An Unusual Gift of Russian Prints to the British Museum in 1926
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An unusual gift of Russian prints to the British Museum in 1926 by GALINA MARDILOVICH IN MARCH 1926, at a time of cautious diplomacy between the Soviet Union and Britain, the British Museum, London, re- ceived a gift of 218 Russian prints presented by a group of twenty Russian artists. The impetus for the donation was a gift of prints by the British artist Frank Brangwyn to the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts in the late summer of 1925.1 In his note in The Studio on this ‘unusual artistic exchange’, Pavel Ettinger wrote that it was an example of ‘a rare proof of international brotherhood in the domain of art’.2 Upon accepting the Russian gift, Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, petitioned Brit- ish printmakers to contribute prints to be presented to the Russian institution as a reciprocal gesture of thanks. The ensuing British donation of more than two hundred works was received and exhibited in Moscow in September 1926. These prints, along with Brangwyn’s, are still kept in the Museum, which was renamed the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in 1937. Were these donations intended simply to augment insti- tutional holdings, either those of the British Museum or of the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts, or was the exchange ar- ranged to bridge political and cultural divides? What made it so ‘unusual’, to use Ettinger’s term? In the collection of the British Museum, this group comprises more than one-tenth of the institution’s total number of Russian prints. But it is within the context of official Soviet programmes in the 1920s, which often 7. Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s The Portrait, by Aleksei Kravchenko. 1924. used art as a form of cultural diplomacy, that this episode broke Woodcut, 10.7 by 9.4 cm. (British Museum, London). dramatically from typical state-sanctioned practices. This gift of Russian prints was unusual because it was privately initiat- ed, included the work of émigré artists, and managed to avoid in 1932. In Russia, Brangwyn had been recognised for some political subtexts. This gift, and the surrounding events, serve time, and a number of his works featured in World of Art (Mir as a testament to the resilience of art in the politically charged iskusstva) exhibitions. In turn, the artist was concerned with the environment of the 1920s. political situation in Russia, contributing an illustration for the Brangwyn’s presentation of his complete printed œuvre of 352 cover of Leonid Andreev’s Russia’s Call to Humanity: An Appeal works to the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts included etchings, to the Allies, published in London in 1919, and even possibly lithographs and woodcuts. While little-studied now, at the visiting Moscow in the winter of 1924–25.3 Brangwyn had a time Brangwyn was considered one of the most eminent Brit- history of presenting works to support charitable causes, such as ish printmakers. In the series Modern Masters of Etching, Mal- the Red Cross and the National Institute for the Blind, so his colm C. Salaman devoted two volumes to Brangwyn: one in donation to the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts was not entirely 1924, which marked the beginning of the series, and the second surprising.4 Research for this article was made possible by the Franklin Research Grant oblasti izobrazitel’nogo iskusstva, 1917–1940, materialy i dokumenty, Moscow 1987, awarded by the American Philosophical Society. Part of this work was presented pp.36–38 and 115–25; and W. Werner: ‘Khronika razrushennykh nadezhd: at the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre’s conference ‘Exhibit “A”: Obmen graviur mezhdu Moskvoi i Londonom v 1925–1926 gg.’, Pamiatniki kul’tury. Russian Art: Exhibitions, Collections, Archives’, held at the Courtauld Institute Novye otkrytiia. Pis’mennost’. Iskusstvo. Arkheologiia. Ezhegodnik 1992 (1993), pp.292– of Art, London, 21st–22nd March 2014; I am grateful to the organisers and other 311. Werner believes Brangwyn donated his works sometime in the summer of 1925, participants for their invaluable feedback. I would also like to thank Claire Knight whereas Aleshina and Iavorskaia claim it was in September of that year. for her insightful comments on drafts of this article. 2 P. Ettinger: ‘Moscow-Reviews’, The Studio 91 (1926), pp.142–43. 1 There are two published accounts of the exchange: L. Aleshina and N. 3 Werner, op. cit. (note 1), p.292. Iavorskaia: Iz istorii khudozhestvennoi zhizni SSSR: Internatsional’nye sviazi v 4 L. Horner: Frank Brangwyn: A Mission to Decorate Life, London 2006, p.139. t h e b u r l i n g t o n m a g a z i n e • c l i x • j u n e 2017 453 LAY_MARDILOVICH_RussianPrints.indd 453 16/05/2017 16:40 A GIFT OF RUSSIAN PRINTS 8. Landscape with pyramids, by Konstantin Bogaevskii. 