Today, in the case of Benoit Russian Museum opens exhibition «Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. Old Lithuania ». The exhibition will be presented to more than 50 paintings and graphic works from the collections of the Art Museum of Lithuania, the National Art Museum. MKČiurlionis and the Russian Museum. The organizer of the exhibition is also the General Consulate of the Republic of Lithuania in Saint Petersburg.

Creativity Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957), a well-known graphic and painter, theater artist, a member of «world of art», St Petersburg is well known to viewers, but only until 1924, before his return to the home of ancestors, in Lithuania, and many expatriates wanderings through Europe and America. Urban species Dobuzhinsky created in the period of his life in Lithuania, in St. Petersburg has never been exhibited before.

Dobuzhinsky a lot of work in the field of book and magazine graphics: illustrated satirical magazines «bogey», «hellish mail», St. Petersburg drew for the magazine «The World of Art» and the «Apollo», as well as for the Moscow magazine «Golden fleece» . The best-known book artist's works were illustrations of the works of A. Remizov, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, G.-H. tales of Andersen, as well as the novel Dostoevsky «White Nights». As an artist-decorator Dobuzhinsky participated in productions of Ancient Theater in St. Petersburg (1907), Moscow art theater in Moscow (1909-1917), the Bolshoi Drama Theater in St. Petersburg. In the field of easel painting and graphic artist gave to the topic of the city. Numerous types of Saint-Petersburg - Petrograd created Dobuzhinsky brought him deserved fame «poet of the city».

It is not surprising that, forever leaving Petrograd, Dobuzhinsky first several months, and in 1929 had long-term residence in Lithuania - it occurred on his fathers father. In Vilna (Vilnius) Dobuzhinsky graduated from the gymnasium and later, already established in St. Petersburg, has repeatedly traveled to Lithuania, while in his own words, related sense, «Romanticism to land of ancestors».

From 1925 to 1938 the artist executed in the State Theater in Lithuania for more than 40 opera and drama performances, laying the foundation of the Lithuanian national stage.

But Dobuzhinsky not limited theatrical creativity. Together with sketches of scenery and costumes in the exhibition halls in Europe and America repeatedly exhibited its urban landscapes. Appearing in the United States during the Second World War, Dobuzhinsky exhibited his works at exhibitions that are organized primarily for Lithuanians emigrants. In connection with the exhibition of 1944 in Wilkes-Barr (Pennsylvania), where since the beginning of the XIX century, lived much of Lithuanian immigrants, he wrote: «I am happy that I have an opportunity to show at least some of their impressions of our beautiful Lithuania. I had the opportunity to get acquainted with Lithuania when I lived there during his visits, I zarisoval many features of ancient Lithuanian architecture. I want to believe that my paintings will help the audience understand the beauty of the old culture and identity of small towns and villages in Lithuania ».

in the form of the St. Petersburg collections of M. Dobuzhinsky the views Samogitia created in 1933-1934 years.

The value of this vast cycle of landscapes is not only the historical and topographical accuracy, but above all in the amazing ability Dobuzhinsky convey the beauty and poetry «antique». According to his Lithuanian artist Stasys Ushinskasa collaborating with Dobuzhinsky his «excited than urban, and the inner life of the city, which he saw in the most ordinary things - the wall, roof or window, with, in his words, his past, his« experience » .

In 1973, figures from Lithuanian Dobuzhinsky short subjects exhibited in Brooklyn (New York). Since then they have like a cycle, fixed the name of «Old Lithuania». In 1975, on the centennial anniversary of the artist, 55 works from the cycle «Old Lithuania» were presented at an exhibition in the gallery of Lithuanian MKČiurlionis in Chicago (Illinois).

The basis of this exhibition represent species Lithuania, acquired in 1983 by the Lithuanian Foundation (United States) have a son Vsevolod, and artist stored in the Lithuanian Art Institute of Chicago, then in the Lithuanian Art Museum (Lemont), and in 2006 donated Lithuania . Exhibition of works of M. Dobuzhinsky «Old Lithuania» was held in the Lithuanian Art Museum in the capital of Lithuania in 2007 and was dedicated to the 50 th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.

Sketches of old and classical types of Lithuania Vilnius M. Dobuzhinsky, courtesy of the National Art Museum. MKČiurlionis for the exhibition in the Russian Museum - this is another opportunity to remind the St. Petersburg, the city is closely related to Lithuanian culture that in 2009 Lithuania celebrates the millennium, and the Vilnius is one of the two cultural capitals of Europe .

After the exhibition in St. Petersburg Mstislav Dobuzhinsky products will be stored and exhibited in the National Gallery of Art, which opened in Vilnius, is scheduled for June 19, 2009.

Source: mkrf.ru