The Museum of Russian Impressionism opened an exhibition dedicated to Nadezhda Dobychina

An exhibition dedicated to the first Russian gallery owner Nadezhda Dobychina (1884–1950) has opened at the Moscow Museum of Russian Impressionism. One can only be surprised that no exhibitions were made about her before, he believes. Alexey Mokrousov.

If there were a museum of feminism in Russia, the exhibition of Nadezhda Dobychina could easily be organized there as well. The first gallery owner not only in St. Petersburg, but throughout Russia, she exhibited those who would later be called the “Amazons of the avant-garde”, primarily Natalia Goncharova, as well as Xenia Boguslavskaya, Lyubov Popova, Olga Rozanova and Nadezhda Udaltsova. It was here that Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square” was shown to the public for the first time. At the same time, contemporaries did not consider Dobychyna a supporter of radical art; reviewers appreciated her ability to combine authors of different, sometimes hostile trends in the same halls. That is why the exhibition “Dobychina’s Choice”, dedicated to her taste and gallery policy, is so diverse in terms of names – from her favorite Alexander Benois and Boris Grigoriev to Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall.

Changing addresses is the fate of many private undertakings. At one time, the Art Bureau was located at 63, Moika Embankment, then moved to the Adamini House on the Field of Mars. There were not only exhibitions, but also concerts, with the music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev in the program, performances and literary evenings – the feeling that Dobychina followed the program of her close friend Nikolai Kulbin, who was not allowed by the authorities to organize his own association, refusing to register the charter. Kulbin determined important things in the work of the Art Bureau and in this way helped Dobychina to reserve a place in the history of the avant-garde, although this place did not seem important to everyone and not immediately. It has only recently begun to study its activities.

Dobychina, who organized more than 30 exhibitions, successfully balanced between current commerce and the latest trends, her predilection for violating conventions was a delicate calculation: Vladimir Tatlin and Ivan Klyun also had fans. The initiator of the “Last Futuristic Exhibition of Paintings 0.10 (zero-ten)” – this is its full name – was Ivan Puni. The exhibition not only showed Black Square, but also distributed the pamphlet Against the Academicians, written by Malevich together with Klyun and Alexei Kruchenykh – there were, albeit nameless, but frank attacks against Benois and supporters of the Hellenic and “restoration” art. In response, the unrestrained Benois wrote that the exhibition was “the kingdom of no longer the future, but of the coming Ham”, but at the same time he was disposed to Dobychina herself all his life. She managed to unite the unconnected and remain on good terms with everyone. It is not surprising that the artists admired her, among those who painted her – Konstantin Somov and Alexander Benois, Nathan Altman and Georgy Vereisky, Yuri Annenkov and Pyotr Neradovsky. The museum at the Bolshevik factory displays several portraits of her, including those by Alexander Golovin from the Russian Museum and a portrait by Alexander Benois’ son, Nikolai, for the first time from a private collection.

In total, the exhibition at the Museum of Russian Impressionism brought together more than a hundred works, reminiscent of the main exhibitions of the Hudbureau – a lot of interesting and rare things, like the paintings of the forgotten Alexander Gausha (here it is, the salon!) Or “Hunting for Elephants” by Alexander Cherkesov from the personal collection of Dobychina. This collection, capable in a different situation of becoming the basis of a national-level museum, has been distributed to many institutions and private collections.

After the February Revolution, Dobychyna found itself at the center of a new cultural life. The honorary committee of the exhibition of Finnish artists organized by her in April 1917 included Maxim Gorky, Alexander Kerensky and Vladimir Nabokov, the writer’s father. A military band played the Marseillaise at the opening, living legends of populism and terrorism Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaya and Vera Figner appeared. The political level was high, which is also explained by the plans for the future of the new state, which had not yet thought of disintegration, the theses of the press about the fraternal people and the scale of the exposition: 231 works by more than 60 authors. Dobychina began to prepare the exhibition itself in the early spring of 1916, the unstable situation in Russia at the time of the opening chilled many participants, they did not dare to send their best works to the country engulfed in revolution – just as they did not ask Finnish museums for anything today, the answer would be clear, but these works are reproduced in the catalogue.

The response exhibition in Finland did not take place, although the participants of the World of Art – their works were supposed to occupy most of the halls – were counting on this project. After the revolution, the activity of the bureau gradually faded away, and at the beginning of 1919 its activities ceased completely. Judging by indirect sources, Dobychina’s plans were unequivocal: to leave. In 1925, Alexandre Benois asks her in a letter why the promised meeting in Paris has not happened yet; at the same time, he writes to Dobuzhinsky that Dobychina in Wiesbaden is “poor, completely ill” (she was being treated for a nervous breakdown; severe depression haunted her for the rest of her life) and at the same time “does not want to go back, wants to come here, but there is no money.”

As a result, Dobychina went to work in the Russian Museum, which at first warmed many of those whom he later ruthlessly expelled and betrayed. In 1935, she moved to Moscow on time. The era did not leave her, still young, the right to a full-time job – not to consider such a position as a consultant on material culture at Mosfilm and head of the Art Department at the Museum of the Revolution with the duty to decorate the halls of the Stalinist Constitution and prepare exhibitions in the park of culture and recreation named after Gorky? But she was given the right to die in her bed – not so little even in modern times.