Zinaida Semenovna Kostaki. As in the era of the USSR, the collector of Greek origin George Kostaki managed to collect a unique collection of the Russian-Soviet avant-garde, which was not equal in the world

The name George Kostaki is inextricably linked with the history of the Russian avant-garde of the 1910s - 1930s. Malevich, Kandinsky, Chagall, Rodchenko, Klynko, Popova, Philon - this is only a few of the most vivid names, in reality, the Kostaki collection collected in the 40s - 70s of the last century, contained works of dozens of artists, many of which otherwise Would be forgotten. The self-taught collector who became a true connoisseur of the art forgotten in the Soviet Union, Kostaki put life to preserve the names of her artists for Russia. The Kostaki collection was so huge for the meaning and size that when in front of the 1978 forced emigration, he presented most of the work of the Tretyakov Gallery, the remaining part was enough for a whole museum in Greece. RIA Novosti His daughter Alik Kostaki told about the life and works of the collector. Talked Alexey Bogdanovsky.

Collector path

George Kostaki died in 1990, aged 76 years. We sit with Aliki Kostaki in her house in the northern suburb of Athens, in the very living room, where there was once an elderly and ill and sick George Dionisovich, looking out of the window on the slopes of the Pentelik mountain slopes.

"He was a passionate man. Whatever he did - fish caught, the trees Salual, he did everything that was crazy. He also took up the avant-garde, when she came across the custody, almost no one unknown," says Aliki.

Greek born in Russia, George Kostaki worked at the embassies of Western countries in Moscow - first by the driver, then by the administrator. The passion for collecting began in his life early; From "small dutch", silver, china, he moved to the tapestries, subsequently - to icons. In the first postwar years, Kostaki accidentally saw a picture of Olga Rosanova "Green Straight" from the familiar painting - and fell ill against the avant-garde.

From Stalin's years, when the collection began, to the Maternaya Rugan Khrushchev to the artists and the "bulldozer exhibition" of the 70s - the collection of modern art was a matter of unsafe and contradictory official ideology. But even more than hostility of the authorities, oblivion to this art.

In the Western press, they repeatedly expressed the collector reproach for paying relatively small money for the art, which is now worth millions. However, one should not forget that the administrator of the Canadian Embassy could not be financial opportunities to the authorities of official artists, songwall poets and other rich people who were collecting art. Those who remember Kostaki tell about how he supported materially young artists, relatives of the departed masters.

But the main thing - the work of the avant-garde in those days did not have prices, since they were considered garbage, without seeing no value in them. "It was almost laughing at him. No one believed in it, because it was believed that he collects garbage that it would never be recognized and evaluated that he was simply dealing with some kind of damn," says Aliki Kostaki.

One of the works of love Popova, a big plywood leaf, Kostaki found in the Zvenigorod near Moscow: the picture scored a window opening. The daughter of Georgy Dionisisovich recalls: "She was not given it because there was nothing to stick the window. The father went to work: thank God, there were drawers there. He asked the janitors to cut the plywood sheet, went and gave this piece, and in exchange I got Popov."

Museum in the apartment

When the collection became known in the 1960-1970s, began to say that Kostaki had a unique little on the works of a high class. This flair was especially valuable in the years when there was no recognition of an avant-garde in the Soviet Union, and in the West. Georgy Dionisovich possessed the entrepreneurial vein that is necessary to every collector: after all, it acquired a significant part of its work by exchange, and this sometimes was very cunning transactions.

However, the collection of paintings was not for him an end in itself. Kostaki sought to show these works to people. "It was his mission. He not only gathered this collection, but also showed that we had a house-museum. For us from nine in the morning, almost until the night people came every day. And he never refused to anyone, even any I didn't say the boy from the village ... I never said: I'm busy, I'm sick, "says Aliki Kostaki. - I once came from work once in the evening. I open the elevator. Sits uncle. He has a table, and he, with a list in his hands, asks me : How is your surname? It came 90 people from the architectural institute. "

Students, artists came to Kostaki's apartment, then western art historians, curators, politicians and just celebrities were reached: from Svyatoslav Richter to Igor Stravinsky, from Mark Stegal to Edward Kennedy. Gradually, the House of Kostaki became a Moscow attraction, and it could hardly like the Soviet authorities.

