Bilibine, Sergei Soudieikine, Nikolai Roerich, Sergei Tchekhonine), but also from the collections of avant-garde artists such as Koulbine, Exter and primarily Larionov. The catalogue cover for this exhibit was written by Tugendhold himself, reaffirming that “the contemporary cult of the primitive is different from the one of the romantic era and the orientalism era…. This archaic art, strong, expressive, forever young, brings hope of renewal, ‘rejuvenation’ to use Paul Gauguin’s word.

By Jean-Claude Marcardé