The Light and Air art project, in which twenty-seven museums from around Russia participate, offers for the first time in our exhibition practice a diverse approach to Soviet painting and suggests viewing the latter through the prism of cultural thinking, taste, and aesthetics typical of Impressionism.

The creative process of the Soviet time was an ambiguous, actively evolving phenomenon, comprising artistic quests and achievements, destroying the stereotypes about total domination of "socialist realism" devoid of signs of life. Close examination and analysis of the works by a number of famous and little-known artists presented at the exhibition will help to build a veracious image of a controversial period in our culture, to understand and comprehend many manifestations of artistic creativity.  

Impressionism for many creative individuals became a special source of inspiration, a powerful impulse for inner liberation, for the expression of personal feelings and moods. The surrounding world appears before us in the presented pieces as an existence filled with radiant euphoria, that in its thematic and emotional orientation fully meet the declared ideological guidelines of the time, yet the works fascinate us with their aesthetic sophistication and significance of images.

The exhibition consists of four thematic sections: portrait, landscape, labour, and leisure. It invites a viewer to disengage themself from Soviet political realities and to make an attempt to view the period art from a historical distance, from the point of view of its artistic achievements and aesthetic impact.

List of Museums

St Petersburg
Museum of 20^th and 21^st Century Art of St Petersburg
State Russian Museum
Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts
Museum and Exhibition Centre “Petersburg Artist”

Moscow
Borodino State Military and History Museum-Reserve
Moscow Museum of Modern Art
A. V. Schusev State Research Museum of Architecture
Museum of Russian Impressionism
State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia
State Museum and Exhibition Centre “ROSIZO”
Artists’ Union of Russia
State Museum

Arkhangelsk
Artistic Culture of the Russian North State Museum Association

Vladimir
Vladimir and Suzdal State Museum-Reserve of History, Architecture and Art

Vologda
Vologda Regional Art Gallery

Ivanovo
Ivanovo Regional Art Museum

Kaluga
Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts

Kirov
V. M. Vasnetsov and A. M. Vasnetsov Vyatka Museum of Art

Kostroma
Kostroma State Museum-Reserve of History, Architecture and Art

Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum

Palekh
State Museum of Palekh Art

Perm
Perm State Art Gallery

Plyos
Plyos History, Architecture and Art Museum- Reserve

Sergiev Posad
Sergiev Posad State Museum-Reserve of History and Art

Tver
Tver Regional Art Gallery

Tula
Tula Museum Association

Cherepovets
Cherepovets Museum Association

Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl Art Museum

Private collections
Nikolai Ionin Family Collection

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