Museums of Russia: Exhibitions, dedicated to the history of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in war and postwar years, in Moscow

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow) celebrates the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War with two complementary exhibitions. One of them is "Watchmen. War and Peace in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. 1941-1955" tells the story of the Museum during the war and in the first postwar decade. The exhibition reflects the two most important periods in the history of the Museum and the history of the country. In 1941-1945 specialists of the Pushkin Museum saved the building from destruction and collection of the Museum and in the first decade of peace (1945-1955) kept and restored damaged during the war the collection of the Dresden Gallery.

The exhibition of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Pushkin is dedicated to the Watchmen, the people, thanks to who the Museum was able to survive during the war and continued its development in the first years after a terrible war. It tells about the everyday life of those who have dedicated themselves to serving the Museum, thanks to who the Pushkin Museum was able to withstand the extreme conditions of war. 

The second exhibition is "Nicolas Poussin" Kingdom of Flora". To the 60th anniversary of "Exhibition of paintings of the Dresden Gallery" in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts". Dresden Gallery is a unique collection of paintings by old masters. A rare collection of paintings was formed in the XVIII century thanks to the efforts of several generations of the Saxon kings, and in the middle of the XIX century the collection was turned into a museum for the masterpieces built a special building. 

Since 1939, Dresden Gallery paintings were placed for safety in multiple repositories. In February 1945, after the bombing of Dresden by British and US Air Force, paintings were moved to the quarries and mines in various parts of Saxony. Dampness was disastrous for the paintings, there was a risk of looting. The pictures were found by Soviet troops, which helped to keep the collection. For ten years, hundreds of works from the collection of the Dresden Gallery were stored in the Pushkin Museum. Researchers and restorers carefully studied and restored war-affected masterpieces of world art. In 1955 it was decided to return the collection. May 2, 1955 in the Pushkin Museum was opened an exhibition in which the spectators were presented 350 paintings from the collection of the Dresden Gallery. November 4, 1955 the collection returned to Dresden. Sixty years later, one of the masterpieces that once stored in the Pushkin Museum - Nicolas Poussin painting "Kingdom of Flora" - once again is presented in Moscow.