Kostaki initially sought to convey its collection to the state, however, so that it is exhibited. "My children do not like darkness, they love light," he said about the paintings.

Aliki Kostaki remembers that in the 60s of Georgy Dionisovich spoke with the USSR Cature Minister Catherine Furtsev about unthinkable in those times: to create a museum of contemporary art in Moscow, which he could transfer his collection.

The second similar project Kostaka was concealing in the early 70s with the director of the Russian Museum in Leningrad Vasily Pushkarev. "They prepared an aspharap - to carry the collection to the Russian museum to Leningrad, hang on the walls with a firm order, but in no case do not transfer to the cellars ... It seems that they and Pushkarev can come together on this, like two boys," recalls Aliki Kostaki. However, this idea failed: Georgy Dionisovich perfectly understood that he would remove his museum from leadership, and the paintings would go to the dusty store, where he would like to see them.

"It should belong to Russia"

Kostaki's friction with the Soviet authorities, although he tried to avoid collisions in every way, gradually increased. A collector of unofficial art, a straight and outdoor person, he was for many Lesoms to the eye. Aliki Kostaki recalls that persecution began with the defeat of the authorities of the "bulldozer exhibition" of modern artists in 1974. "For art it was like a bloody Sunday. He then came up to some official and said:" What are you doing, you are worse than the fascists! "Imagine, in Soviet times to say such a kerpp. And here it all went well from this phrase." .

Twice robbed the apartment, the works of Kandinsky disappeared; I set fire to the cottage, from where wonderful icons were missing. Kostaki began to fear for himself and his children.

Exit from this position was the deal between the collector and the authorities - he passed to the Tretyakov Gallery about 80% of his collection, and in exchange could leave abroad, leaving himself a small part of the work to feed the family. "I didn't want to leave for anyone, we did not think that we would ever go away. To give a collection, to share it for the Father was very hard," says Aliki Kostaki. For each collector, the meeting is his life, and Georgy Dionisovich called pictures with his children.

When the Tretyak experts came to take pictures, Kostaki gave them the best of their colossal collection, which had more than two thousand works. Says Alik Kostaki: "In the West, there was a relatively small part of the works. Their number was great, but the most significant remained in Russia. Such as" Portrait of Matyushin "Malevich, Tatlin relief, huge bilateral works Popova," Red Square "Kandinsky. All this He selected and said: "It should stay in Russia."

The idea that he is only the keeper of art, which subsequently owes Russia, led the actions of Kostaki and then when it was actually forced to abandon the collection and emigrate. "He had some strange patriotism," said the Deputy Director of the Tretyakov, Vitaly Manin, said about Kostaki.

Thus, the collector pointed out the gallery workers, what work to pick up, leaving the best for them. "The famous art historian Dmitry Sarabianov said that he could have shut up for the belt of any art historian," explains Aliki Kostaki.

Kostaki himself spoke in an interview for Peter Roberts's biographical book: "I managed to collect these things that were lost, forgotten, thrown out by the authorities, I saved them, and this is my merit. But this does not mean that they belong to me or those who I will give them. They belong to Russia, they must belong to the people of Russia. "

As the Deputy Director General on Science of the State Tretyakov Gallery Lidia Iovlev said, "without exaggeration, it can be said that since the time Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov was not in Russia such a generous donor, a more extensive collection of the Russian avant-garde of the 1910-1920s, which is collected and presented to Tretyakov Gallery famous Russian Greek. "

Having left, Kostaki donkey in Greece. Here, in the historic Motherland, Georgy Dionisovich and after his death, decided, finally, the fate of the remainder of the collection.

Kostaki and Greece

When Georgy Dionisovich died in 1990, his daughter in collaboration with the Greek curator Anna Cafecy began to prepare a major exhibition in the Athenian Pinakotek. This exhibition took place in 1995-96 and enjoyed tremendous success, in many respects determined the further fate of the collection. The exposition was prepared a two-volume catalog that described the collection in all parts.

Evanderos Venizelos, the former Minister of Culture of Greece, decided that the Kostaki collection should be acquired by the Greek State. This happened in 2000.

