Author Description

The Russian Art Exhibition in New York (1924) was truly an adventurous and grandiose event: about one and a half thousand works by hundreds of artists went to other shores--overseas. The curators of the project--Sergey Vinogradov, Igor Grabar and Konstantin Somov--were counting on good sales in America: Europe was just recovering from the First World War, and Russia from revolutions and the Civil War. The exposition in the Grand Central Palace of Manhattan presented paintings by Kustodiev and Petrov-Vodkin, Nesterov and Vasnetsovs, Serov and Korovin, Mashkov and Konchalovsky, Larionov and Goncharova, graphics by Vereisky and Ostroumova-Lebedeva, sculpture by Golubkina and Konenkov, porcelain by Somov and Chekhonin. The reconstruction of this legendary show of Russian art, which traveled around 20 more cities in the USA and Canada after New York, is the subject of a special study by the Museum of Russian Impressionism. For the first time, works by leading Russian artists dispersed in museums and private collections around the world are presented under one cover, accompanied by articles by John E. Bowlt, Olga Yurkina and Edward Kasinec.