Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Artist and Art Collector

The exhibition forms part of the project dedicated to the private art collections that arrived to the Russian Museum in various periods and constitute its treasury.

In 1916 the museum acquired the first nine works by Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, whose oeuvre reflects the revival and flourishing of etching in the early XX century Russian art. Later she gifted her works to the museum many times. In 1955 according to the artist’s testament all pieces of art from her collection were delivered to the Russian Museum. The utmost part of it was formed by drawings, paintings, watercolors and etchings by Ostroumova-Lebedeva herself  and prints by the contemporaries and followers of the artist – those who were inspired by her experiments in wood-engraving, one of the oldest etching techniques.

The exhibition includes works by G.Vereisky, V.Voinov, N.Kupreyanov, K.Somov and other masters of etching in pre-revolutionary as well as Soviet Russia. A special part of the exhibition is formed by a collection of Japanese prints of XVIII-XIX centuries (Katsushika Hokusai, Andō Hiroshige, Katsukawa Shunshō, Ryūsai Shigeharu and others). Acquaintance of Ostroumova-Lebedeva with the art of Japanese xylography to a great extent influenced the formation of her individual artistic manner.

Demonstration of Ostroumova-Lebedeva’s oevre alongside with her collection of art in one exposition for the first time provides unique opportunity to analyze the works of this prominent master of graphics in context of her contemporaries’ art and evaluate their impact in the development of Russian printmaking.