Tretyakov Gallery Moscow 26/09/2023, 10:28

Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow Museum of Russian Art: History, Acquisitions, Collection Highlights, Masterpieces.

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

One of the best art museums in the world, the State Tretyakov Gallery in
Moscow holds the national collection of Russian art. Founded originally in 1874
by Pavel Tretyakov (1832-1898), one of the great Russian art collectors, it is
now located in Zamoskvorechye, one of the oldest districts of Moscow, not far
from the Kremlin. The permanent collection of the Tretyakov Gallery amounts
to more than 150,000 paintings, sculptures and graphics, and consists
exclusively of works by Russian artists, although it embraces painters and
sculptors - eg. from Ukraine, Belorussia, Armenia and elsewhere - who are
closely associated with the history and development of art in Russia. It includes
masterpieces by nearly all Russia's greatest painters. In 2006 the Tretyakov
Girl with Peaches (1887) Gallery celebrated its 150th anniversary as a national museum of Russian art.
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
By Valentin Serov.

Holy Trinity (c.1411)

Egg tempera on wood,
Icon painting by Andrei Rublev.

HOW TO JUDGE A PAINTING

Before visiting the Tretyakov, see
Art Evaluation: How to Appreciate Art
and How to Appreciate Paintings.

RUSSIA The Gallery Complex

Hermitage St Petersburg
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
BRITAIN The museum actually consists of several different buildings: (1) The Tretyakov
National Gallery London
Tate Gallery Gallery at 10 Lavrushinsky Lane. This displays Russian medieval painting, -
Courtauld Gallery notably a number of masterpieces from the Novgorod school of icon painting as
British Royal Art Collection
NETHERLANDS well as examples from the later Moscow school of painting and also 18th
Mauritshuis Art Museum century Petrine art, plus drawing and sculpture from 1200 to 1900. (2) The
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
BELGIUM/FRANCE Tretyakov Gallery at 10 Krymsky Val. This displays 20th century Russian art
Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts and contemporary art forms like installations. Other departments of the
Louvre Museum
Musee Conde, Chantilly
museum include: (3) The "Engineering Wing" at 12 Lavrushinsky Lane, which
Musee d'Orsay hosts temporary shows. (4) The Exhibition Hall at 6 Maly Tolmachevsky Lane,
Strasbourg Museum of Fine Arts (building 1). (5) The Museum Church of St Nicholas in Bolshoy Tolmachevsky
Pompidou Centre
Lane. (6) The Memorial Studio of the Sculptor Anna Golubkina. (7) The
Memorial Flat of Apollinary Vasnetsov. (8) The House-Museum of Pavel Korin.
(9) The House-Museum of Victor Vasnetsov.
GERMANY - AUSTRIA - SWISS
Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden
Gemaldegalerie SMPK, Berlin
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
Pinakothek Museum Munich

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Tretyakov Gallery Moscow 26/09/2023, 10:28

Kunsthistorisches Museum
Kunstmuseum Basel
SPAIN
Reina Sofia, Madrid
Prado Museum Madrid
ITALY
Uffizi Gallery Florence
Pitti Palace,Florence
Vatican Museums
Doria Pamphilj Gallery
Capodimonte Museum, Naples

PUBLIC ART IN EUROPE

Top Art Museums in Europe.

PUBLIC ART IN USA

Best Art Museums in America.

The Tretyakov Permanent Collection: Highlights

The collection spans almost nine centuries of Russian art, from Byzantine
frescoes and panel paintings, the earliest icon-painting from Vladimir-Suzdal,
Yaroslavl, Pskov, Novgorod and Moscow - contemporary with Theophanes the
Greek (c.1340-1410), Andrei Rublev (c.1360-1430), Dionysius (c.1440-1502)
and Simon Ushakov (1626-86) - through the 16th/17th century non-religious
portraiture (parsunas), to the great 19th century Russian realists.