I asked Aliki Kostaki, as it turned out that Greece, who did not have an avant-garde's own traditions, decided to acquire a collection. "Because he was Greek. Only therefore, not even because it was a Russian avant-garde. Of course, it was a Russian avant-garde, which became very famous, who passed throughout the world exhibitions, and in the Royal Academy, and in Guggenheim, in Famous museums. The collection had a name, yes, but he was Greek, and for the Greeks it was extremely important. "

Now for the collection, a museum of contemporary art was created in thessaloniki, whom art historian and researcher of Russian modern painting Maria Tsanzanoglu conducted many years in Russia. Now Greece almost unexpectedly turned out to be an "exporter" of the Russian avant-garde: the exhibitions of the Kostaki collections still go throughout the world with great success. Unfortunately, the Russian, more significant part of the collection is not yet exhibited as a whole.

For the first time reading the collection of Kostaki, the historian of art Margit Rowell said: "The history of the art of the twentieth century should be rewritten again." The dream of Alika Kostaki remains to organize a century of her father in 2013, the exhibition of works stored in Russia and Greece. This is hampered by a number of legal subtleties: Only acts about the transfer of work of the work of the Tretyakovka, but not the official decision of the Tsc on the transfer of the collection, while the acquisition of Greece should also be documented in Russia, remained in the hands of the Kostaki heirs. All this would help avoid legal uncertainty and for a while reunited by the famous collection under one roof.

Greece and Russia connects the Orthodox religion, the centuries-old history of friendly relations. In the last decade, the collection of Kostaki, a person, relevant not only art historian friends who refused the avant-garde in the future, but also the era, hostile to this art itself was added to this. Before the confession came to dozens of the names of the Russian avant-garde, Georgy Kostaki in the grains gathered these artists, literally saving their work from complete oblivion and destruction. Now his assembly, although divided between the two countries, retains internal integrity and not until the end is open: so, few visitors to the Tretyakov Gallery are aware of the scale of the contribution of Georgy Kostaki, and for many, a separate exhibition of the collection would be a revelation.

The famous British artist, the winner of Turner Jeremy Deller, told in one of the interviews that the exhibition of work from the Kostaki meeting was made at him, made a vast impression on him and predetermined his further artistic way. There is no doubt that the Russian viewer deserves such impressions.

"I understand that the name of my father will not be forgotten, but for this it should be done yet a little more," the Aliki Kostaki concluded.

El Lisitsky. Sketch of the monument to Rosa Luxembourg. 1919-1920. From the collection of George Kostaki in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki

At the end of June, a permanent exhibition of Russian revolutionary avant-garde art called "Thessaloniki opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the Greek city of Thessaloniki (State Museum of Contemporary Art, SMCA). Collection of Kostaki. Restart. "

Russian or Soviet revolutionary avant-garde has long entered the use of the global artistic process. The works of Kazimir Malevich, Ale Lisitsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, love of the Popova and many others firmly occupied honorable places in the expositions of the world's largest museums.

And yet the exhibition in thessaloniki is an extraordinary event. It reflects the unique collection of Soviet art, collected for decades the Greek collector George Kostaki.

The exhibition of 400 masterpieces is only a third of the almost 1300 works of the Kostaki collection, which found a permanent refuge in the Greek city.

How and why these works were in the hands of the Greek, and then in Greece itself - an exciting, semi-detective story capable of becoming a material for a fascinating film.

Shawner collector

In the Soviet years, in the environment of artists and lovers of the Forbidden, then Avant-garde name Georgy Dionisievich Kostaki was legendary.

Unlike many other Western collectors, Kostaki was not visiting the USSR. He was born in Moscow in 1913 in the family of Greek merchant. Despite the revolution, the family from Russia did not leave, and moreover, he could even preserve Greek citizenship.

Most of his life, Georgy Dionisievich Kostaki lived in Moscow. Snapshot 1973

Without receiving any special education, Kostaki worked as a driver in the Greek embassy in the 30s, he had diplomatic workers in antique stores and gradually hesitated in collecting. At first, quite traditional: classic painting of old Dutch, porcelain, silver.

