The Tretyakov Gallery

The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow is one of the world's richest museums, a treasure house of the finest works of Russian art. The displays and storerooms of the Gallery contain over fifty thousand paintings, sculptures, drawings, and engravings representing the entire history of Russian artistic culture from the 1000's to the present day.

This magnificent collection was founded by Pavel Tretyakov (1832-1898), a Moscow collector and a prominent figure in Russian culture. Tretyakov began to collect art with a clearly formed conception of founding a museum that would be open to all. This idea inspired him throughout his life. He first began to acquire engravings and lithographs by Western European artists, then small canvases, mostly landscapes by Dutch painters. But soon his interests changed. During his visit to St. Petersburg, he became acquainted with the collection of F. Prianishnikov, which contained pictures by Russian painters. Pavel Tretyakov was greatly impressed by the genre paintings of Pavel Fedotov, a man of vision and an artist of an unusual talent. So he decided to collect works of Russian painters, and in 1856 he bought the first two pictures by young artists, «Skirmish with Finnish Smugglers» by Wassily Khudiakov and «Temptation» by Nikolai Shilder.

The Russian intelligentsia gave strong support to the initiation of the Gallery. The painters Ilya Repin, Wassily Perov, and Ivan Kramskoi advised Tretyakov in selecting the best works. Tretyakov visited the artists' studios and art exhibitions selecting paintings for his collection. His gallery was also a most representative collection of the works by the «Peredvizhniki» artists (members of the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions) who gave a truthful portrayal of contemporary Russia . Tretyakov acquired the best works of the most prominent painters of the late 1800's, such as Perov, Kramskoi, Repin, Surikiv, Vasnetsov and others.

By the 1870's the collection had outgrown its premises in the Tretyakov family's house, so a special building was erected for the Gallery. In 1881, the museum was opened for the public. In 1892, Pavel Tretyakov donated his picture gallery to the city of Moscow together with the building in which it was housed and his brother Sergei Tretyakov's collection of Western European painting. From mat time on the museum was called. The Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov Moscow City Art Gallery .

Pavel Tretyakov died in 1898. Since then, the Gallery was supervised by a Board of Direstors elected by the Moscow Duma. Among its members were Alexandra Botkina, Pavel Tretyakov's daughter, the famous Russian artists Valentin Serov and Igor Grabar. After the October Revolution of 1917 the Gallery was nationalized and given the new name - The State Tretyakov Gallery. Every year the Gallery acquired hun­ dreds of new paintings, sculptures, and drawings. During the Soviet period, its collection has increased more then twelve­ fold. The section of early Russian icons alone contains five thousand items and has no rivals anywhere in the world. It possesses such masterpieces as «The Old Testament Trinity» by Andrei Rublev and the Byzantine icon «The Virgin of Vladimir».

Of exceptional value are the paintings of the 1700's to the early 1900's, which entered the collection during the Soviet period. They are «The Major's Marriage Proposal)) by Fedotov, «The Appearance of Christ to the People» by Ivanov, «Girl with Peaches)) by Serov, and «Bathing the Red Horse» by Petrov-Vodkin. The collection of works from the late 1800's also grew, enriched by Levitan's canvas «Spring: Flood Waters», several early works by Perov, numerous studies by Surikov, and many other pictures.

The democratic character of the paintings collected, their high artistic value made the Gallery a unique school of aesthetic and moral education for generations of the Russian people. The Gallery's collection is highly appreciated the world over.

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