Memorable dates of Russia: Updated exhibition of works by I. I. Shishkin, dedicated to the 185th anniversary of the artist's birthday, in Kazan

From January 20, 2017 the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan (Kazan) presents an updated exposition of works of Ivan Shishkin, dedicated to the 185th anniversary of the artist's birthday.

Kazan museum exhibits more than thirty works of the great landscape, covering almost all periods of art masters from 1860 to 1890. The viewer will have a rare opportunity to get acquainted with the little-known paintings of the famous artist. The earliest time of creation are the scenery "The ruins of Bulgar", "Ruins of the Khan's tomb and the Small Minaret in Bulgaria", written during his stay in Yelabuga, in the period of study at the Academy of Arts. 

Having returned in 1865 from a pensioner's trip held in Germany and Switzerland, Shishkin met with Kazan collector Andrey Fedorovich Likhachev. In 1866 the artist wrote to his new friend a "Swiss Landscape". After the death of Likhachev "Swiss Landscape", in a part of the collected by him art gallery, entered the collection in an open in Kazan in 1895 city public museum. The mature period of the artist presented works of epic character "on mowing in an oak grove" (1874), "An Evening in a Pine Forest" (1875). Both works come from the collection of Peter Kapitonovich Ushkov, an owner of several factories in whose estate in Bondyug (now - Mendeleevsk) Ivan Ivanovich spent time in summer 1884. During the life of the artist the museum collection included the work of Shishkin "Glade" and "In the country". Both paintings were exhibited in 1898 at an exhibition at the Kazan Art School in the number of works of Russian artists of the time. Landscapes by Shishkin had such success in Kazan audience that the city authorities have asked the artist with a request to leave the paintings in Kazan. Master agreed. The exhibition is complemented by paintings and graphic works donated by the artist himself to the Kazan art school in 1890s. 

The exhibition features graphics - drawings, etchings and lithographs, being on safety conditions more time in the museum's storerooms. They will open to fans of fine arts other sometimes unexpected parts of the artist's talent, who is rightly recognized one of the best artists of Russia. For the first time after the restoration of the exposition it is exposed a plaster statuette of Ivan Shishkin in full growth and lifetime cast of wrist of the great master.