Drawing and Watercolor. 20th Century

The ‘Drawings and Watercolours in Russia. XX Century’ exhibition completes the ‘Three Centuries of Russian Drawing’ lasting many years project. 200 artworks by 130 authors will be presented on the exposition. Among them there are not only artworks by the most prominent names in the history of Russian Fine Arts of the XX century, but the drawings by little-known artists, who also influenced on a development of Russian drawing art.

The exposition contains drawings and watercolours of XX century, when drawing found its independence and realized itself as a special diversity of fine arts. So numerous artworks that were created in one of the most complicated period of Russian history are gathered together for the first time.

The first decade of the XX century introduced important changes into the art of drawing. These changes determined its development till the end of the century. Traits of the time kept in the creative oeuvre of V. Favorsky and A. Tyshler, I. Golitsyn and T. Shishmaryova, V. Sterligov and D. Mitrokhin, V. Kurdov and A. Kaplan, V. Vetrogonsky and V. Volkov, P. Kondratyev and P. Dik and other masters. Their artworks allow forming an opinion on new opportunities of plastic expressions and changing of stylistic directions. Traditional borders of the genre were washed away. New synthetic forms, which combined traits of portrait and genre painting, interior and still-life, subject compositions and landscape, appeared.