ARKADY PETROV
The exhibition contains more than 70 paintings and sculptures of artist from the Russian Museum Collection, Moscow private collections and the artist’s collection. He created his art works for almost 40 years. The exhibition presents the artist’s oeuvre in retrospective development.
Arkady Petrov is correctly ranked among the artists of the 1970s. His art, as well as the art of the leading representatives of that generation, is metaphorical, mythological, allegorical, ironical and even sharp with regard to the reality. The main themes of Arkady Petrov’s art are: life and culture of Soviet province in the middle of the 20th century, life of “ordinary Soviet human” as a special case of “humble human”. The images of Petrov’s art absorbed everyday culture of after Stalin’s epoch, time of the artist’s childhood and adolescence, but they are created at the least two decades later. The proper pushing aside, analysis and adequate representation couldn’t emerge without this temporal distance. The artist re-examines stereotypes of Soviet society looking at them in the light of kitsch subjects, images of mass native culture – from painted aniline post-cards to portraits of Alla Pugacheva. Petrov transforms an impersonal aesthetics of kitsch in gallery of heart-felt human characters, naive and epic at the same time, in the unique for Russia historical period.
The works of artist are housed in the Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany), the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey, the USA), National Museum of Contemporary Art (Seoul, Southern Korea) and many Private Collections all over the world.
The Russian Museum is the first museum that acquired the artist’s canvases in the beginning of the 1980-s already, in the period of almost total prohibition on the showing of his art works, and it’s the first museum that demonstrates valuable museum retrospective of Arkady Petrov.
The exhibition was organized in collaboration with pop/off/art Gallery, Moscow.
. 1766-1768.jpg "For the Glory of Russia. Entrepreneurs and Patrons in Russia in the 18th – Early 20th Centuries")
For the Glory of Russia. Entrepreneurs and Patrons in Russia in the 18th – Early 20th Centuries
6 June—5 August 2024
Merchants, the “third estate”, at that time, were the basis of Russia’s economic power. The Stroganovs, the Demidovs and other entrepreneurs sometimes established entire “empires” with their own settlements, roads and internal regulations. The richest merchants became nobles and patrons of the arts. The exhibition is unique, both in the themes it explores and in the works it presents.
Masterpieces from Taganrog Rescued at the Russian Museum
24 April—13 May 2024
In July 2023, an explosion in the city centre of Taganrog damaged several artworks at the Golden Names of the Silver Age exhibition in the Taganrog Art Museum. The Russian Museum offered immediate support with the restoration of 22 art pieces. During the restoration, which lasted over 6 months, the staff of the Russian Museum not only eliminated the mechanical damage that the art objects had received at the time of the explosion, but also completely restored all 22 masterpieces, revealing their original appearance and artistic concept.
- 21 March—8 July 2024 > St Michael’s Castle Drawings and Watercolours by the Wanderers
- 15 March—13 May 2024 > Mikhailovsky Palace Mstislav Farmakovsky. 150th Anniversary of the Artist’s Birth
The collection of masterpieces, chosen by the Russian Museum will allow you to make a first impression of the collection of the Russian Museum.
Russian Museum - one of the world's largest museums and is perhaps the only country where such a full treasure of national culture are presented.
Virtual tour of the museum complex. 2009 (Rus., Eng., Ger., Fin.)
In the online shop of the Russian Museum presented a huge range of souvenirs, illustrated editions and multimedia disks.
