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Сообщение от Cyril Syzransky

Costacis went to 78-m. Before that, in your, "Europeans and amerikatsntsy" did not know Russian avant-garde?

Everything is relative! Someone knew, of course! But really know only through George Kostaki! He gathered and showed Russian Avant-garde world and Russia!

You really do not know? Strange ... Here, read an article by Sasha Shatskikh, incidentally, also my good friend:

Costacis: a ray of light in the darkness

Kostaki: a ray of light in the darkness ( "Russian Avant-Garde from the Collection of GD Kostaki. Painting. Graphics." Exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery, Spring 1997) //Russia, M, 1997, October, p.75-77.

Tretyakov Gallery shows, finally, show that the long awaited: in the vast halls on the Crimean shaft placed works from the collection of George Dionisovicha Kostaki (1913-1990), received by the museum exactly twenty years ago. All these twenty years, only a small part of things was available to the domestic audience, the rest of the time spent either in storerooms or in a foreign voyage.

Meanwhile, in the future years, more and more clearly emerges scale of Kostaki - biography of the collector, the most dramatic, the most instructive and most prominent in the history of collecting "all time". Collecting works of art with an established reputation - that is, for example, collect antique gems, etchings by Rembrandt and paintings by old masters - it is a respectable, profitable, and without risk: until the end of XIX-century European history collection, which began with the Renaissance, could boast of such collections and it is precisely such collectors. Since the end of XIX-th century the situation changed dramatically: there were painters, and the whole direction in art - impressionism was here first - do not enjoy the favors of his contemporaries, moreover, mercilessly ridiculed. Artists - people special, and many of them, creating an unrecognized masterpieces, lived in poverty, a consolation for them was itself a creative passion. However, with the venerable merchant Ambroise Vollarom, a Parisian art dealer, there was a strange story - it seemed to sober man decided to go bust, buying paintings defame "Mazilu. Permeated with creativity Cezanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, he acquired their work, and endured years of ridicule and bullying of colleagues. Purchased product is not sold, too, over the years - during which time Vollar so get used to many of them that later, when the canvases of "his" artists have increased in price in the hundreds or even thousands of times, refused to part with the pictures. In fairness it should be noted that the "dark time" for Vollara by Russia's standards did not last too long - some ten years he was a winner already in 1900-ies - our fellow SI Shchukin and Ivan Morozov bought some of their famous "Cezanne and Picasso" is a Vollara.

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And other well-known collectors of XX-th century - in Russia it was mentioned SI Shchukin and IA Morozov, in Europe, Hugo von Tschudi, D. - A. Kanveyler Americans Leo and Gertrude Stein, Alfred Barnes, Catherine Dryer - risk to acquire works of his contemporaries. They had an army of good advisers, your own good sense, a lot of money - and they collected these masters, who was already known among professionals in the art centers of the world, especially Paris. They draw up the collection is a treasure now famous museums.

Figure Costacis even against prominent fellow is seen as unique. The Russian avant-garde had a special destiny. Shchukin and Morozov preferred to collect paintings of European innovators in their fellow radicals, they did not pay attention, and, in fact, they were the most sensitive among Russian collectors. Until 1917 the work of Russian avant-garde is not collected, not bought one. After the Revolution left a short time proved to be masters at the helm of artistic life, and their idea of creating new museums, the so-called museums of art (or beautiful) culture has been partially implemented. Museum Department of the People's Commissariat of Education for its short life (1918-1921) was able to purchase a large amount of experimental work and send them to the capital and provincial cities to create new museums. They were organized - Museum of Contemporary Art in Vitebsk (closed in 1923), Museum of Artistic Culture in Petrograd-Leningrad (slouching in 1926), the Museum of Painterly Culture in Moscow (disbanded in 1929), there were museums in Rostov, Saratov and other provincial cities . Age of them was short, merciless destruction.

Those works that in his time were still in the state assembly because of the Museum Department, expecting a terrible fate. Many of them were in and h n t o w e s on the order of the center as not representing the artistic value. And only some of the provincial museum staff had the courage and professional pride to hide and rescue work. Surviving canvases became a sensational discovery in the era of perestroika.

