Exhibitions: Largest exhibition project in honor of the 150th birthday anniversary of Konstantin Korovin in Moscow

March 28, 2012 the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) hosted a press conference, anticipating the opening of the exhibition "Konstantin Korovin. Painting. Theatre. On the 150th anniversary of his birth," which will run at the museum March 29 to August 12, 2012.

The largest exhibition project of the year is dedicated to Konstantin Korovin (1861-1939), the famous painter who worked at the turn of 19^th-20^th centuries. The artist organically adopted and reinterpreted the picturesque tradition of modern European art, earning the reputation of "the first Russian impressionist."

Such a large-scale retrospective of Konstantin Korovin (represented by about 240 of his best works from the Tretyakov Gallery, 22 Russian, Kazakhstan and Belarus museums, as well as from private collections) the Gallery is holding ninety years after the first exhibition, organized in 1922 during the artist's life .

The exhibition reflects the diverse activities of Konstantin Korovin in painting, theater, monumental art. Exposition within the section of easel painting is divided into the following parts: "Work of 1880s-1890s," "Portrait," "North", "Okhotino. Rural Landscapes", "Paris", "Crimea. Gurzuf ","Nocturnes," "Still Life", "Pre-revolutionary Art," “Emigration."

Konstantin Korovin, along with A. Ya. Golovin, S. V. Malyutin, A. N. Benois, L. S. Bakst, belongs to the reformers of the theater.

In 1900, Korovin led theater and design workshop of the Imperial theaters - the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For two decades, the artist had made sets for more than 80 ballets, operas and dramas.

Various museums have provided for the exhibition the best drafts of sets and costumes for the ballets "Don Quixote" by Ludwig Minkus, "The Little Humpbacked Horse" by T. Puni, "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky, for the operas "Demon" by A. G. Rubinstein, "Khovanshchina" by M. P. Mussorgsky, "Sadko" and "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. The real surprise for the public will be the display of two unique, miraculously survived sets and costumes for the opera by Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Golden Cockerel" (staged in 1934, at a Vichy Theater, France).

Korovin is known not only as a painter but also as an architect and decorator. The monumental art section features four out of ten panels, executed by the artist for the pavilion, "Far North" of the Nizhny Novgorod Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1896, specially restored for the present exposition.

One of the discoveries of the exhibition is a decorative panel "Old Convent" (1906, The State Tretyakov Gallery). Acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery in 1946, it has long been kept in storage.

An album-catalog issued for the exhibition surpasses the exhibition by the number of works included. It consists of the works from forty-seven museum collections of Russia and neighboring countries.

"Konstantin Korovin. Painting. Theatre" electronic publication and a special educational program have also been prepared.