Successors of Traditions: Exhibition in Honor of the 70th Anniversary of the Moscow State Academy Art Lyceum

The Successors of Traditions exhibition will be opened in Tsereteli Art Gallery, 19 Prechistenka street, on the first of September when the Moscow State Academy Art Lyceum’s students traditionally celebrate the Knowledge Day that is the beginning of a school year in Russia. On the eve of the City Day in Moscow and in the year of its 70th jubilee the Moscow State Academy Art Lyceum continues to show to the public its museum holdings amassed for the last decades.

The Moscow State Academy Art Lyceum was established in 1939 on the initiative of prominent figures of Russian culture and art: Igor Grabar; Petr Konchalovsky; Dmitry Moor; Sergei Gerasimov; Konstantin Yuon and other celebrated scientists and art workers. It was then named the Moscow Secondary Art School. The best traditions and teaching methods of the academic art education were the foundation for training at the School. In 1992 the Moscow Secondary Art School was reorganized into the Moscow State Academy Art Lyceum of the Russian Academy of Arts and later the Lyceum’s museum was set up on the basis of its collection.

The show presents over 200 paintings and graphic works including early students’ works of many noted masters who are the pride of Russian contemporary art. G. Korzhev, V. Ivanov, A. Tkachev, P. Ossovsky, N. Nesterova, T. Nazarenko, A. Osipov, O. Savostyuk, L. Shepelev, N. Andronov, A. Shmarinov, S. Andriyaka, M. Kugach, C. Alimov, E. Maximov, V. Bubnov, V. Nesterenko, N. Solomin, I. Starzhenetskaya, N. Voronkov, A. Sukhovetsky, S. Prisekin, D. Belyukin – it is far from the full list of names whose works are on display in Tsereteli Art Gallery. Pupils’ works by renowned artists are of major interest as they give us one more opportunity to think about the fates of fine arts, the role and significance of the academic art education and its further development. At the Lyceum they teach professional skills, the ability to master the entire palette of creative media, at the same time fostering the freedom of creativity.

A major section of the show features works by today’s first - seventh-year students and alumni of the early 1990s – 2010. These are portraits, cityscapes, landscapes, genre scenes, still lifes, compositions, illustrations to books. In the paintings and graphic sheets one can trace the process of obtaining professional craftsmanship and sense, that professional skills do not impede the vivid imagination and the adherence to traditions does not exclude the freedom in the search of an individual style.




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