It's a thoroughly Russian story. A story of immeasurable wealth and a fanatical love of art. It is carried by unintentionally tragic heroes who led a double life as big capitalists and collectors, enriched by high-profile minor characters: matrons made of granite, rabid drinking brothers, benevolent widows, generous theater lovers, reformers and revolutionaries. It is a story that was hushed up in Soviet times and has only found its narrator again since the dissolution of the USSR: Two of the highest quality and most advanced art collections that existed were made during the Silver Age of the Tsarist Empire (from around 1890 to the First World War) in the former Moscow trade capitals gathered. And not through aristocratic aesthetes or free-thinking cosmopolitans,but by old-believing industrialists and businessmen.
The Parisian Fondation Louis Vuitton, created by an art-loving big capitalist, the founder of the LVMH luxury goods group, Bernard Arnault, had already dedicated an exhibition to the collection of the manufacturer and wholesaler Sergei Schukin five years ago. With 1.3 million visitors, it became the most-visited French art exhibition. Now the foundation, located in a glass galleon owned by Frank O. Gehry, is illuminating the Morozov brothers' collection, the counterpart and complement to that of Shchukin.
Michail Morosow (1870 to 1903) was the embodiment of the sanguine. He ate and drank without stopping (which led to his early death), was fond of women and the card game, but even more of the arts and sciences. Reviews and historical treatises from his amateur pen produced nothing but malice, a psychologizing novel at least called the censorship on the scene. But in 1894 he began to collect contemporary paintings from his homeland, and from 1899 also those from Western Europe. He was soon drawn to an avant-garde that was detached from anything academic. So he acquired the first Gauguin who came to the tsarist empire, then the first van Gogh, then the only Munch that can be found in Russia today. In addition, first-class products from Manet and Renoir as well as top-class products from Degas, Monet and Toulouse-Lautrec. When Mikhail Morozov died in late 1903,his collection counted thirty-nine Western and forty-four Russian works. Before making purchases, he sought advice from artist friends such as Valentin Serov, Sergei Vinogradov and Mikhail Vrubel. Her works are represented in large numbers in the Morosow's collections - and thankfully also in the show with a selection that is not limited to the introductory portrait gallery. This introduces the most important members of the family and the circle of friends, among them - important for the history of art, music and theater - Shchukin, Bass Chaliapin, Mikhail's wife Margarita (patron of the composer genius Scriabin) and cousin Savva Morozov (main shareholder of the art theater , in which Stanislavski showed Chekhov's late dramas).Before making purchases, he sought advice from artist friends such as Valentin Serov, Sergei Vinogradov and Mikhail Vrubel. Her works are represented in large numbers in the Morosow's collections - and thankfully also in the show with a selection that is not limited to the introductory portrait gallery. This introduces the most important members of the family and the circle of friends, among them - important for the history of art, music and theater - Shchukin, Bass Chaliapin, Mikhail's wife Margarita (patron of the composer genius Scriabin) and cousin Savva Morozov (main shareholder of the art theater , in which Stanislavski showed Chekhov's late dramas).Before making purchases, he sought advice from artist friends such as Valentin Serov, Sergei Vinogradov and Mikhail Vrubel. Her works are represented in large numbers in the Morosow's collections - and thankfully also in the show with a selection that is not limited to the introductory portrait gallery. This introduces the most important members of the family and the circle of friends, among them - important for the history of art, music and theater - Shchukin, Bass Chaliapin, Mikhail's wife Margarita (patron of the composer genius Scriabin) and cousin Savva Morozov (main shareholder of the art theater , in which Stanislavski showed Chekhov's late dramas).Her works are represented in large numbers in the Morosow's collections - and thankfully also in the show with a selection that is not limited to the introductory portrait gallery. This introduces the most important members of the family and the circle of friends, among them - important for the history of art, music and theater - Shchukin, Bass Chaliapin, Mikhail's wife Margarita (patron of the composer genius Scriabin) and cousin Savva Morozov (main shareholder of the art theater , in which Stanislavski showed Chekhov's late dramas).Her works are represented in large numbers in the Morosow's collections - and thankfully also in the show with a selection that is not limited to the introductory portrait gallery. This introduces the most important members of the family and the circle of friends, among them - important for the history of art, music and theater - Shchukin, Bass Chaliapin, Mikhail's wife Margarita (patron of the composer genius Scriabin) and cousin Savva Morozov (main shareholder of the art theater , in which Stanislavski showed Chekhov's late dramas).the bass Chaliapin, Mikhail's wife Margarita (patroness of the composer genius Scriabin) and the cousin Savva Morozov (main shareholder of the art theater in which Stanislavski showed Chekhov's late dramas).the bass Chaliapin, Mikhail's wife Margarita (patroness of the composer genius Scriabin) and the cousin Savva Morozov (main shareholder of the art theater in which Stanislavski showed Chekhov's late dramas).
Most of the two hundred and forty-one works can be seen for the first time
His brother Iwan was a far more unequal figure as the head of Morosow's textile factory.
It was only after his brother's death that he began collecting French art on a large scale.
In 1904 he traveled for the first time to the newly founded Salon d'Automne in Paris, from then on twice a year to this and to the Salon des Indépendants.
The most important galleries in the city of lights - Bernheim-Jeune, Druet, Durand-Ruel, Vollard, and later also Kahnweiler - rolled out the red carpet for the textile tycoon.
The exhibition catalog, which is the first to compile a complete inventory of the western part of the Morosow collection, comes to two hundred and forty-one works for Ivan.
He acquired almost all of them between 1905 and 1914.