Phenomenon Kostaki, illegal art enthusiast, was born in lead times - the extermination of cosmopolitans, formalists, and other ideological enemies of Soviet power was not only moral but also physical. George Dionisovicha rescued particular situation: Coming from a family Russified Greeks, it was formally to foreign nationals, even though he was born and spent most of his life in Russia. All the vicissitudes of their own fate Costacis later described in his book "My vanguard. Zapiski collector" (Moscow, 1993), published posthumously in Russian. Event that overturned the life of a collector of good small Dutch, It said the meeting with a picture of obscurity Olga Rozanova, which occurred in the first postwar year. "The voice of God, cried to Saul," was heard, and vocation, suddenly struck on the head of a successful employee of the Canadian Embassy, turning it into a collector-obsessed preacher. Not one of the most famous of his colleagues did not have to save the object of his passion from a real death. Kostaki same was destined to find and maintain that without him would disappear from the face of the earth - just that he was engaged in the forties, fifties, sixties and seventies in part. The country behind the Iron Curtain and separate from the rest of the world standards and laws of the collection was relatively easy, because often the heirs and owners with the same disregard belonged to his treasures, which the official authorities. Lyubov Popova could be obtained by exchanging clean plywood on the "stained" colors, much to the delight of the holder (the price at Sotheby's for a "plywood" fluctuated in the early 1990's within 200-400 thousand pounds sterling, and this is not the limit) .

Continuing the tradition of Shchukin, at the beginning of the century opened his mansion with a collection of the latest works of French painters, Kostaki loved to show visitors to the collection hanging on the walls of two coupled ordinary apartment homes new buildings on Prospekt Vernadskogo. Sverhkontsentratsiya masterpieces in the private museum was truly amazing - in the end, after the forced "explosion" of the pressed core, in many countries formed representative collection of Russian avant-garde. Patriarch of domestic art DV Sarabyanov could acquaint their students with a university forbidden art only in Kostaki, and the author of these lines had heard once liked introduction of the collector: "Russia - an Eldorado for collectors." Passion, financial freedom and the continued search of the law resulted in what have Kostaki was the largest, purest, most valuable crop "gold bullion" of the national left-wing art first third of the XX-th century. Those in power have well understood the essence of this seditious collecting activity. Formally, the foreign citizen has managed to doge, and in 1977 Costacis was forced to depart to their historical homeland. Before leaving, George Dionisovich did something almost unthinkable for a natural-born collectors: according to his will he divided the collection into two unequal parts - 20%were taken with a 80%donated Russia. The only condition was the donation, please indicate on the labels of paintings "Dar GD Kostaki. That was taken away, partly settled in museums and galleries in Paris, New York, Cologne, London and Geneva - and who knows what was more due to these sales, the desire to adequately contain the large family or a desire to see their heroes in the most prestigious meeting of the world.

Russian Avant-Garde from the Collection Costacis have been exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery on the Crimean shaft appears phenomenon bestowed unprecedented plastic world of ideas, truly titanic personality. In that era loved to talk about the multiplicity of spaces - the diverse "new dimension" had personally realized in art. Discovery Kazimir Malevich, his "new measure" does not override the artistic worlds of Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Vlad dimira Tatlin, Pavel Filonov ... And those who seemingly followed suit is great, especially fearless Amazons Russian avant-garde, Lyubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Alexandra Exter, Nadezhda Udaltsova - demonstrate a level of giftedness, such powerful options for a new va-iskusst that you know - they just no luck, the grace of First of kinship was spilled and so many have, as never more in Russian art.

Second important aspect of this exhibition - its purity. Alas, we must note that the international recognition of Russian avant-garde, on which so assiduously worked Kostaki, accompanied by painful and humiliating scandals accidents. That unenviable raging passions around it is not clear where the work novodelnyh who took in a respectable museum, on a solid show, the researchers acknowledge falshak in the most expensive Lote prestigious auction. Once the prices of works by Russian avant-garde soared for several years, hundreds of times, on the western market flood of counterfeit products. Counterfeiting not only the work of individual artists - falsified entire collection. A representative completeness of the exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery gives an opportunity to see axiomatic work of the great Russian masters of XX-th century.

The idea of the exhibition "Russian Avant-Garde from the Collection of GD Kostaki always like to lay on the surface, and the West more than once attempted to honorable endeavor, but the lion's share of the meeting was in Russia. The largest exhibition, but by no means exhaustive, was arranged in December 1995-th - March of 1996 in Athens, where the rest of his days living figure of Russian culture, the Greek George Dionisovich Kostaki. Unfortunately, now in Moscow, the hometown Kostaki, his collection is not represented in the whole volume. The Tretyakov Gallery is exposed only that portion that was left in Russia, with our fragile environment and lack of funding for culture foreign museums and private collections did not dare to bring their treasures.

And, nevertheless, held an event at the Tretyakov Gallery - the long-awaited hommage Costacis in the country in which and for which he has committed his life's achievement. The only pity is that the legendary collector did not have to live up to this holiday.

28/10/1997

Alexander Shatsky