“Best Creative Debut”: an exhibition of children’s drawings “Portrait of a Hermitage cat” opened in St. Petersburg

“The kindest project we’ve ever done”

On 27 May the State Hermitage celebrated the holiday of the museum’s mustachioed freelance worker and his chief guard – Hermitage Cat Day. In honor of the celebration, the museum opened an exhibition of children’s drawings, for which the works of 55 schoolchildren were selected. The competition was organized by the Movement of the First, and the Moscow Biennale was responsible for the exhibition and catalogue. The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of Russia, the main partner of the project is Russian Railways.

Schoolchildren from all over Russia have the opportunity to exhibit their drawing in one of the largest museums in the world. Young artists were asked to draw a cat that could end up in the Hermitage. Another condition was to explain how the guys understood the topic and why they chose such a visual solution.

The competition at the competition was high – tens of thousands of schoolchildren sent their works, of which the jury selected 55 drawings. The winners of the contest were invited to the northern capital by May 27 to take part in the opening of the exhibition in the public space of the Hermitage’s General Staff Building.

“There is such a common phrase: art heals. Therefore, now this is my favorite project, it is the kindest of all that we have done. In difficult times, you need to support your viewers, so the drawings from the Hermitage will go to military hospitals and to the Donbass. Our formula for a good mood – children draw cats – works. Even at the installation stage, since this is a public space of the General Staff Building of the State Hermitage, people stopped, looked at the works and smiled,” says Yulia Muzykantskaya, head of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and one of the competition jury. “It was very difficult for me, like all the jury members, to choose the winners, the children are incredibly talented. But one drawing hooked me: “Street Cat” by Daria Nosik. The girl wrote that this is her closest cat in the world – very touching. Therefore, she received a special prize from the Moscow Biennale.”

It is symbolic that Russian Railways became the main partner of the children’s drawing competition. Thanks to her contribution, we managed to bring the winners with their parents to St. Petersburg for several days, organize an interesting program for them, and make a good catalog of their work. The authors of the works came to the Northern capital from cities and towns of the Amur, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod regions, Perm Territory, Donbass, Dagestan and other regions.

“I was struck by the level of work, it is the highest. I have long passed the age of the participants, but it’s nice for me to be here with them. In fact, we railroads have a culture that is all about developing our potential employees from kindergarten. The railway has long been not only the engineering world, our work concerns many things, including creative ones. Therefore, for us, this competition is an opportunity to find access to these children. According to the program, we will take them to our Railway Museum. And we expect to captivate them, show them all the facets of the railway and, perhaps, instill in them the idea: “how great it will be when I grow up to come to work at Russian Railways,” said Maxim Lunev, head of the corporate relations department of Russian Railways.

At the opening of the exhibition “Portrait of a Hermitage Cat”, the winners of the competition received one of the main gifts for any artist – they were able to see live the reaction of visitors to their work. People looked at their paintings, asked the authors questions and complimented them endlessly.

Age of participants – from 6 to 18 years. The younger ones were at first embarrassed to speak, but at the end of the event they calmly posed for a photo and talked in detail about their creative path. The children talked about how they love to draw animals, shared their impressions and dreams about choosing a profession.

The press secretary of the Hermitage cats, Maria Khaltunen, announced a surprise for 15 out of 55 young authors: the Moscow Biennale printed their works separately, and they are presented on easels in the Jordan Gallery of the Winter Palace, the main entrance of the museum. “These are not winners among winners, this is simply the choice of the Hermitage,” emphasized Maria Borisovna.

You can visit the exhibition “Portrait of a Hermitage Cat” in St. Petersburg and get a mood boost for the whole day during June 2023.