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A PEARL IN THE DESERT

The Home of Forbidden Art

The incredible story of Igor Savitsky
and the Nukus Museum

ave you ever heard The collection was made by Igor The museum is overflowing with
of Igor Savitsky? No? Savitsky at a time when Stalin was works about which Western art lov-
What about Nukus? trying his best to eliminate all avant- ers are almost completely ignorant.
H A city of 250,000 garde artists and condemn them
inhabitants -- Nukus -- in the auto- to the gulags. Savitsky himself and Igor Savitsky (1915-1984), born to
nomous Republic of Karakalpak, in the collection at Nukus survived an aristocratic family in Kiev, came
the northern part of Uzbekistan. It because of the city's remoteness. to Karakalpakstan to participate as
hosts the world's second largest col-
lection of Russian avant-garde art Thanks to Savitsky, much of
(after the Russian Hermitage Mu- contemporary Russian avant-
seum in St Petersburg) -- in the Nu- garde art was preserved, and
kus Museum. It is also home to one art historians say that art his-
of the largest collections of archaeo- tory could be rewritten due to
logical objects and folklore, applied discoveries in this collection.
and contemporary art originating Despite the fact that the mu-
from Central Asia. Although the an- seum has only been known
cient Silk Road cities of Samarkand, to art connoisseurs and cura-
Bukhara and Khiva may be better tors for the last twenty years
known, the Nukus Museum is in fact -- since the independence
the fourth splendour of Uzbekistan, of Uzbekistan -- it has
and the Savitsky Collection has been still not received the inter-
called "one of the most outstanding national recognition that
museums of the world" by the Bri- it might normally deserve
tish newspaper The Guardian. among art lovers around the
world. In this fundamentally
remote spot sits an enor-
mous collection of art from
the Russian avant-garde.

Culture 41