Sergey Ivanovich Shchukin | |
|---|---|
.jpg) 1915 portrait | |
| Born | (1854-07-27)July 27, 1854 Moscow, Russian Empire |
| Died | January 10, 1936(1936-01-10) (aged 81) Paris, French Third Republic |
| Occupation | Art collector |
Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin (Russian:Сергей Иванович Щукин; 6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1854 – 10 January 1936) was a Russian businessman who became an art collector, mainly of FrenchImpressionist andPost-Impressionist art.
Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin was born on 6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1854 in Moscow, one of ten children[1] ofIvan Shchukin, a self-made Moscow merchant, and his wife Ekaterina Shchukina, née Botkin, the daughter of an established family of merchants.[2] I.V. Shchukin and Sons Trading Company became one of the largest manufacturing and wholesale companies in Russia.[3]
There were several art collectors in the Shchukin family. Sergei's brotherPyotr Shchukin built an important collection of Russian ancient art and artifacts and owned several impressionist masterpieces,[1][4] while his brotherDimitri Shchukin assembled "Moscow's best collection of Old Masters," which eventually entered thePushkin Museum. Another brother,Ivan, also collected art and books.[1]
Shchukin made his first art purchases following a trip to Paris in 1897, when he bought his firstMonet. He later bought numerous works to a total of 258 paintings decorating the walls of his palatial home inMoscow.
By 1914, Shchukin owned thirteenMonet paintings, including the iconicLady in the Garden and the smaller but complete version ofPicnic; three byRenoir; eight byCézanne, includingCarnival (Mardi Gras); four byVan Gogh, including thePortrait of Dr. Felix Rey (but the most famous Van Gogh paintings in Russia,Prison Courtyard andThe Red Vineyard, were purchased by Shchukin's friend and competitor,Ivan Abramovitch Morozov); sixteen byGauguin of the Tahitian period, which were hung in his dining room in the manner of an orthodoxiconostasis; seven byHenri Rousseau; sixteen byAndré Derain; eight byAlbert Marquet; and two byMaxime Dethomas.
Shchukin was particularly notable for his long association withMatisse, who decorated his mansion and created one of his iconic paintings,La Danse, specially for Shchukin.La Danse is commonly recognized as "a key point of [Matisse's] career and in the development of modern painting".[5]Henri Matisse createdLa Danse for Shchukin as part of a two-painting commission, the other important painting beingMusic, 1910. Both paintings are now in the collection of theHermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. An earlier version ofLa Danse (1909) is in the collection ofThe Museum of Modern Art inNew York City.
The collection also featured fifty choice works byPablo Picasso, including most of his earliest Cubist works, such asThree Women and major landscapes, but some key pieces of the Blue and Rose periods as well. In 1909, Shchukin opened his home on Sundays for public viewings, introducing Frenchavant-garde painting to the Muscovites.
After the 1917Revolution, the government appropriated his collection (decree of the Council of the People's Commissioners, signed Lenin, 8 November 1918) while Shchukin escaped to Paris, where he died in 1936. His mansion in Moscow became theState Museum of New Western Art (Государственный Музей нового западного искусствa, section I), section II being the mansion and collection of the other famous Russian patron,Ivan Morozov. Eventually, in 1928, the two sections were merged and exhibited in the former Ivan Morozov mansion at Prechistenka, 21.[6] In 1948 the State Museum of New Western Art was closed down by a decree signed byStalin due to its allegedly bourgeois, cosmopolitan and wrongly oriented artworks. The two collections were randomly divided between thePushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the StateHermitage Museum inSt. Petersburg.
Shchukin's art collection has been jointly displayed with the collection ofIvan Morozov. In 2008, the families of Shchukin and Morozov made efforts to compel Russia to provide them with “reasonable compensation,” which become an international legal and political issue. The families refused an offer from the British Royal Academy of £5,000 for each family in exchange for their promise not to make claims on the paintings while they were on loan to the Royal Academy, which was displaying the two collections in London.[7]
Shchukin died on 10 January 1936 in Paris and is buried inMontmartre Cemetery, Avenue des Polonais 1st Division.
Irina Antonova, director of the Pushkin Museum, remarked of Shchukin:
He started to collect unpopular art, which was snubbed by theLouvre and other museums. It was his personal taste. Perhaps he heard foreshocks that would change the world. Such a collector could appear only in a country that awaited a revolution. He collected art that prefigured the global cataclysms.[8]
In the autumn of 2016, the exhibition "Icônes de l'art moderne. La collection Chtchoukine", opened at theLouis Vuitton Foundation inParis.
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