The national gallery burned down in Abkhazia

The entire stock of the art gallery burned down

In Sukhum, the National Art Gallery burned down—the entire fund was lost. The fire occurred on the night of January 20-21 – at 4 o’clock Moscow time, at 5 local time. The fire destroyed more than 4 thousand exhibits – works of Abkhaz and Russian artists. Among them are about 500 works by Polenov’s student, the set designer of “Russian Seasons” Alexander Shervashidze, who is considered the first professional artist of Abkhazia. The cause of the fire is still unknown, but the collection was kept very poorly: for more than 20 years the museum has been waiting to move to a new building, the renovation of which was frozen due to the conflict with Georgia.

In anticipation of a separate building, the National Art Gallery huddled in the Central Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists of Abkhazia, which is located on Lakoba Street. The building is more than a hundred years old – it was built in 1912 and is now recognized as an architectural monument. In 2017, a major renovation was done there. After renovation, it was opened with an exhibition of the famous artist, set designer and art critic Alexander Shervashidze (Chachba). A quarter of the funds (about 500 exhibits) of the National Gallery consisted of his works, which the master donated to his homeland in his old age, living out his life in Monaco. It is he who is considered the first professional artist of Abkhazia; his legacy was the most valuable part of the burned fund.

Prince Alexander Shervashidze is the great-grandson of the ruler of the Abkhazian principality Kelesh Bey Chachba. He was born in Feodosia in 1867. He studied first at the Kiev Real School, then at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the class of Vasily Polenov, and then in Paris. Just then, in 1903, in Montmartre, in the studio of the artist Elizaveta Kruglikova, the Russian Artistic Circle (later the union) appeared, which united artists from Russia in the capital of France. One of the founders of the association was Maximilian Voloshin, with whom Alexander Shervashidze became friends. A few years later, in 1909, it was Shervashidze who became Voloshin’s second in a duel with Nikolai Gumilev.

From 1918 to 1919, a descendant of the Abkhaz kings lived in Sukhum, where, on his initiative, a children’s art school was opened. There he gave drawing lessons, and Shervashidze also organized theater courses for young people at the Sukhumi Artistic Society. Then, having seen an advertisement in the newspaper, the artist decided to participate in the competition to create the coat of arms of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. As a result, it was Shervashidze’s work that formed the basis of the country’s modern coat of arms.

In 1920, while visiting Voloshin in Koktebel, the artist received an invitation from Sergei Diaghilev to work as a set designer at the Russian Ballet. Realizing that the Red Army was unlikely to spare an artist with “blue blood,” Shervashidze went to Paris and never returned to his homeland. He worked in Paris until 1948, when he decided to retire at the age of 80. 10 years later, despite the need, he sent his works to Sukhum, donating them to Abkhazia. In August 1968, the artist died at the age of 101 and was buried in the Russian cemetery in Nice. He managed to catch the moment when the National Art Gallery opened in Sukhum, where his paintings and theatrical sketches were transferred. Later, his remains were reburied in Sukhum, and a monument to the master was erected next to them.

The gallery in Sukhum opened in 1964 and was initially located in the house of infectious disease doctor Ezakiel Fishkov (1890–1986), who not only invented the painkiller Venapiolin based on bee venom, but was also a passionate collector. Fishkov gave half of his house to the gallery and gave it 60 works from his collection. A close friend of the doctor was the artist Valentin Kontarev, a student of Korovin and Serov, who was also in Sukhum. It was probably under his influence that Fishkov became interested in art and decided to make it a national treasure. By the way, another part of the doctor’s collection is in the Ramensky Historical and Art Museum near Moscow. And the National Gallery of Sukhum from Fishkov received works by such artists as Varvara Bubnova, Olga Brendel, Marina Eshba and Victor Ivanba. Over time, the gallery’s collection has increased several times. Among the acquisitions there are very valuable exhibits, for example, frescoes of the Lykhny Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, created in the Byzantine style in the 14th century by unknown masters. They were studied by art historian Leonid Shervashidze, a relative of the mentioned classic. He believed that the authors of the frescoes were local artists who went through the Constantinople school.

The art gallery gained independence and national status in 1994. The state provided the art gallery with a building on Pushkin Street, which in the early 2000s began to be restored from ruins to open a spacious museum there. But due to the conflict with Georgia, no funding was found. The overhaul remained at a standstill for 20 years. All this time, the National Gallery huddled in someone else’s building, owned by the local Union of Artists. It was not possible to organize decent storage conditions for the 4,000-dollar fund there, and it was extremely difficult to display them in two halls. Therefore, most of the exhibits were inaccessible to the public. Now most of the heritage has been destroyed forever. It is reported that 150 paintings survived. Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova contacted her colleagues in Abkhazia to discuss how she could help.