from 1 to 8 September 2010 in the main exhibition halls of the auction house Christie's, located in the heart of London, with support from Astana Group and Oracle Capital Group to host exhibition of Kazakh and Russian art of XX century. The exhibition of fifty paintings from the collection of the Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan named Abylhana Kasteev complement the 25 works from the private collection of well-known patron of Kazakhstan Nurlan Smagulova, which is widely represented by the art of Kazakhstan Sixties and contemporary artists.

Masterpieces Kazakh and Russian art allows viewers to trace the history of formation and development of the Kazakh national school of painting. This is the first large-scale exposition of the museum collection, consisting of real masterpieces that have no analogues in the world. Until now, the assembly was virtually unavailable to the international audience, and only because the museum closes for renovation at Christie's came an exclusive opportunity to bring to London the true treasures of Kazakhstan - Kazakh monumental canvases of artists and the masterpieces of Russian artists from the museum's permanent exhibition. All pictures from public collections can be again seen in the museum Kasteev, which will be open to the public in early 2011.

• Sergey Kalmykov Red Horses. 1911
  canvas. GMI them. A. Kasteev, Alma-Ata

London venue chosen for the exhibition is not surprising, as it is world center of art, which, like Kazakhstan, is at a crossroads of different cultures. According to Alexei Tiesenhausen, head of the International Department of the Russian art Christie's, the exhibition will become a long-awaited and important event for the cultural life of London: "London is already widely formed an interest in Russian art. We have twice a year by a Russian bid is Christie's. European viewers are already familiar with the names of Russian artists - Paul Filonova , Robert Falk , Peter , Zinaida Serebryakova , whose work is included in the exhibition. We hope very much that now there will remember the names and Kazakhstan artists Abylkhan Kasteev, Sergey Kalmykov , Kanaf Telzhanova, Salihitdina Aitbayev, and the exhibition will be greeted with great enthusiasm and the beginning of a long history dating London with Kazakh art ».

History of the museum's collection is deeply rooted in the 1930's, when more than two hundred works from State Tretyakov Gallery, State Museum of Fine Arts named after AS Pushkin, the State Hermitage and the State Russian Museum were transferred to Alma-Ata in the framework of cultural exchange between the republics. Thus, in the museum's collection came a well-known "objective Composition" (1910) Olga Rozanova . The picture relating to the Suprematist period of creativity of the artist, built on a balanced color relations.

• Olga Rozanova
  objective Composition. 1910
  GMI them. A. Kasteev, Alma-Ata

Later museum collection replenished works bought from private collectors. The museum has several works by the author of "Bathing the Red Horse» Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin . Among them - "Still Life" 1920. This perfect clarity of the plastic form, its original, unbroken purity tantamount to viewers expressing the author's clarity of thought. The canvas was purchased from Hope Dobychina, the owner of the famous artistic salon, where the first was put up "Black Square" (1915) , evacuated to Alma-Ata at the beginning of the Second World War.

• Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin Still Life. 1,920
  GMI them. A. Kasteev, Alma-Ata

Most of the collection consists of works acquired in the union and republican exhibitions and direct from the artists or their families. Indisputed masterpieces are monumental canvases Moldakhmetov Kenbaeva (1925-1993) 'Conversation' (1958) and Kanafi Telzhanova (born in 1927) "On the ground, their grandfathers' (1958) and" Kokpar (1960), transferred to the museum after participating in the republican exhibitions. Kenbaan Telzhanov and educated in Moscow and Leningrad, skillfully using the techniques of realism for the transfer of the national spirit, their work marks a transitional period before the emergence of a Kazakh national identity in the 1960's.

a kind manifesto of artistic ideas 1960 has a picture Salihitdina Aitbayev (1938-1994) "Happiness" (1966), which reflected the elements that later became central to the national school of painting: flatness, synthesis, color saturation and figurative symbolism.

unique museum collections and art in Kazakhstan as a whole is partly geographical remoteness of the Alma-Ata from the center of the USSR. If in Moscow any small deviation from the official standards of socialist realism was considered almost treason and could threaten the reference, in Alma-Ata such extremes did not exist. Artists, remaining within the socialist realism, yet could be more free to experiment in the quest for national plastic language. Besides, very often the Moscow and Leningrad artists pursued by the authorities for "formalism" and "commitment to the Western tradition, is referred to Kazakhstan. Among Russian artists in the exhibition, many have lived and worked in Kazakhstan: in 1934 Vladimir Sterligov lost the right to reside in large cities and spent several years in the Alma-Ata, where laid the beginning of his famous chashno-dome system , and Sergei Kalmykov and Paul Saltzman arrived in Alma-Ata, theater artists, and left to live and work in the Kazakh capital.

Distance from the center made it possible not only to local authors to experiment, but also the curator of the museum to give preference to avant-garde artists. Thus, the museum Kasteev one of the first to actively collect works by artists that were part of the progressive unification of the twentieth century "Jack of Diamonds". At various times its members were artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky , Natalya Goncharova , Michael Larionov , Alexandra Exter and exhibited at Pavel Kuznetsov , Petr Konchalovsky, Robert Falk, and Alexander Kuprin .

Portfolio Pavel Filonov joined the museum collection in a way contrary to the will of the artist. Breaking his brother's last wishes to sell or give his work only Russian Museum, the sister of Paul Filonova agreed to transfer some pictures of the Alma-Ata to the museum, as at that time the artist's work but there could be exhibited in the exposition. In the watercolor sheet "Change change. Formula Komsomol "(1925) Filonov gave way contemporary universal value, which is read and immediately, and gradually, through the dense co-existence of different scales of figures, animals, letters, and various geometric shapes. Everything is subordinated to the famous "principle of the made».

• 

works from private collections Nurlan Smagulova complement the exhibition of masterpieces from the museum Kasteev. In the private collection are more than thirty paintings Janat Shardenova (1927-1992), whose virtuoso figurative style makes the artist is truly unique. It conveys the beauty of nature with thick brush strokes, creating a textured surface, - a style that is difficult to attribute to any category or movement. Works by contemporary artists Abdrashitov Sydyhanova and

Kenzhebaya Duysenbaeva also included in the exhibition and show how the search for a national form, the national spirit relevant to this day.

The State Museum of Arts. A Kasteev was founded in 1976 based on the collection of the Kazakh state of the art gallery they. Shevchenko, founded in 1935, and the Republican Museum of Applied Arts, opened in 1970. To date, the museum is one of the largest art museums in Central Asia. Today, at its highest artistic level museum's collection is not inferior to many world gatherings. The museum has a fine collection, the number of exhibits of the main fund of the museum is more than 22 500 unique works of painting, drawing, sculpture and applied arts of Kazakhstan, Russia, Europe, America and the peoples of the East.

museum also is the largest center for research and education in the field of fine arts.

Source: press release Christie's