"Continuing in the same vein, I could get rich, but ... no more. All that I was collected, already in Louvre, and in the Hermitage, and, perhaps, in every big museum of any country, and even in private collections. And I wanted to do something extraordinary, "he remembered later.

Something unusual met him by chance in the same Moscow apartment, where he saw two or three canvas of avant-gardeists (including the picture of Olga Rozanova "Green Stripe" (1917), which made a "strongest impression."

Nadezhda Udaltsova. "Yellow jug", 1913. From the Collection of George Kostaki in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki

"And here I bought pictures of avant-gardeists, brought them home and hung next to the Dutch. And it was a feeling that I lived in a room with dot windows, and now they swung open, and the sun burst into them. From that moment on, I decided to part with everything that I managed to collect, and acquire only avant-garde. It happened in 1946. "

"Crazy Greek"

The coming suddenly, the insight and unexpected charm not only forgotten and abandoned, but also in the harsh Stalin's times considered the ideologically harmful art of understanding among the former colleagues did not meet.

"Most of my friends and relatives looked at me with pity. They were convinced that by selling their old collection and acquiring what, in their opinion, was "nonsense", I made a big mistake. In the circles of Moscow collectors, I did not have a very flattering nickname "Crazy Greek" - a collector for no one's right and useless garbage. "

Kostaki, however, did not give up. He tirelessly wanted still living artists of Russian avant-garde - Tatlin, Rodchenko, Stepanov, Goncharov, Larionov, their friends and relatives, scrupulously, collecting his collection for three decades.

All these years, he continued to work in the embassy system, and on the grassroots, not diplomatic positions. Since 1940, he was a chauffeur in the English embassy. Then he moved to the Canadian Embassy, \u200b\u200bwhere for 37 years, from 1942 to 1979 he worked as an administrator and headed the local Soviet Soviet Embassy: Shoft, gardeners, chefs and maids, reading every day before the youngest Embassy official.

In the 60-70s, Kostaki's apartment on Vernadsky Avenue became an unofficial museum of contemporary art in Moscow - a place where artists, musicians, writers, foreign diplomats were gathered almost daily.

George Kostaki in his Moscow apartment

More than impressively looks like the list of Celebrities visiting the apartment, not only from the world of art, but also politicians, and business: Mark Chagall, Henri Cartier Bresson, Ange Waida, Maya Plisetskaya, daughter Malevich Unna, wife of the Kandinsky Nina, Edward Kennedy, David Rockefeller.

School of avant-garde The future world-famous masters of the Soviet Non-Conformism: Lydia Masterkova, Francisco Infanta, Edward Steinberg, Anatoly Zverev, Vladimir Yakovlev, Oleg Vasilyev, Lev Kropyvnytskyi, Dmitry Plavinsky, Igor Makarevich and many-many others.

Attempts to legalize and depart

For the first time, the painting from the meeting of Kostaki appeared in the official Soviet Museum in 1967 - within the framework of the revolutionary art of revolutionary art held in the Tretyakov Gallery and dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the revolution.

Time was still almost thawed, and, inspired by success, Kostaki decided to radically step. He found an abandoned mansion in the center of Moscow and suggested that Ekaterina Furtsev suggested in this building on the basis of his collection first in the USSR of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and he himself volunteered to become his director. Failure was predictable and expect.

Kostaki realized that in the USSR to achieve a cherished goal - to make her collection accessible to the wide viewer and at the same time to preserve it as a result of his own long-term collecting work, as the fruit of his own love and passion - he could not succeed.

Gustav club. "Dynamic City". 1919-1921. From the collection of George Kostaki in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki

He understood that to take out such a major assembly - legal or illegally - will not work either.

The exit remained one - a heavy, unwanted, compromise, but exit. The collection must be divided into parts.

In 1977, he decided to transfer a large part of his collection as a gift to the Tretyakov Gallery. As the curator of the gallery, Irina Prienno, was repent, "the question of admission to the gift of the Kostaki collection for a long time is stuck in the depths of the USSR Ministry of Culture, passing discussions in the top spheres of various departments. There was no ready-made response to such a bold offer, officials were required to show creativity and not mistaken with the comma in the right place of the famous phrase "Allow it cannot be banned".

