Ivan Khrutsky’s paintings from Belarus’ National Art Museum to go on show in Moscow
In co-operation with the Belarusian Culture Ministry, the In Artibus Foundation will present a large-scale retrospective of Ivan Khrutsky in Moscow on December 19th. The exhibition – entitled Hymn of Ivan Khrutsky’s Quiet Life – will feature works from more than twenty Russian museums and from the collection of Belarus’ National Art Museum.
Martha Jonua, a representative of the foundation, calls this event unprecedented, as there has never been an exhibition of Khrutsky’s canvases in Russia, which would allow to show the public works brought both from the capital of Belarus and Russian art museums, “About two dozen museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Saratov and Irkutsk, Taganrog and Krasnoyarsk, Volgograd and Kirov, Kaliningrad and Yekaterinburg, Tula and Kursk have selected paintings that have never been on show together as part of the exposition. This will be Khrutsky’s first retrospective of this scale. However, this broad scope does not mean that the exhibition space on Prechistenskaya Embankment will be full of paintings. In fact, the artistic legacy of Ivan Khrutsky, a master of the still life, is distributed across the entire former Russian Empire; some of his works are also kept in personal collections in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, the US and the UK. Only a few museums – primarily, the National Art Museum of Belarus, the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery and the National Museum in Warsaw – have more or less extensive collections of works by the master, whose legacy does not even number a hundred of works. And only in Minsk can one see them in all their glory in the permanent exhibition.”
Especially for the exhibition, the In Artibus Foundation paid for the restoration of Khrutsky’s Portrait of Children from the Kursk Deineka Art Gallery. Naturally, the exhibition will include the artist’s signature still lifes. The audience will also see the magnificent Vegetable Stall – the only work by Ivan Khrutsky, acquired by the Academy of Arts for its collection.
