On 25 December 2020, the exhibition “Decorative Minimalism. ‘The Thaw’ in Soviet Porcelain”, the latest in the Christmas Gift cycle, was formally opened in the State Hermitage. The exhibition has been organized by the State Hermitage with the participation of the Imperial Porcelain Factory joint-stock company.
The diverse selection of pieces presented in the Recess of the Eastern Gallery of the Winter Palace tells about the era in the 1950s and ’60s that is customarily referred to as the “Thaw”. The display contains more than 160 works in porcelain – table services, vases and examples of small-scale plastic art – that produce a unique, striking impression of their time, as well as works by present-day artists of the Imperial Porcelain Factory created specially for the exhibition.
The opening ceremony took place in an online format. Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, sent video greetings to its participants:
“This is the series of exhibitions in the Christmas Gift cycle that has been revived by the Hermitage and the Imperial Porcelain Factory. This year the display is dedicated to that remarkable artist Larisa Grigoryeva. At the present moment, it is very difficult to put on an exhibition, but everything has been done and, as always, done superbly. I am grateful to the Imperial Porcelain Factory, our permanent partner, and to the VTB Bank that has made this exhibition possible. And particular thanks to our department, the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, and the exhibition curator, Ida Shik, a member of that department. The display is devoted to the ‘Thaw’, to that period in Russia’s history, and it emphasizes that porcelain, a phenomenon that might seem remote from political life, does in fact very sensitively reflect feelings, moods, changes from one era to another.”
The exhibition was opened and presented to the online guests by Anna Vladimirovna Ivanova, head of the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, a department of the State Hermitage.
“The ‘Thaw’-era porcelain is one of the most romantic and bright chapters in the history of Soviet porcelain. It conveys astonishingly well the atmosphere of that time – a time of romantics, dreamers and the boldest of hopes. The ‘Thaw’ style is a new modernism, whose artistic language can be described as decorative minimalism. Simple, light, modern, convenient – that was what the porcelain of the ‘Thaw’ became. Affordable and practical.”
The display presents works by the artists and sculptors of the then Leningrad Porcelain Factory named after M.V. Lomonosov from the second half of the 1950s and 1960s: Anna Leporskaya, Eduard Krimmer, Vladimir Semionov, Vladimir Gorodetsky, Serafima Yakovleva and others. The new artistic style proposed by the factory’s creative staff became an organic continuation of the traditions of the avant-garde in applied art and was of strong significance for its subsequent evolution. The exhibition “Decorative Minimalism. ‘The Thaw’ in Soviet Porcelain” marks the 100th anniversary in 2020 of the birth of Larisa Grigoryeva (1920–1997), a striking exponent of the “Contemporary Style” in the art of the Leningrad Porcelain Factory. The exhibition also includes new works by the Imperial Porcelain Factory company’s artists that were inspired by the “Contemporary Style” and the era of the “Thaw” that gave birth to it.
“Together with our colleagues from the State Hermitage we are presenting a view of the “Thaw” through the art of porcelain. Alongside the works from the 1950s and ’60s, present-day artists and sculptors of the Imperial Porcelain Factory are taking part in the exhibition. For many of them, the “Thaw” is a vivid memory from childhood,” Tatiana Alexandrovna Tylevich, the General Director of the Imperial Porcelain Factory joint-stock company, noted, addressing the participants in the ceremony.
At the Christmas exhibition, the Imperial Porcelain Factory traditionally makes a gift to the State Hermitage. This year it was a porcelain composition by Yulia Zhukova entitled Flow.
After the formal ceremony, the exhibition curator Ida Alexandrovna Shik, acquainted those watching online with the new display.
A recording of the opening ceremony is available on YouTube.
The State Hermitage publishing house has brought out a scholarly illustrated catalogue for the exhibition – Dekorativnyi minimalizm. “Ottepel'” v sovetskom farfore.
The texts in the catalogue are by researchers in the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, a department of the State Hermitage: Ida Shik (“The ‘Second Modernism’ in Soviet Porcelain”) and Inna Maistrenko (“Larisa Grigoryeva – an artist of the ‘Contemporary Style’”).
The exhibition has been prepared by the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, a department of the State Hermitage (headed by Anna Ivanova). The exhibition curator is Ida Shik, Candidate of Art Studies, a junior researcher in the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory department.
The exhibition in the Recess of the Eastern Gallery of the Winter Palace is accessible during museum opening hours to holders of tickets for Fixed Route No 2 around the Main Museum Complex (entry by the Church Staircase).
The general sponsor of the exhibition is the VTB bank www.vtb.ru
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