Kazimir Malevich. "Women's portrait", 1910-1911. From the collection of George Kostaki in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki

As a result, the collection was accepted. However, to maintain the integrity of the part of the unique collection of speech and was not the part of the world's largest museum of Russian art. A considerable part of the work fell into the funds, the rest - even those that were awarded exposure were distributed in various gallery chairs, and there was no indication of their belonging to the meeting of Kostaki during the exposure. Only now in the Tretyakov Gallery begin to identify these works.

Be that as it may, in exchange for the transfer of such a significant gift to the Fund of the Official Soviet Museum, 64-year-old Georgia Kostaki allowed not only to leave the USSR, but also to take the rest of their collection. The decision was forced. As the daughter of the collector of Alik Kostaki recalls, he took it with tears in his eyes.

New Life of the Old Collection

Already in 1977, in the year of departure Kostaka to the West, a selection of works from his collection was exhibited at the Düsseldorf Art Museum in Germany. In 1979-80. His paintings were a substantial part of the French half of the legendary exhibition "Paris-Moscow", held in the center of Pompidud.

Alexander Rachenko. "Two figures", 1920. From the Collection of George Kostaki in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki

The special milestone in the new life of the old collection was its presentation in the New York Guggenheim Museum in 1981 - it was then that it was documented and equipped with an impressive catalog. As I wrote in the accompanying text to the catalog of the curator of the exhibition Margit Rowell, "When we opened the boxes received to us with the paintings, I immediately realized that the history of the avant-garde should be written again."

During the 80s, the collection traveled intensively by the world: Houston, Ottawa, Indianapolis, Chicago, Stockholm, London, Helsinki, Montreal. In 1992, she became the basis of a series of exhibitions "Great Utopia" (Frankfurt, Amsterdam, New York, Moscow).

Georgy Kostaki died in 1990, without waiting for the historical event - in 1995, in the National Gallery in Athens For the first time after 1977, two parts of the famous collection were reunited.

Alas, not long. Since then, repeated attempts undertaken to carry out a joint exhibition of two disconnected parts of the assembly face insurmountable while bureaucratic and legal obstacles.

Mikhail Matyushin. Music and picturesque design. 1918. From the Collection of George Kostaki to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki

Nevertheless, in Moscow in 2014, to commemorate the 100-year-old anniversary of the collector, in the building of the Tretyakov Gallery on the Crimean Valley, an extensive exhibition of the Russian part of the Kostaki collection called "Georgy Kostaki was held. "Departure from the USSR to allow ...".

From the publication of Alexander Kana, fully published text can be read

In 1932, George took the wife of Zinaida Panfilov, with which he had gone through three daughters and son, and a huge collection of Russian avant-garde painting.

By the end of the 30s, the Second World War was brewing in Europe. Diplomatic conflicts began between the USSR and Greece. As a result, the Greek embassy in Moscow was closed and Kostaki was forced to change the work. First, worked as a guard in the Finnish embassy, \u200b\u200bthen at the Embassy of Sweden. And by 1944, Georgy received the position of administrator at the Canadian Embassy. From some sources it was known that his salary for those times was $ 2,000. Here is the money he spent on the buyer of exhibits for his collection.

Apartment collector Kostaki.

And he began at the beginning of the 30s when he was a simple chauffeur, the duties of which came out to carry foreign diplomats. And they loved to travel to commission stores, which surrendered antique things with capital citizens. George soon oriented and, having learned to deal with painting and in antiques, began to buy pictures of Dutch masters for a snot, as well as porcelain, silver, carpets, furniture ...

And somehow in the late 40s, he accidentally saw in one of the Moscow apartments several creations of Russian avant-gardeists and understood - this is exactly what he needs. And Kostaki, as obsessed, began to collect avant-garde. And it was at the time when in the Union officially did not exist any other areas in art except socialism. All other directions were imposed a strictest ban. George, many began to call the "crazy Greek", but nothing could not convince or stop him.

Previously collected pictures of "Dutch", antique furniture, table silver - everything was exchanged for few people who understand the avant-garde. But, for the Kostaki itself, other art, except for this, no longer existed.

