2008 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

The former home of Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana
is now a museum. In the background: a depiction of
Tolstoy’s wife as Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna”
24 TRiP TO RUssiA
Visit to the Architectural-Ethnographical Open-Air
Museum, Irkutsk region
Dresden in Russia
Tula, Irkutsk and Nizhni Novgorod were the stopping points
on a tour by staff of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden in June 2008. Exchange between Dresden and
Russia had hitherto focused on Moscow and St. Petersburg,
but little attention had been paid to museums outside
these two main cities. The idea therefore arose of becoming
better acquainted with Russian provincial museums.
There was also another reason for the journey: in autumn
2008 it was the 50th anniversary of the return of the works
of art that had been taken to the Soviet Union in 1945 – and
hence of the “rebirth” of the Dresden museums.
The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, headed by
their Director-General, made up just under half the 30strong
group. They were accompanied by representatives
of other institutions as well as journalists. The group was
guided by the cultural correspondent of the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung in Russia, Kerstin Holm.
The first destination was the “Museum of Fine Arts” in
Tula near Moscow. Its collection is typical of a museum
founded only after the October Revolution. The focal points
are a collection of icons, Russian portrait and landscape
paintings and also Western art. The sources for the museum’s
holdings were mainly the confiscated collections of
the local aristocracy as well as the contents of monasteries.
In the 1920s and 1960s works from Moscow and Leningrad
museums were also transferred to there.
A night flight then took the group from Moscow to
Irkutsk. The “V. P. Sukachov Regional Art Museum” is the
Staff of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
and other German cultural institutions in front of the
V. P. Sukachov Regional Art Museum, Irkutsk
oldest museum in Sibiria. It holds over 16,000 works, including
an important collection of icons. There are also
Russian paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well
as a small West European department. Some paintings are
labelled as donations from a Moscow art collector who
acted as a patron of provincial museums – and by this
means a few items of “looted art” from Germany also
found their way to Sibiria.
The next day, the group travelled first to Lake Baikal
before flying westwards again to Nizhni Novgorod. The
State Museum there is among the most important museums
in Russia and has departments that are of international
rank. These include the icon collection and the collection
of Russian painting from the period around 1900.
The early Modern period is well represented, with works
by Kandinsky, Malevich, Gontscharova and others. The
spectrum of Western art ranges from Cranach to Bellotto.
These include paintings found in a railway wagon, the
contents of which had been stolen by German troops from
Jewish collectors in Hungary. Red Army soldiers seized the
wagon near Berlin in 1945 and later left it in the city where
they were stationed, which was Nizhni Novgorod. In
principle, these works do not fall under the law passed by
the Duma ruling out restitutions.
This tour would not have been possible without perfect
preparation and guidance. The employees of the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen, Oksana Katvalyuk and Yulia Vashchenko,
took charge of the organisation; Birgit Dalbajewa
(Galerie Neue Meister) contributed her profound knowledge
of Russian art. Kerstin Holm gave expert explanations.