A new exhibition opening at the Fondation Louis Vuitton this weekend, titled Icons of Modern Art, will present 130 works from the collection of the late Russian art patron Sergei Shchukin. Shchukin was an important collector of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, and this new exhibition includes many works by Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Rousseau, Derain, Matisse and Picasso, as well as works by Degas, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh.
Shchukin, a Moscow industrialist, started collecting in the late 19th century, buying and commissioning hundreds of paintings by French masters, including a version of La Danse by Matisse. In 1909, he opened his house on Sundays so people could see its art-stuffed walls. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the collection was confiscated by the Communist party, with a 1918 decree signed by Lenin himself. Later, Stalin decided to split the collection up between two museums, the Pushkin in Moscow and the Hermitage in St Petersburg, denouncing it as “bourgeois and cosmopolitan”.
Icons of Modern Art – The Shchukin Collection is the fruit of a new, long-term partnership between the Pushkin Museum, the Hermitage Museum and Fondation Louis Vuitton, which was announced in February 2016. The exhibition is one of the stand-out events of the France – Russia Year of Cultural Tourism 2016-2017.
Icons of Modern Art – The Shchukin Collection is at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris 22 October 2016 – 20 February 2017.
Credits
Text Charlotte Gush
All images courtesy of Louis Vuitton