Stockholm, Sweden – This winter’s major exhibition at Nationalmuseum, “The Peredvizhniki – Pioneers of Russian Painting”,with around 100 pieces on loan from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, this will be Sweden’s largest ever exhibition of works by this group of artists. The exhibition will focus on the 1870–1910 period and will feature realistic, socially critical paintings, landscapes, historical scenes, and portraits of contemporary artists, musicians and writers. The exhibition will remain on view through January 22nd 2012.
This is the first large-scale exhibition in Sweden of works by members of the Russian group known as the Peredvizhniki. The group was founded in 1870 in protest at the conservative attitudes of Russia’s Imperial Academy of Art. Its members used realist techniques to portray contemporary Russian society and to highlight social and political injustices. They organized travelling exhibitions around the country to take art to the people. Since the late 19th century the Peredvizhniki have enjoyed huge popularity in Russia, but they remain little known abroad. Thanks to the generosity of the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, and the Russian Museum, St Petersburg, in providing works on loan, Nationalmuseum is able this autumn to present a comprehensive survey of the group’s art. The exhibition, focusing on the 1870–1910 period, will comprise three rooms and four cabinets featuring around 100 paintings and drawings on a variety of subjects.
The diversity of the group’s work will be apparent in the exhibition. The Peredvizhniki believed in producing socially engaged art focused on social injustice and tough living conditions. Artists such as Vladimir Makovsky, Ilya Repin and Nikolai Yaroshenko depicted secret political meetings, convicts and starving peasants. Exhibition highlights will include Ilya Repin’s famous Barge-haulers on the Volga, one of the best-known works in Russian art. However, members of the group were fascinated by Russia’s past as well. Also on show will be images inspired by folktales, depictions of religious traditions, and scenes from daily life in years gone by.
Several of the Peredvizhniki specialized in landscape painting intended to portray what was typically Russian. Images of Russia’s plains and forests came to symbolize the motherland and were influential in shaping national identity. At times, Russian landscape painting calls to mind the dreamy, melancholy landscapes painted by Scandinavian artists of the fin de siècle, so to a Swedish audience it seems familiar yet foreign. Some members of the group moved in prominent intellectual circles. The exhibition will include portraits of several leading Russian composers and authors of the time, such as Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy.
The creation of Nationalmuseum in Stockholm was the most extensive governmental investment in culture in the 19th century in Sweden. For some 150 years the building has functioned as an art museum, enjoying a special international position both as an architectural monument and an important cultural heritage. Topical exhibitions and a varied program ensure that every visit to the museum is an enriching experience. Join a guided tour, rent an audio guide or wander around independently and discover the museum’s artistic treasures. Experience Swedish fin de siècle painting in the form of well-known works by Carl Larsson, Hanna Pauli, Anders Zorn and Bruno Liljefors. Get to know the art of earlier times too: from portraits painted during Sweden’s age of greatness in the 17th century to the Romantic landscapes of the 19th century. Highlights from the 18th century include Roslin’s veiled lady and Sergel’s sculptures and drawings.
As well as Swedish art, they present works by international masters: Rembrandt, Watteau, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin and many others. The Modern Form exhibition (Den moderna formen) presents developments in Scandinavian design and applied art over the past 100 years. Alongside Jonas Bohlin’s Concrete armchair, you can see ceramics by Stig Lindberg, glass by Simon Gate, and Gösta Thames’ “cobra” telephone. The Design in Sweden exhibition (Formen i Sverige 1500–1740) discusses the roots and development of European design. See the fashionable furnishings of the time, tapestries, china, splendid silverware and much more. Presented in their historical context, the artifacts provide a picture of innovations and trends among the upper classes between 1500 and 1740. In April 2008, Statens fastighetsverk (the National Property Board) was commissioned by the Government to carry out a preliminary study of the requirements for a refurbishment and renovation of the Nationalmuseum. Work on an extensive refurbishment programme is expected to start soon. Visit the museum’s website at … http://www.nationalmuseum.se