ZINAIDA SEREBRYAKOVA. NUDES

Till recently the viewers knew Zinaida Serebryakova as a master of portrait, genre scenes from the life of peasantry. For the first time her creative oeuvre has been introduced from an unexpected point of view - the image of naked nature full of poetics and austere taste. The exhibition presented the well-known 'Bather', 'Bathhouse', magnificent drawings taken from life, sketches for 'Bathing' and 'Diana and Acteon', as well as the sketches of a panel for the interior decoration for the first-class restaurant at the new Kazan Railway Station in Moscow. The foreign period was represented by the canvas 'The Model with a Book' and the pastel 'Torso'. Special place at the exhibition occupies the unique series of six panels created in 1937 and commissioned by the baron de Brouera for one of the rooms of his villa Manoir du Relais in Pommerouel near Mons on the Franco-Belgian border. Eight allegorical figures, which symbolize the countries, where the baron worked, his occupations and hobbies (the jurisprudence, electro business, floriculture and art) have been found recently in Belgium, restored in the Russian Museum and shown for the Russian viewers for the first time. The exhibition was prepared by the Russian Museum in collaboration with the Tretyakov Gallery, Peterhof State Museum Reserve, the Kaluga Regional Art Museum, Triumph Gallery, Moscow. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue in English and Russian.