Collection of muzeum

664000,. Irkutsk,
Lenin street 5
E-mail iohm@irk.ru

Collection of muzeum

The first paintings in the gallery were probably acquired by Sukachev in the early 1870s, when he was a student at St.Petersburg University. Only a few of the sources of his acquisitions are known. Thus, "The Sparse Supper" by V.M.Maksimov was bought at the auction of Golovin's property in Petersburg; "Forest Stream" by G.G.Myasoyedov - was bought at the 18th exhibition of the Association of Wandering Exhibitions in 1891. "Beggar Girl" by I.Repin, according to the reminiscences of Sukachev's son Vladimir, was acquired an the artist's own studio.

In 1874 about thirty canvases from Sukachev's art collection were for the first time exhibited in the halls of the Museum of the Geographical Society in Irkutsk. Six years later, sixty-two paintings were exhibited. There was quite a number of works of the Wanderers in his collection. Besides these there were some paintings by artists of the Russian academic school of the 19th century. Later he ordered copies of paintings by some Western European artists from the museums of Munich and Florence.

In 1898 Sukachev and his family moved to Petersburg. In 1910 he made his last visit to Irkutsk. He left his collection in the care of an agent. During the First World War the paintings were shown on various charity exhibitions. The years of the Civil War were a hard time for the art gallery left without supervision. The Irkutsk Society for the Encouragement of Artists and simply honest people saved it from being ransacked.

During the twenty years after 1920, the gallery was enriched with collections of Oriental art which had belonged to the museum of the Eastern Siberia Section of the Russian Geographical Society, the oldest in Siberia. The gallery received rare specimens of the Chinese wooden sculpture of the 18th century, bronze ritual vessels, made in the cloisonne technique, artifacts of lacquered wood, bone and stone, a collection of Chinese popular prints, and engravings by the Japanese artists.
In the early 1920s, a number of works of art came to the museum from private collections and from the Irkutsk Artists'Society. Among them were paintings by V.E.Borisov-Musatov, M.V.Dobuzhinsky, V.A.Serov, K.A.Somov, D.D.Burlyuk, and by the local artists N.A.Andreyev, N.V.Lodeishchikov. At the same time the museum received old Russian paintings from the Vosnesensky Monastery.

In 1928 the gallery received a considerable number of works of art from the State Museum Fund. Paintings by F.S.Rokotov, V.L.Borovikovsky, A.I.Ivanov, I.I.Shishkin, V.D.Polenov, V.A.Serov, N.K.Roerich and other artists enriched the collection. An important event was the acquisition of V.K.Shebuyev's monumental painting "Moses with the Tablets of the Law", and collections of Russian and Western European porcelain and works of Faberge and Ovchinnikov. The fate of the gallery was decided by a resolution of the Council of the People's Commissars issued on January 17, 1936. The museum was made an independent institution, the East Siberian Art Museum (since 1937 the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum). The artist G.I.Dudin became its first director. The collection became enriched with new monuments of art.

In the late 1930s the museum received considerable donations, including over four hundred works of art from the collection of L.A.Dauksho. Among them was Russian silverware of the 18th and the 19th centuries, rare monuments of Chinese art in bone and in cloisonne technique, sculptures by ancient Greek and Egyptian masters, paintings by Dominic Zampieri, S.Verveer, sculptures and landscapes.

In 1939 a collection of Siberian and Western European porcelain was brought from the museum that had existed at the Haitinsk "Sibfarfor" porcelain factory, property of the merchant Perevalov before the revolution. The Irkutsk museum became the owner of a rare collection of Siberian porcelain of the pre-Revolutionary period. There was also a very fortunate acquisition of two porcelain iconostases of the 19th century.

The period of 1948-49 was the time of a great number of new acquisitions. During those two years the Irkutsk collection received more works of art through Arts Committees of the Councils of Ministers of Russia and the USSR than all other museums of the country put together. This was mostly the achievement of the museum's director Alexei D.Fatianov.

In those years, the section on Russian art received paintings by N.Ye.Makovsky, F.A.Malyavin, I.N.Kramskoy, A.M.Vasnetsov, A.K.Savrasov, L.I.Solomatkin, V.I.Surikob, V.A.Tropinin. The section of prints and drawings received a number of various works of high artistic value.

The future collection of sculpture, one that had been almost non-existent also took shape. It was initiated by works by M.M.Antokolsky, M.A.Vrubel, A.S.Golubkina, S.T.Konenkov.

A special place in the collection belongs to the gifts from the residents of Irkutsk. Thus, the first exhibition of paintings and drawings from private collections was held in 1948, and the results surpassed all expectations; the museum was enriched with excellent works of art, and in particular, with "The Crowning with Thorns" by H.Terbrugghen.

In the 1950s, a number of drawings and engravings by well-known artists of the 18th and the 20th centuries, including F.P.Tolstoy, F.A.Bruni, I.D.Arkhipov, G.S.Vereisky, was given to the Irkutsk museum by the museums of Leningrad and Moscow.

The museum received a gift of a wonderful collection from N.K.Velichko. There was a considerable collection of old Russian painting, Western European and Oriental art. Owing to N.Velichko the Irkutsk collection was enriched by over two thousand works of art: a rare collection of icons of the Italo-Cretan, Mt.Athos, Moscow, Novgorod and Yaroslavl schools of the 15th-18th centuries, Russian and Western European paintings and drawings, works of Chinese masters.

The gifts of the well-known Moscow collector and connoisseur F.Vishnevsky were a valuable contribution. For twenty years this passionate collector made gifts to the museum. The gifts of Vishnevsky to the Irkutsk gallery considerably enlarged the sections of Russian, Dutch, German and French painting, and on Western European drawing. Among his gifts were works by S.F.Shchedrin, I.K.Aivazovsky, A.I.Ivanov, A.P.Bogoliubov, I.I.Shishkin, I.Ye.Repin, the Dutch artists Rombouts, Villen van de Velde, the Italian Marieschi, the Germans K.Schultze, E.Hildebrandt, the Austrian I.Grassi and a large number of paintings by unknown artists.

The gifts of the private collectors Yu.V.Nevzorov, P.Ye.Vishnevsky, N.K.Velichko and others, and also works from the state funds enriched the Irkutsk museum with a collection of Western European art. In the recent years the museum has continued its activities in collecting works of art, and it has been giving much attention to the art education and organizing exhibitions in this country and abroad.

In 1989, the year of Sukachev's 140th anniversary, the museum was given the name of its founder. It is now named the Irkutsk Sukachev Regional Art Museum