Museums: Exhibition “Andrei Rublev. The Feat of Icon Painting. 650th Birthday Anniversary of a Great Painter” in Moscow

The exhibition called “Andrei Rublev. The Feat of Icon Painting. 650th Birthday Anniversary of a Great Painter” was opened on December 20 2010 at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

A joint project undertaken by the Tretyakov Gallery and the Andrei Rublev Central Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art is timed to the birthday anniversary of the most prominent medieval Russian painter.

For the first time the exhibition has brought together relatively few but exceptional works judging by their artistic quality, which are traditionally associated with the name of St. Andrei Rublev or could have been created in his close circle.

The Tretyakov Gallery keeps the most extensive collection of works by Rublev and his circle, other items have been scattered around various museum collections of Russia. Seeing them all in a common exhibition space visitors will get a unique opportunity to make the most complete impression both of the heritage of the master himself and the most important stage in the history of the Russian artistic culture.

Celebration of the anniversary of Ruvlev, whose precise date of birth is unknown, has become a tradition since 1960, when the painter’s supposed 600th birthday anniversary was celebrated with an unprecedented scale.

Along with the Tretyakov Gallery and the Andrei Rublev Central Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art the exhibition has brought together Russia’s major museums – the State Historical Museum, the State Russian Museum, the State Museum-Reserve “Moscow Kremlin”, the State Vladimir and Suzdal Museum-Reserve, as well as the Sergiyev Posad State History and Art Museum and the Zvenigorod History and Art Museum. The exhibition also puts on display two fragments of the Royal doors (2nd quarter 15th c.) from the collection of V.A. Logvinenko.

To mark the launch of the exhibition was issued a fundamental, over 600-page edition – a catalogue album – the result of research which had been conducted for many years by the leading specialists in the field of Ancient Russian Art.