March 13, 2024

Centennial Celebration of Avant-Garde Art


Centennial Celebration of Avant-Garde Art
The Birthday (1915), Marc Chagall.  Museum of Modern Art, NY. 

This spring, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow will reconstruct an exhibit of avant-garde Jewish artists originally curated in 1922. The exhibit, "The Jewish Avant-Garde 1910–1930. Chagall, Altman, Shterenberg, and Others,” traces the development of experimental art in the early twentieth century from folk art to the avant-garde style that came to greatly influence early Soviet aesthetics.

Curator Maria Gadas designed the exhibition halls to replicate the original Moscow location as closely as possible and even hung the paintings in the same places. Artwork was loaned out by the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg as well as the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Many of the paintings by Marc Chagall from the original exhibit are currently in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery. While the Tretyakov collaborated with the Jewish Museum, they did not loan out their Chagalls, which meant that projections of the paintings had to be "hung" in their places. The exhibit is also the first time many of these works, including those by David Shterenberg, Natan Altman, and Joseph Chaikov, have been exhibited publicly. 

The exhibition aims to demonstrate how the work of these artists 102 years ago laid the foundation for world art in the twentieth century. 

You Might Also Like

Russian Ladies of the Avant-garde
  • January 16, 2001

Russian Ladies of the Avant-garde

Set against the backdrop of revolution and civil war the Avant-garde period in Russia was very dynamic. In honor of International Women's Day (March 8), we take a look at the lives and works of six very special Avant-garde artists.
Listen and Learn: Shostakovich Turns 110
  • September 25, 2016

Listen and Learn: Shostakovich Turns 110

Dmitry Shostakovich created classical music that spoke to modern times. Read up on his life story and listen along to some of finest works along the way. 
The Soviet Creative
  • April 05, 2021

The Soviet Creative

In the Soviet period, artists were treated with esteem and lived comfortably, but their privileged position also required sacrifice.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Driving Down Russia's Spine

Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955