Two gifts depicting 19th Century Russia discovered to share a publisher: now to be displayed at GMOA

By: Kathrin Merritt

ATHENS, GA – Two recent gifts to the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia have one common theme: life in mid-19th-century Russia. The next focused exhibition in the museum’s “In Dialogue” series, “In Dialogue: Views of Empire: Grand and Humble,” will display two print collections that create a conversation about what it meant to be a working-class citizen in Russia at that time.

The first gift is part of the Parker Collection, a major collection of Russian art donated to the museum, and includes 25 large lithographs depicting the imperial metropolis and neoclassical buildings of St. Petersburg. The second gift came from Marina Belosselsky-Belozersky Kasarda and Vladislav Kasarda and includes art that focuses on capturing the lives of individuals and their occupations during the 19th century. Thirty small, hand-colored lithographs show images of coachmen, porters, water carriers, innkeepers, firefighters and street peddlers, among others. They pay homage to a 16th-century tradition of printed images of the working classes, as with Annibale Carracci’s drawings of water carriers, wine sellers and other street peddlers in Bologna, Italy.

Parker Curator of Russian Art Asen Kirin researched the two gifts and discovered that they had both been issued by the same publisher, who had one office in St. Petersburg and another in Moscow and produced the prints in Paris.

A closer look at the two sets of work will reveal that many of the figures seen around the imperial buildings in the large lithographs look similar to the people featured in the small lithographs. The contrast between the elaborate, stately architecture and the brightly colored people would have invoked a sense of awe and belonging in viewers at the time. Together, these works represent the distinction and presence of different classes while underlining their unification as one nation.

The exhibition will run from December 4, 2021, through August 21, 2022.

Coming up in relation to “Inside Look” the Georgia Museum of Art will be hosting these events:

• Saturday, January 15, 10 a.m. – noon: The exhibition “In Dialogue: Views of Empire: Grand and Humble” brings together prints (and a printed silver box) that show sweeping views of St Petersburg, Russia and the people who lived and worked there. Participate in Art Cart activities related to this exhibition, practice coloring black and white prints, and then decorate your own metal box at home using the free Family Day To-Go art kit. Attend the program Saturday or pick up kits from the museum Thursday – Sunday the week of the event.

Wednesday, March 30, 2 p.m.: Curator Talk: “In Dialogue: Views of Empire: Grand and Humble.” Join Asen Kirin, Parker Curator of European Art, for a gallery talk focused on 19th-century Russian lithographs currently on view in our “In Dialogue” installation. “In Dialogue” is a series of installations in which the Georgia Museum of Art’s curators create focused, innovative conversations around a few works of art from the permanent collection.