George Kostaki. / The work of the artist Zverev.

"And so I bought the pictures of avant-gardeists, brought them home and hung around next to the Dutch. And it was a feeling that I lived in a room with secrets windows, and now they swung open, and the sun burst into them. From now on, I decided to part with everything that I managed to collect, and acquire only avant-garde. It happened in 1946 ", - recalled Kostaki.

And it should be noted that the wife, who fully dedicated himself to his husband and children, fully supported the collector. Sometimes it came to the point that George had to pay spouses fur coats for the paintings, which brought out of foreign trips. Promising, at the same time compensate new.

George Kostaki with his wife. / Painting K. Malevich.

And sometimes the paintings accidentally fell into the hands of the collector, for which they did not ask for money. So, the creation of the avant-garde arts of love Popova was clipped the window in the country of her relatives. And as soon as Kostaki delivered a piece of plywood instead, the owners immediately removed from the window and gave the collector invaluable creation for him.

Kostaki among the exhibits of their collection.

Another passion was George Dionisievich - these are the icons that were carried away in his youth. Interest in church painting The collector took over from his father, a deeply believer man. He dedicated his son to his shrines, talking a lot about how the Greeks during the wars were saved in the first place. And somehow I happened to them with the Father in the Burning 20s Find in the basement of the embassy box with icons and crosses. The treasure found Son and Father Kostaki carefully kept a lot of years. And shortly before the death, the father of smuggling sent a box with icons to Greece. And it's surprising, in the deep old old Georgy, they saw them again in one of the temples of Greece, where at the end of his life left his family.

Kostaki among the exhibits of their collection.

All this will be later, but so far George, living in Moscow and hoping that someday his collection of painting will be put up for everyone to review the Russian people, continued to collect prohibited art. And of course the hopes that the authorities go to such a step - there was no one. Therefore, the apartment and the Country House of the collector gradually turned into an informal museum, where simple Muscovites came and great connoisseurs, and artists, and metropolitan celebrities and foreign high-ranking guests.

Kostaki and Mark Chagall.

But in 1976, the trouble happened in the country house Kostaki. In a fire, as a result of arson, a considerable number of precious paintings died. Then there was a robbery of the Moscow apartment, where valuable paintings also disappeared. Everything indicated that the authorities could not allow the existence of even a private museum of prohibitive avant-garde painting and thus wanted to take its owner.

Then the pressure from the embassy workers was followed, in which 63-year-old Kostaki still worked. It began to say direct text that it was time to retire. At night, telephone calls were distributed from unknown with threats. "The moment came when to live with such a collection in Moscow was not just uncomfortable, but dangerous"- From the memories of the troubled times of the collector's daughter.

Farewell, Russia!

Georgy Kostaki alarmed for himself and his family and wrote an appeal to the Geneckecé Brezhnev with a request to allow departure from the country. In response, for a long time there was silence, apparently officials decided on what conditions to let go of the Greek collector. A year later, in 1977, the permission was received, and the collector with a part of his collection was left from Russia.

Collector George Kostaki.

According to unofficial data, the departure of Kostaki was forced - the ruling power could no longer make existence in the country such a huge collection of pictures of prohibited art. And the main condition for departure permission was put forward to the transmission to the Tretyakovo part of the meeting. Kostaki understood that another way to leave him would not be able to leave, so he left Moscow most of his collection.

The collector consisted that at least in this way his dream would fulfill: the Russians will still see this part, which rightfully belongs to the particle of their history
art.

Exhibition of Costa's Collection in the Tretyakov Gallery to the 100th anniversary of his birth.

But this will happen only after 30 years, when the exhibition of works collected by Kostaki will be organized in the Tretyakovka, namely to the 100th anniversary of his birth. And the Russians have finally seen what Greek Chudak devoted to all his life.

Exhibition of avant-garde art.

The exported part of the collection to Greece was immediately exhibited at the Düsseldorf Museum in Germany. In the next two years, the paintings were traveled in France, exhibited in the center of Pompidou. Then throughout the 80s, Russian avant-gardeists were exhibited in New York, Houston, Ottawa, Indianapolis, Chicago, Stockholm, London, Helsinki, Montreal.

