Fairytales in Russia

The motifs of fairy and folk tales have always been present in Russian art, reflecting the quests for artistic ideals in every period and style. Fairytales have been a constant source of inspiration for artists in their search for simple truths and attempts to escape reality. The show displays over three hundred works of graphic art, painting, decorative, applied and folk art, reflecting the diversity of fairytale subjects in works by Russian artists. Separate thematic cycles are dedicated to folk tales, heroic poems, fairytale literature, fables and the fairytales of Alexander Pushkin. The exhibition includes both famous academic masterpieces and such lesser-known works as How the Mice Buried the Cat, a watercolour by an unknown artist working in the late eighteenth century, and Nikolai Roerich's Bogatyr Frieze series of decorative panels (1909-10). Visitors can also see the works of Victor Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin, Mikhail Vrubel, Ivan Bilibin, Vladimir Lebedev, Vladimir Konashevich, Yevgeny Charushin and Tatyana Mavrina.