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One of the leading phenomena in Russian culture in the past hundred years, twentieth-century portraiture is represented at this monographic exhibition by some three hundred works of painting and sculpture from the collection of the Russian Museum.
The exhibits arranged in chronological order permit the viewers to trace the evolution of different artistic concepts of portrait painting and record for posterity the witnesses and participants of various historical events of the past century.
First quarter of the XX century offers a wide retrospective of the spiritual and artistic quests. Such renowned masters of psychological portrait as Ilya Repin and Vasily Surikov were still active, Nikolai BogdanovvBelsky continued the traditions of realistic portraiture, Valentin Serov-s profoundly psychological images of his contemporaries and the works of the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) members enjoyed pride of place at the art exhibitions of that time. Such Cubo-Futurists as Jean Pougny and Lyubov Popova were also attracted to portraiture. Impressionism paved the way for the avant-garde experiments and stimulated the searches of such young artists as Ilya Mashkov and Pyotr Konchalovsky.
A whole series of works by Valentin Serov, Vasily Surikov-s ?Self-Portrait¦ (1915), Leon Bakst-s ? Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev with his Nanny ¦ (1906), Boris Grigoriev-s ?Portrait of Vsevolod Meierhold ¦ (1916), Alexander Samokhvalov -s ?Girl in a Sports Shirt¦ (1932) are now embedded forever in the national consciousness of the Russian people.
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