At the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the fabulous destiny of the Morozov Collection – Franceinfo

Moscow, at the very beginning of the 20th century, the sumptuous palace of Ivan Morozov can be visited as a museum of so-called “modern” art, because it not only welcomes the avant-garde of young Russian painters, but also and above all, all of them. the future great Parisian stars of art “in the process of being” …

Touch to key on the walls of the various salons, there are these artists who are already selling at a very high price, these famous impressionists like Manet, Monet, Degas or Renoir… And then there are the newcomers of the avant-garde scene. like Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, or Picasso… And their works are still very affordable: only 300 francs for The two acrobats by Pablo Picasso (now featured on the exhibition poster). Yvan Morozov made a great deal that day.

Rich industrialists in textiles, the Mikhaïl brothers and Yvan Morozov are visionary collectors, particularly well advised by the French merchants of the time, Ambroise Vollard or Paul Durand-Ruel. And in Moscow, these collectors-patrons are making daring bets, such as asking the painter Maurice Denis to adorn the entire music room with huge flashy and sensual pink panels! This will shock the good Moscow society, but help to create their legend.

Philanthropists, convinced progressives and concerned about the daily well-being of their staff, the Morozovs nevertheless suffered the full brunt of the Russian Revolution of 1917. From 1918, the Bolsheviks nationalized the Muscovite palace of the two brothers, as well as the ensemble. collections, which amounted at the time to nearly 600 masterpieces, paintings, sculptures.

At the beginning, Yvan Morozov’s old mansion, now a Museum of Western Modern Art, can be visited, and it even receives Red Army soldiers. But that was before Stalin declared war on bourgeois culture from the West. Quickly, modern French art was considered a “degenerate” art – the term appeared in Russia as early as 1927 – 10 years before the Nazis used it. And while the Morozovs have been exiled for a long time in Europe, Stalin orders that the paintings be taken down from the picture rails to destroy them.

Finally, they will be rolled, and shipped to Siberia where they will remain stored for several decades in catastrophic conditions, at minus 40 degrees. With this terrible cold, the paintings will suffer greatly and some will never be restored. This is the case with most of Van Gogh and Gauguin’s paintings, which, for lack of money, both worked with bad pigments on ultra-fragile supports.

After Stalin and the thaw of the USSR, what remains of the legendary Morozov collection will be divided between the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and in Moscow, the Pushkin and Tretyakov State Museums. Rescued from the cold and communism, these works have become a state treasure, and remain unanimously regarded as one of the finest collections in the world.

Today, five years after having loaned the remarkable Shchoukine collection, (thanks to excellent contacts and pro-active patronage from LVMH), these major Russian institutions are once again granting the extraordinary loan of 200 masterpieces to the Vuitton Foundation.

An exhibition as moving as it is historic. This is the first time since the Russian Revolution that the works of this fabulous collection have been brought together in one place, as in the time of Yvan and Mikhail Morozov. And it is in France, in Paris, that this little artistic miracle takes place.

“The Morozov Collection. Icons of Modern Art”
Louis Vuitton Foundation
8 avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, 75016 Paris
01 40 69 96 00
From September 22, 2021 to February 22, 2022