The path of the collector – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about Jewish collectors and lots of selected edition graphics put up for sale as part of the event.

The other day, a charity evening of the Russian Jewish Congress took place at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Ermolaevsky Lane. It was dedicated to supporting the academic programs in Jewish studies of the Sefer Center. And, of course, the general targeted assistance that the RJC provides to hospitals in the south of Israel, as the acting president of the congress, Mikhail Broitman, said at the evening.

Actually, the theme of the evening was related to art, which is quite understandable at MMOMA. The sale of a small collection of selected edition graphics from the Altmans Gallery collection was arranged.

The top lot of the collection was a pastel pencil sketch for a portrait of Mrs. Chester Dale, drawn in 1940 by Fernand Léger. The lot had an estimate “on request,” that is, how much the buyer was willing to offer. But a heliogravure by Salvador Dali was estimated at $3.5 thousand. A lithograph by Wassily Kandinsky received an estimate of $4 thousand. Aquatint by Pablo Picasso – $7 thousand. The evening was held in the format of a public talk, the theme of which was “The History of Jewish Collectors.” Here’s what Mikhail Broitman said:

“This is a serious aspect of Jewish life, both in the past and now. That is, collecting, auction activities, and people’s interest in collecting some items related to our heritage and history – all this is very important. Because this is the only way to preserve both memory and history as such.”

The leading forces of domestic collecting spoke, all of them my old friends. Mikhail Kamensky recalled the largest collectors Yakov Rubinstein (Moscow) and Solomon Shuster (Leningrad). Mikhail Alshibaya, a brilliant cardiac surgeon, remembered how he started collecting, just when he came to treat Rubinstein. Lyubov Agafonova remembered Izdebsky’s “Salons,” which discovered the domestic symbolists, and Sergei Popov remembered the Dobychina-Fishman Bureau, which introduced the Suprematists to the world. Sergei Ustinov, founder of the first private Museum of the History of Jews in Russia, spoke about his journey as a collector.