A collector of Russian avant-garde painting - Georgy Kostaki.

And the great collector died in 1990, and without having survived to the iconic event, to which all his life was. In 1995, in the National Gallery of the capital of Greece, for the first time after separation, the two parts of the collapse of the Russian avant-garde collection for a while were reunited. The world finally saw the creation of persecuted artists of Russia in the full meeting.

Irina Pronon

EXHIBITIONS

Magazine number:

Exhibition "George Kostaki. "Departure from the USSR to allow ...". To the 100th anniversary of the collector, "became the main project of the Tretyakov Gallery of the past 2014. The attention and interest of numerous visitors to the museum to the activities of Georgy Dionisisovich Kostaki (1913-1990), a famous Moscow collector, a generous donor and an active popularizer of art, was raised on July 5, 2013 by opening the information hall in the exposition on the Crimean shaft. An expanded showing of works from his collection in almost a year, turned into a true culmination of this peculiar jubilee marathon.

A wide honoring and attention to the merits of Kostaki, who came to replace the merit, are associated with one significant fact - the transmission of them part of their assembly, and it is precisely the best and most valuable artworks from those that managed to find and acquire a collector for many years to become a gift in 1977 . The events of those years have changed and illuminated his life with a high civilian meaning. Therefore, probably, Kostaki and its activities are often correlated with other domestic major collectors - S.I. Schukin and I.A. Morozov or even with famous Moscow sacrifices brothers P.M. and S.M. Tretyakov. Comparison This is true only in part. Before the revolution of 1917, all - aristocrats, entrepreneurs and merchants had the opportunity and open their acquisitions, and publicly express the will of the disposal of their property, and charity, the patronage was common, encouraged by the case. Kostaki accounted for much harder. He lived in a completely different, Soviet, era, when any gathering equated to the accumulation, condemned ethically, and even pursued as a manifestation of bourgeois remnants. And "ideologically alien" hobbies of Kostaki collecting icons and works of Russian art 1910-1930, the so-called Russian avant-garde, and at all falls under a political article. Having overcame the leisured ways to him many dangers on the thorny path of the seeker of "forgotten masterpieces", he saved a huge number of invaluable works. His will, the desire itself to transfer the state for a public review Part of the collected in such difficult conditions of the "prohibited" artistic treasure - this gesture of a private person at the "collective mind" was a bold and cheeky challenge the entire system of the established rules. An example of Kostaki in the 20th century is unprecedented.

