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culture

The Morozov

Collection

Icons of Modern Art
the unique and landmark exhibit

to visit opens in Paris on
22 September 2021

The Louis Vuitton Fondation will make dynasty. From the 1870s and up to the Russian
the headlines in the coming days, and for a Revolution, traditional Russian society went
good reason. For the first time in history, the through many changes, and the Morozov
extraordinary Morozov Collection of Modern brothers participated actively in forging a new
Art is to be shown outside Russia. Before economic, social and cultural world in which
opening on 22 September of this year, the modern Russian and Western art played an
exhibit required five years of preparations, important role. Ivan studied chemistry at the
negotiations at the highest political level, Zurich Polytechnic University, in Switzerland,
and a tremendous amount of work from the in the 1890s, and had already started to collect
Foundation’s staff in collaboration with the contemporary Russian art. His elder brother
State Hermitage Museum, the Pushkin State Mikhail, on the other hand, had established
Museum of Fine arts, and the State Tretyakov friendly relations with Parisian art dealers
Gallery. The exhibit was scheduled to open and had rented an apartment in one of Paris’s
in October 2020, but the Covid situation exclusive neighbourhoods.
made it impossible. So, it is opening its doors
in September and will remain open for 5 We should mention that the Morozov
months. brothers, since their young days, had been in
contact with influential Russian artists who
It is an exhibition focusing on French and attended the salon hosted by their mother,
Russian works of art gathered in the early 20th Varvara. So, while Mikhail was assembling
century by two brothers, Mikhail and Ivan an original collection of artworks by Manet,
Morozov, industrialists and businessmen. Corot, Monet, Degas, Gaugin and Van Gogh,
just to mention a few, it was thanks to Ivan
So, let us go back in history, to Russia, that these artists became known in Russia.
before the Russian Revolution. According When Mikhail died in 1903, his collection
to historians, the Morozov dynasty, which numbered thirty-nine artworks by French
became one of the most eminent in Russia, artists, and forty-four by Russian ones. After
began with five roubles, which permitted the his brother’s death, Ivan continued in his
ancestor serf to buy his freedom and to start a brother’s footsteps and continued to travel to
ribbon factory, laying the ground for the family Paris and acquire artwork from French artists.

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