TWO CENTURIES OF THE RUSSIAN LITHOGRAPHY

The State Russian Museum presents the exhibition dedicated to the development of the art of easel lithography in Russia which is one of the most popular techniques of printed graphics. Invented two centuries ago lithography is one of the youngest techniques of printing compared to xylography and engraving on metal. Formation of lithography as of a separate discipline, search for its own artistic language and recognition of its specificity are the main themes of the exhibition. The current exhibition is the first ever display tracing the history of the development of Russian easel lithography from the very first prints of the 1810s to the block prints of the early nineteenth century. The exhibition comprises two hundred and fifty works of art by over one hundred and sixty authors including the works of the leading masters and of the artists who were also engaged in other genres of fine art. Of special notice are the works from the Views of St Petersburg and its Environs series published in the 1820s, the lithographic experiments of Russian futurists in the 1910s, the activities of the Experimental lithographic workshop in the 1930s. Great is the contribution to the history of lithography of Karl Beggrov, Stepan Galaktionov, Andrei Martynov, Ignaty Schedrovsky, Nadezhda Voitinskaya, Vladimir Konashevich, Georgy Vereisky, Boris Yermolayev, Anatoly Kaplan, Alexander Vedernikov, Vera Matyukh, Vadim Brodsky and Mikhail Karasik. Such celebrated artists as Vladimir Borovikovsky and Orest Kiprensky, Nikolai Sverchkov and Ivan Shishkin, Léon Bakst and Valentin Serov, Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, Sergei Gerasimov, Yury Vasnetsov, and Mihail Chemiakin also contributed to lithography at different periods of their creative oeuvre. The Russian Museum owns the richest collection of national lithography enabling to trace all the stages of the development of this printing technique. With the exception of several recent works generously lent by their authors and collectors the exhibition shows the best works from the collection of the museum.