10 april 2006 - 15 june 2006
Russian Abstraction in France in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract painting was one of the leading artistic movements in the mid-twentieth century. Although the tradition of Russian abstract art was artificially interrupted in the Soviet Union, where the only style endorsed by the Communist government was Socialist Realism, Russian abstract painting continued to exist outside the country, making a vital contribution to the history of world art. In the middle of the century, four Russian masters, who had emigrated to France in the 1910s and 1920s, created masterpieces of abstract painting. They were Serge Charchoune (1888 – 1975), André Lanskoy (1902 – 1976), Serge Poliakoff (1900 – 1969) and Nicolas de Staël (1914 – 1955).

Although these four artists were not members of the same group and each pursued his own individual concept of painting, their names are almost always encountered together in the history of twentieth-century art and writings on abstraction or the second École de Paris. Each master was represented by works shown at the famous Russian Artists of the École de Paris exhibition in Saint-Denis (1960) and Paris (1961).

The importance of the non-figurative quests and achievements of these four masters has been highly rated by the rest of the world. Represented by works in famous public and private collections, they are the subjects of dozens of monographs in different languages. Unfortunately, the oeuvres of these émigré artists are still largely unknown today in Russia – not only to the general public, but even to experts.

The exhibition shows sixty paintings by Serge Charchoune, André Lanskoy, Serge Poliakoff and Nicolas de Staël from the stock of the Tretyakov Gallery and private collections in Russia and France, including a monographic show of the works of Charchoune and Lanskoy. Many pictures are exhibited for the first time, including sixteen works by Serge Charchoune from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 184-page catalogue with essays by such internationally acclaimed experts on Russian art as Professor Dmitry Sarabianov and Professor René Guerra.