Russian Artists Abroad
One of the main areas of the activity of the 'Heritage international art gallery is representing the works of a pleiad of incredibly talented, original and multifaceted artists personifying the symbiosis of Russian and Western cultures. If we unite dozens of their names under one flag, this phenomenon will be called Russian Artists Abroad (Russkoe Zarubezh’e). Experts have long been applying this term to a whole group of wonderful artists who had first gained their fame abroad and only recently started becoming increasingly popular among Russian collectors. Nowadays, the works by Russian artists abroad strike us not only with their artistic diversity and superb technique but also with the growth in their estimated value at international auctions.
So, who are the Russian artists abroad? René Guerrat, a French professor and collector of the heritage of Russian artists abroad was one of the first researchers who gave this definition and opened this page in Russian art’s history for Russian specialists. In 1995 the State Tretyakov Gallery organized an exhibition symbolically entitled "They took Russia away with them…", where Guerrat’s enormous collection was shown. The exhibition excited huge interest for the art of the “gold” Russian diaspora and demonstrated this phenomenon’s great cultural value.
The artists of the first wave of Russian Emigration represent a diversity of artistic trends going back to the Silver Age and early vanguard currents of the 1910s-1920s, such as expressionism and cubism. The artistic emigration of those days comprised recognized artists who had already made a name not only in Russia and Europe but also on the American continent. The circle of Russian artists abroad includes a whole array of names personifying a union of Russian cultural traditions and innovative Western experience: A. Altman, A. Arapov, B. Anisfeld, S. Archipenko, L. Bakst, V. Baranov-Rossine, A. Benoit, K. Vechilov, N. Goncharova, K. Gorbatov, B. Grigoriev, M. Dobuzhinsky, L. Zak, K. Korovin, V. Kandinsky, A. Lanskoy, M. Larionov, E. Lissitsky, Marevna, F. Malyavin, G. Pozhedaev, S. Polyakov, I Puni, N. Rerikh, K. Somov, N. de Staël, S. Sudeikin, L. Survage, P. Tchelitchew, S. Chekhonin, D. Stelletsky, H. Sutin, M. Chagall, S. Sharshun, S. Shmarov, A. Exter, A. Yakovlev and many others.
Among the works shown in the 'Heritage gallery, a special place is reserved for the paintings of the “Parisian school” artists as the most significant in the artistic heritage of Russian diaspora, since it was Paris which has become the very centre of Russian Emigré art, its main school and a gathering point for the most talented Russian emigrants. Paris by right has become famous as the world art capital by having equally welcomed artists of different schools, different trends and different generations.