1922. Lithograph, 34.7 by 53.3 cm. (British Museum, London). Brangwyn offered his ‘modest gift’5 as a gesture of ‘a sincere sented by the artists through M. N. Romanoff’.10 Dodgson had respect and admiration for the Art of Russia’.6 Asserting his written earlier to the Museum’s trustees to say that this gift was belief in the universality of art, he observed that the ‘Republic a ‘unique opportunity of securing a collection of Russian prints of Art is a true brotherhood of men knowing not the frontiers which are entirely unknown in this country’, and which ‘form of States or the barrier of politics’.7 In the catalogue accompany- a very desirable acquisition as a collection’.11 In his published ing the exhibition of Brangwyn’s donation, Nikolai Romanov, commentary on the gift in the September 1926 issue of The Brit- the Director and Keeper of Prints at the Moscow Museum, ish Museum Quarterly, Dodgson specified that ‘among the most explained that the prints ‘have something in common with the interesting of these prints’ were the etchings by Vasilii Masiutin, art of our days, similarly seeking to find the monumental, [. .] Ignatii Nivinskii (Fig.12) and Pavel Shillingovskii, the wood- eloquent and clear style of a new art’.8 Romanov also acknow- cuts by Aleksei Kravchenko (Fig.7), Il’ia Sokolov and Nikolai ledged in his essay that in response to Brangwyn’s donation, Kupreianov, and the colour prints by Anna Ostroumova- Russia’s ‘best painter-printmakers’ were giving a collection of Lebedeva and Vadim Falileev.12 Dodgson noted that many of their prints to Brangwyn with the intention of presenting it to the prints, such as Florence by Konstantin Kostenko (Fig.11), the British Museum – an element of the story that Ettinger also were produced in the colour linocut technique, ‘a process now emphasised in his note in The Studio.9 becoming popular in England’. The gift presented to the British Museum comprised a vari- Shortly after accepting the Russian gift, Dodgson drafted ety of techniques and subject-matter (Fig.8). The Print Room a letter to British printmakers requesting donations of prints: Register recorded on 10th April 1926 that the prints were ‘Pre- ‘I feel that it is very desirable that some similar collection of 5 ‘скромный дар’, Aleshina and Iavorskaia, op.cit. (note 1), p.115. (Translations 9 ‘лучших художников-граверов’, ibid., p.3; Ettinger, op. cit. (note 2), p.143. are author’s own unless otherwise noted). 10 The artists included were Konstantin Bogaevskii, Matvei Dobrov, Vladimir 6 ‘сочуствием и восхищением перед их творчеством’, anon: ‘Khronika’, Favorskii, Vadim Falileev, Ekaterina Kachura-Falileeva, Adrian Kaplun, Sergei Zhizn’ muzeia. Biulletin Gosudarstvennogo Muzeia iziashchnykh isskustv 2 (1926), p.37. Kolesnikov, Konstantin Kostenko, Aleksei Kravchenko, Elizaveta Kruglikova, 7 ‘Республика искусства есть истенное братство людей, не знающих границ Nikolai Kupreianov, Vasilii Masiutin, Ignatii Nivinskii, Anna Ostroumova-Leb- государств или барьеров политики’, ibid. edeva, Pavel Pavlinov, Aleksandr Pavlov, Ivan Pavlov, Pavel Shillingovskii, Il’ia 8 ‘есть что-то общее с исканиями искусства наших дней, стремящегося Sokolov, and Vasilii Vatagin. For a complete list of works see Werner, op. cit. также найти монументальный, [. .] для всех красноречивый и понятный (note 1), pp.304–08; British Museum, London, Registry, 10th April 1926, ‘Mod - стиль нового творчества’, in N. Romanov: Katalog vystavki graviury Franka ern Russian Prints’, nos.5–222. Brengvina, Moscow 1926, p.11. 11 British Museum, London, Trustee Reports, report dated 27th March 1926, 454 j u n e 2017 • c l i x • t h e b u r l i n g t o n m a g a z i n e LAY_MARDILOVICH_RussianPrints.indd 454 16/05/2017 16:40 A GIFT OF RUSSIAN PRINTS 9. Hanging garden, by Paul Nash. 1924. Wood engraving, 16.7 by 14 cm. 10. The jetty, Sennan Cove, by John Edgar Platt. 1922. Colour woodcut, (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow). 26.8 by 23.5 cm. (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow). British prints should be offered to Russia, not merely as a quid later that year.14 In her subsequent review of the British gift, pro quo, but for the sake of making British art more known than Nevezhina shrewdly reflected that these prints were significant it is in that country’.13 He elaborated that in Russia ‘modern ‘on the one hand, as milestones that marked the course of art, British art means just – Beardsley and Brangwyn’. Many art- and on the other – as those examples of technical achievement, ists responded to the appeal, and in August 1926 the Moscow artistic finesse and consistency of style, which can never lose Museum of Fine Arts received a gift of more than two hun- their value’.15 Nevezhina continued: ‘All these artists, great and dred prints by over fifty British printmakers.