18th Century Portraiture

Early Russian portraitists in the Tretyakov collection include: Ivan Nikitin

(1688-1742), Ivan Vishnyakov (1699-1761), Andrei Maveyev (1701-39), Alexei
Antropov (1716-95), Ivan Argunov (1727-1802), the Russian Gainsborough
Vladimir Borovikovsky (1757-1825) and the court painter Fyodor Rokotov
(1735-1808). A good example is the Portrait of Ursula Mniszech (1782) by
Dmitri Levitsky (1735-1822). See: Russian Painting, Eighteenth Century.

19th Century Art

The Tretyakov collection incudes genre-paintings such as The Lacemaker

(1823) by Vasily Tropinin (1776-1857), portraiture by artists like Alexei
Venetsianov (1780-1847), Orest Kiprensky (1782-1836) and the Italian-trained
Karl Briullov (1799-1852). Nineteenth century Russian history Painting is
represented by Fyodor Bruni (1799-1875) and Vasily Timm (1820-95), while
religious painting is exemplified by The Appearance of Christ to the People
(1837-57) by Alexander Ivanov (1806-58), a huge composition which took 20
years to complete.

Meanwhile, Russian landscape art of the 19th century is represented by artists

such as Alexei Venetsianov, Nikifor Krylov (1802-31) and Grigory Soroka
(1823-64), while still life painting is exemplified by Ivan Khrutsky (1810-85),
Kapiton Zelentsov (1790-1845), and Alexei Tyranov (1808-59).

Itinerant Painters

The Tretyakov holds a large number of works by the late 19th century
Wanderers or Itinerant Painters, including: the genius portraitist and genre-
painter Ivan Kramskoy (1837–1887), Vasily Perov (1834–1882), Ilya Repin
(1844-1930), Vasily Surikov (1848-1916), Nikolai Gay (1831–1894), Grigory
Miasoyedov (1834–1911), Ivan Shishkin (1832-98), and Isaac Levitan (1860-
1900). Masterpieces include: Repin's Religious Procession in Kursk Province
(1883) and Tsar Ivan the Terrible and his Son on 16 November 1581 (1885),
Surikov's The Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy (1881) and Levitan's
Secluded Monastery (1890). Itinerant genre-painters represented include Vasily
Pukirev (1832-90), Vasily Maximov (1844-1911), Konstantin Savitsky (1844-
1905) and Sergei Ivanov (1864-1910). See for example Savitsky's Repairing
the Railway (1874), and Ivanov's evocative On the Road: The Death of a
Migrant Peasant (1889). The Itinerant Painter and World of Art member

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Valentin Serov (1865-1911) was a brilliant Impressionist artist - see his genre
work Girl with Peaches (1887), Portrait of Isaac Levitan (1893) and the icy
landscape Colts at a Watering Place, Domotkanovo (1904).

Other Impressionist-style masterpieces featured at the Tretyakov Gallery

include The Seated Demon (1890) and Portrait of Konstantin Artsybushev
(1897) by Mikhail Vrubel (1856–1910), and Chorus Girl (1883) by Konstantin
Korovin (1861-1939). Another masterpiece is Portrait of Zinaida Hippius (1906)
by Leon Bakst (1866–1924). Other great landscape pictures at the Tretyakov
include: Constantinople Street: Midday (1910) by Martiros Saryan (1880-
1972), and Domes and Swallows (1921) by the Union of Russian Artists painter
Konstantin Yuon (1875-1958).

20th Century Russian Art

The Tretyakov collection also features a wide range of modern art. Highlights
include: Kochel (1902), Boat Trip (1910) and Composition VII (1914) among
others by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944); View from the Window, Vitebsk
(1914) by Marc Chagall (1887–1985). Periods/movements represented include:
Rayonism (works by Larionov, Goncharova), Suprematism (founded by Kasimir
Malevich) and Constructivism (Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin, Alexander
Rodchenko, Lyubov Popova, El Lissitzky and others), and Socialist Realism
(Arkady Plastov, Alexander Gerasimov, and sculptors like Sergei Merkurov and
Vera Mukhina). Displays include the reconstruction of the well-known exhibition
of "OBMOHU" (Association of young artists) of 1921. Exhibits also include
contemporary art forms like installations, photographs, and conceptual art. A
final section displays Russian art from the middle of the 1950s to the late
1990s, dealing with the history of Russian art from the "Thaw" to present day.

