Society and Culture: Exhibition "Ivan Shishkin. 1832-1898" to open in Saint-Petersburg

The exhibition "Ivan Shishkin. 1832-1898" will be opened in the Benois Wing (State Russian Museum, Saint-Petersburg).

The work of Ivan Shishkin (1832–1898) occupies a special place in the history of Russian art. The major exhibition from the collections of the State Russian Museum provides an opportunity to comprehend the unique talent of the greatest master of Russian landscape in all its diversity.

During his lifetime, Shishkin became famous for his drawings. Prominent collectors, such as P.M. Tretyakov and I. N. Tereshchenko, ordered easel drawings from the artist for their collections. The Russian Museum is the largest owner of the master's graphic heritage. In addition to the work material (about 1400 sheets), the museum contains a lot of outstanding works performed in different techniques. Shishkin was a virtuoso master of both a graphite pencil and a pen, charcoal and brush. The exposition comprises more than a hundred works, including an early self-portrait of the master, landscapes of the artist's native Elabuga, images of age-old forests, coastal groves and Crimean rocks. Besides watercolours, easel graphic works, studies, pencil sketches of compositions, author's etchings and lithographs, the exhibition features dozens of little-known pictorial paintings and drawings of the master of a forest landscape from the museum collections. The exposition allows comparing the artist's preparatory materials with his completed canvases.

The exhibition will be of interest to art lovers and professionals. An in-person acquaintance with the creative heritage of the "forest hero" Ivan Shishkin is always an expected event, opening up new facets of the talent of the leading representative of Russian realistic art.