The legacy of Varvara Bubnova burned in Abkhazia
[ad_1]
Russian experts will try to save the works of the legendary avant-garde artist and other artists
Russian restorers went to Abkhazia – from the Grabar Center, the Tretyakov Gallery, and the Russian Museum. They will help dismantle the remains of the burnt fund of the National Art Gallery in Sukhum. Maybe something will be saved. It is known that about 150 works out of 4,000 have survived, two of them by Varvara Bubnova. We are talking about an artist, translator and Pushkin scholar with an amazing destiny. It so happens that this is not the first time that the avant-garde artist’s legacy is burning.
Varvara Bubnova is a distant relative of Alexander Pushkin. She was born in 1886 into a noble family in St. Petersburg, studied first at a drawing school, and then at the Academy of Arts. Having not yet completed her academic education, she entered the circle of avant-garde artists. She took an active part in the creation of the experimental “Youth Union” together with Mikhail Matyushin and Elena Guro. She exhibited at the same exhibitions with Malevich, Tatlin, Rozanova, Ekster, Larionov and Goncharova. When the revolution broke out, Varvara’s older sister, a talented pianist Maria, left for Sukhum, and the younger Anna, a gifted violinist, married a Japanese from the Ono clan named Shunichi, a volunteer student at St. Petersburg University, and left for Tokyo (against the backdrop of the February Revolution of 1917 Japan ordered its subjects to leave Russia). Varvara was just over 30 when in 1923 she decided to visit Anna in Japan, but it turned out that the artist remained there for many years.
This turned out to be a difficult time. Varvara got a job teaching Russian language and literature at one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan, Waseda, as well as at the Tokyo Institute of Foreign Languages. Japanese Russian scholars say that Varvara-san was the first to open them to Pushkin’s country. Japan appreciated Bubnova by awarding her with the Order of the Precious Crown “for her services in expanding the study of the Russian language and increasing the level of knowledge of Russian literature in Japan, for her contribution to the development of cultural ties between Japan and Russia.” In addition, over 35 years, the artist held six personal exhibitions in the Land of the Rising Sun, and she also participated in group exhibitions – together with Japanese avant-garde artists. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, there were many losses. Varvara was deprived of Soviet citizenship for “association with an enemy of the people,” whose last name was not given. It is only known that she introduced a certain Soviet diplomat to Japanese sights, and upon his return to the USSR he was arrested.
Another tragedy in the family was the death of Varvara’s nephew, Anna Bubnova’s only son, he was 14. Two years later, she separated from her husband, but maintained ties with the Ono clan. The Bubnova sisters had especially close contact with the family of their younger brother Eisuke, the father of the later famous Yoko Ono. By the way, in 2007, the widow of John Lennon came to the Bubnov family estate – Bernovo, in the Tver region. Yoko Ono retained warm memories of her aunts Anna and Varvara. In many ways, it was they who influenced her choice to devote her life to art.
In 1936, Varvara was declared an “undesirable foreign person” in Japan due to suspicion of involvement in an attempted coup d’état – the “young officers’ putsch.” The details of this story are still unknown, but the Russian artist and her husband, Russian emigrant, artist and photographer Vladimir Golovshchikov, were placed under surveillance – political surveillance. At the same time, the Russian department of Waseda University was closed, and then Bubnova was forced to leave the Tokyo Institute of Foreign Languages. At the end of World War II, the Bubnovs were evicted from Tokyo to the mountainous place of Karuizawa. This saved Varvara’s life, because at the end of the war a bomb hit her abandoned house. She lost everything – property, library and work. Thus, most of the avant-garde artist’s legacy was destroyed.
Sister Anna died in 1940, husband Vladimir in 1946. God didn’t give me children. In her old age, Varvara decided to move to her older sister Maria in Sukhum. She ended up living there for 20 years. This time became special for Varvara – she wrote bright works, she had students and followers. The artist discovered new techniques, drawing inspiration from Abkhazian nature: she used oak bark and even garlic juice in her paintings. After moving, Varvara began to actively exhibit: already in 1958, the first exhibition took place in Sukhum, in 1960 – in Tbilisi, in 1961 – in Moscow and Kharkov, in 1962 – in Leningrad. Some of her works were then acquired by various museums. Now the Tretyakov Gallery houses 30 graphic works by Bubnova; there are her works in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin and the Russian Museum. At this time, Varvara also made illustrations for the works of Russian classics – Pushkin, Chekhov, Gogol.
After Maria’s death, Varvara returned to Leningrad. There she lived out her long life. In 1981, her anniversary exhibition took place there. Two years later, when Varvara Bubnova was 96, she died. But she bequeathed to bury herself in Sukhum. Her house remained there, now turned into a museum, her students live there (many are still alive), and a monument was erected to her there. Most of Varvara Bubnova’s heritage was kept in Sukhum. But it, too, following her Japanese works, perished by chance in a fire.
Perhaps Russian specialists, together with their Abkhaz colleagues, will be able to save some works by Varvara Bubnova and other artists. Let’s hope. Perhaps in Sukhum they will finally build a separate museum for the National Art Gallery, which has been huddled with colleagues in the building of the local Union of Artists for the last 20 years. Perhaps this tragic story will become an occasion to remember the multifaceted talent of the artist and dedicate a large and worthy project to her fate. In recent years, Varvara Bubnova’s exhibitions have taken place (in 2011 – at the Tretyakov Gallery, in 2016 – at the Moscow Tsvetaeva Museum, in 2018 – in the Russian Abroad), but they were more intimate in nature.
Newspaper headline:
The burned legacy of Varvara Bubnova
[ad_2]
Source link