History of the Tretyakov Gallery

The gallery's founder was Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov who began

collecting Russian paintings in 1856 as a 24-year-old Moscow merchant. His
aim was to create a national collection of Russian fine art. During the 36 years
of his collecting activities, he attended every important art exhibition in
Moscow and St Petersburg. Very often he bought paintings in artists' studios
before they were even exhibited. He met a huge number of painters, writers
and other cultural figures, including Turgenev, composers Rubinstein and
Tchaikovsky, artists Repin, Surikov, Polenov, Vasnetsov, Perov and Kramskoy
frequented the Tretyakov home. (For biographical details of another great
Russian art collector, see: Sergei Shchukin.)

By 1872, he had amassed over 150 paintings which were rapidly

outgrowing the family's house in Tolmachy. Accordingly a special
Gallery adjoining the south wall of the house was built to hold the
collection. The two-storey structure was opened in March 1874.
Three further extensions were constructed: in 1882, 1885 and
1892.

During all this time, Pavel Tretyakov also found time to help the Moscow Art
Lovers Society, the Moscow Art Society, and the Moscow School of Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture. In addition, he contributed significantly to the
establishment of the University Museum of Antique Art in Moscow, which
provided the foundation for the Museum of Fine Arts. Plaster casts of Classical
sculptures kept in Rome, were made with Tretyakov's financial support. He was
also a close follower of developments in the Russian art world, such as the
foundation of the Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions by progressive students
of the Imperial Academy of Arts, in 1863; the World of Art, founded in 1898 by
a group of artists and writers including Alexander Benois, Leon Bakst, and
Sergei Diaghilev; and the Union of Russian Artists.

In August 1892, following the death of his brother Sergei M. Tretyakov - who

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Tretyakov Gallery Moscow 26/09/2023, 10:28

had bequeathed him his personal art collection - Tretyakov donated his entire
holding to the City of Moscow. The brothers' joint collection (worth about 1.5
million roubles) consisted of 1,280 paintings, 520 drawings, and 9 sculptures
by Russian artists; plus 75 paintings and 8 drawings by foreign masters.

Pavel Tretyakov died on the 27th of December 1898.

In the decade following his death, the collection was augmented by many other
works, including the collection amassed by Mikhail Morozov, brother of the
great collector Ivan Morozov. After the Bolshevik takeover, the museum was
renamed the State Tretyakov Gallery. By 1918 it had become the most
prominent collection of Russian art in the country. Surviving the early 1920s
under the Soviet Institute of Artistic Culture INKHUK (Institut
Khudozhestvennoi Kulturi), and the Great Patriotic War 1941-45, the Gallery
has seen its permanent collection grow to over 150,000 exhibits, making it the
greatest single collection of Russian art in the country.

Contact Details

The State Tretyakov Gallery (Russian Art to the 20th Century)

Phone: 8 (499) 230-7788, 238-1378, (495) 951-1362
Address: 109017, Moscow, 10, Lavrushinskii Peryulok

The State Tretyakov Gallery (20th Century Collection)

Phone: 8 (499) 238-1378, 238-2054, (495) 953-5223
Address: 117049, Moscow, 10/14, Krymsky val

Museum Opening Hours

The State Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane and Krymsky Val and the
“Engineering Wing” are open every day 10.00-19.30 hours. The Gallery is
closed on Monday.

• For details of the development of painting and sculpture, see: History of Art.
• For more information about the world's greatest art museums, see: Homepage.

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