Exhibitions: Sculptural portraits of Leo Tolstoy presented in Moscow

The "Leo Tolstoy and Ilya Gintsburg" exhibition opened in the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy (Moscow). The exhibition gives the chance to see the sculptural portraits of Leo Tolstoy, created by an outstanding sculptor of XIX-XX centuries Ilya Gintsburg (1859-1939) from the museum’s collection. Overall there are 64 his works in the museum.

The exhibition presents 12 Guntsburg’s mostly small form sculptures, as well as the largest sculpture made him in 1908.

Gintsburg first visited Yasnaya Polyana in June of 1891 and made a bust of Tolstoy and a statuette. Creating sculptural portraits of Tolstoy, Ilya Yakovlevich worked from nature, sculpting figures of posing him Lev Nikolaevich. He first created a gallery of wonderful images of the great writer in sculpture.

In addition, visitors will see a little-known graphic works of I. Y. Ginzburg, his rendered in 1891-1899 sketches of the house in Yasnaya Polyana and a room under the arches. The exhibition presents a portrait of I. Y. Ginzburg of 1897 by artist A. I. Mendeleeva (Popova), donated to the museum by the sculptor in 1928.

Of great interest will be a series of photographs taken during sculptor’s stay in Yasnaya by V. G. Chertkov and S. A. Tolstaya. The photo of the artist N. A. Kasatkin, capturing Tolstoy and Ilya Ginzburg riding on horseback, is simply unique. Photo of sculptor’s studio in St. Petersburg allows to see I. Ginzburg at work.

Writing materials consist of the letters of I. Y. Ginzburg to Tolstoy and Tatyana Lvovna Tolstaya and with the letters of Stasov to Tolstoy. There is also a greeting address presented to L. N. Tolstoy to his eightieth birthday, signed by Gunzburg, Repin and other prominent artists, writers and public figures of Russia. At the exhibition there are a lot of books with the memories of Gunzburg about his meetings and discussions with Tolstoy, signed by the author. In 1911, after the death of Leo Tolstoy I. Y. Ginzburg together with other artists took an active part in the organization of the writer's museum in St. Petersburg. In 1928, the year of the centenary of the birth of Leo Tolstoy he handed a large number of his works to the collection of the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow.

The exhibition will be open until September 9, 2016.