Science support

Iveta Manasherova and Tamaz Manasherov’s U­ART foundation for culture and charity established a scholarship program in 2016. The foundation’s grants support research in foreign museums, archives, universities, and other institutions. While the primary result of each study is the scholar’s report to U­Art and the Tretyakov Gallery, its ultimate goal consists in implementing an exhibition project, publishing a paper/ monograph or delivering a speech at an academic conference. The foundation’s initiative aims at developing Russian art studies and broadening the horizons of research.

The grants fully cover all travel and visit expenses as well as the research costs. The Foundation’s initiative will contribute to the development of art studies in Russia and the expansion of the research’s geography, providing to the scholars access to objects and materials previously out of their reach.

Applications for participationin the program will be accepted once a year, in December, and then reviewed by the Expert Board over a two-month period. In March of the following year, the new grant recipients will be announced during the award ceremony at the Mikhail Vrubel Hall of the Tretyakov Gallery.

The fellows program:

Yevgenia Ilyukhina, Deputy head of the graphics Department of the XVIII-early XX century. Her project was related to the study of the works of Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova in France. This research will be an important stage in the preparation of a large-scale retrospective of Mikhail Larionov, which was held in the Tretyakov gallery in autumn 2018.

Irina Pronina, Research Associate at the 1st Half of the 20th Century Painting Department. The focus of Irina Pronina’s research is the oeuvre of Pavel Filonov, as well as of Ivan Kudryashov — a less known but no less significant representative of the Russian avant-garde. The purpose of her trip to the Uzbek city of Nukus is to study Kudryashov’s paintings and drawings. Ivan Kudryashov (18961972) was a prominent Russian avant-garde artist, a disciple of Kazimir Malevich, head of the city of Orenburg’s UNOVIS (“Asserters of the New Art”), an active member of the OST association (“The Society of Easel Painters”).

Sofia Aksenova, Research Associate of the Department of painting of the second half of the XIX-XX century. The subject of her research trip was the works and archival documents of Ilya Repin in the collections of public museums, libraries and archives in new York and Philadelphia.

Svetlana Capirina, Research Associate of the Department of painting of second half XIX – early XX century, and Elena Rykunova, assistant of the exhibition Department of the Museum. The goal of the researchers was almost unexplored overseas heritage of Vasily Vereshchagin, who lived in America for a total of three years.

Head of the 1700–1850 Painting Department Lyudmila Markina and Serguei Fofanov, Researcher at the Current Developments Department. Their research is directly related to the preparation of a large-scale exhibition project, Romanticism. Dreams of Freedom. Russia vs. Germany. The exhibition is to become the first such project in Russia; its opening is scheduled for November 2020 in the Tretyakov Gallery and in Dresden’s Albertinum museum. The scholars will be addressing such topics as Russian–German artistic ties during Romanticism, the phenomenon of romantic spirit in the arts of the two countries, and the reflection of this phenomenon in modern art.  The study implies work in museums and archives of Dresden, Berlin, and Leipzig.

Nikita Erofeyev, Curator at Tretyakov Gallery’s Department of Photo- and Video Materials, was chosen as the other grantee. His research is based on a unique collection of Italian photography of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is stored in the museum and numbers over 900 items including works by such famous photographers as Tommaso Cuccioni (1790–1864), Edmondo Behles (1841–1921), and Paolo Lombardi (1827–1890). Many of the photos are unattributed and have never been published. The research will be part of a full-scale description of Tretyakov Gallery’s photo collection. The project envisages work in archives, libraries, and photo repositories of Italy’s two leading photographic institutions: Bologna’s Zeri Foundation and Florence’s Alinari Archive.