Now it is already impossible to connect everything that once selected the Kostaki eye. Like any other private collection, she underwent changes - first by the will of its creator, then his heirs. It is almost unrealistic to "reconstruct" his meeting even for 1977, when the grand section was occurring the famous then in the world of the collection of the Russian avant-garde of the 1910-1930s in two parts - what remained as a gift to the state, and the fact that Kostaki took with them , leaving the USSR. Since then, exhibitions of works from both parts of the collection, apart or together, were carried out in many galleries and museums of the world more than once. Kostakiyevsky's masterpieces of the Russian avant-garde often go to the general view of two places - Moscow and Thessalonikov, where they, as legitimate residents, have a permanent "Russian" and "Greek" registration, however, they have never met in the Russian halls. The curators of the anniversary exhibition were offered a new angle of view on the collection of Kostaki and the departure from the established already international exhibition strategy: as much as possible to present the main thing - "Avangard from Kostaka". The organizers first focused on the scale of the personality of the collector himself, and the audience's carefully thought-out tenders were summed up to reflections on his fate in the historical context. The Kostakov collection is shown in different dimensions: it is diverse through the latitude of collective directions and the height of the quality of the artistic quality of works, is unique as the visible "encyclopedia of the Russian avant-garde", and its gift is grandiose on manifested generosity and extraordinaries as an iconic event for Soviet times. Together with Kostaki and his family, we all got the news - "Departure from the USSR is allowed ...", or be sure to be resolved. The anniversary presentation of the collection is addressed to the modern viewer, and the wording "Departure from the USSR is allowed." - This is a sign, a kind of metappost to our real. In the USSR in the 1970s, all types of innovative areas in the art of 1910-1970s, that is, what GD collected Kostaki, were under the strict ideological ban. The works of such recognized masters, as Chagall and Kandinsky, Filonov and Tatlin, Popov and Klyn, were not exhibited in museums before 1986, references to the official literature of the names of many other glorious artists were prohibited. The question of admission to the gift of the Kostakov collection for a long time is stuck in the depths of the USSR Ministry of Culture, passing discussions in the top spheres of various departments. There was no ready-made response to such a bold offer, officials were required to show creativity and not mistaken with the comma in the right place of the famous phrase "Allow it cannot be banned". The historical reality of the Soviet state structure, the atmosphere of the constant ideological and spatial constraint of those days was influenced by all the manifestations of the culture, public consciousness and personal life of a separate person. Therefore, the post-war time and the cultural life of the era of thaw and stagnation is also another hero of the exhibition. Artistic, peculiar metaphor of the atmosphere of that time has become a kind of glowing house-cube in the exposition space. In this symbolic "House of Kostaki", two huge, enlarged to the size of the panel photography, showing how in three rows the collection was placed in a low small-sized Moscow apartment. On the other wall tightly, the small black and white documentaries are hanging in black frames - dumb testimonies about those meetings, which was held in the Kostaki House under the Krasnaya Square B. V. Kandinsky. The Kostaki collection attracted the attention of a large number of people, including foreign diplomats, well-known representatives of the Russian and foreign artistic elite. The apartment on Vernadsky Avenue was visited by I. Stravinsky, S. Richter, M. Shagal, E. Kennedy, A. Waida, M. Antonioni, D. Rockefeller, C. Kapitsa, A. Voznesensky and many others. From the outside of the Cuba, with stunning pictures of the 1970s of the famous photographer I.A. Palmine on the audience addresses a tightly shot down group of non-conformist artists, and in the center of them - always he, Georgy Dionisovich, their friend, feeder, a connoisseur and brave defender on the famous "bulldozer exhibition", overclocked by the authorities after half an hour after opening. Such is the typing of this narration. The main space of the main hall of the exhibition is divided in such a way that different parts are represented in proportion to the place that they occupy in the Kostaki collection.

For a particularly honorable Costa Kostaki part of the collection of icons and images on a liturgical sewing at the exhibition, a "red corner" was made. From over 60 subjects donated by the Museum named after Andrei Rublev, 15 samples of different icon-painted schools are exhibited, such as the icon of the Novgorod Earth of the first third of the XVI century "Miracle George about Zmie", bilateral icon "Epiphany - the proceeding of the cross" of the second half of the XVII century, determined in the row Traditions of the Russian North. Extremely interesting and rarely found in Russia is the example of Serbian work - the cross of the nadicontaine "Crucifixion of Christ", created around 1600. Transferred works of ancient iconopys of the XVI-XVIII centuries are regularly demonstrated at exhibitions. The unique preserved fragments of the monumental wallopus of the Savor destroyed during the war in the years of the XII century were the inviolable part of the permanent exposition of the Museum named after Andrei Rublev.

In the opposite end of the Big Hall, convenient showcases are posted for a comprehensive inspection of the smallest exhibits of the exhibition from the Museum-Reserve "Tsaritsyno". George Dionisisovich was able to purchase a rare collection of folk toys from clay, tree and even straw and thereby save from spraying the result of many years of collecting activities of one of his fellow collector, actor and historian, the author of one of the first books on the centers of folk toys of N.I. . Tsereteli. This collection also commissioned by the state transmitted by the state. The clay toy is represented by several registered works of a notable master Larion Frolovich Zotkin from the village of Abashevo ("Goat with silver horns", 1919), old Dymkov's "ladies" and "roosters". The sculptural composition "Musicians" in the 1920s was made of a tree in Sergiev Posad, and Figurine "Nicholas II on the throne" (GMZ "Tsaritsyno") at the beginning of the 20th century was treated in the Nizhny Novgorod province. One of the most rare peasant-symbol-symbols of the Russian north is very short-lived in the form of Mokhovik Redhead, assembled at the beginning of the 20th century from many girlfriends: wood, moss, pacles, berers, twine, paper. Presented over 200 subjects of people's and decorative and applied arts, waiting for the transfer to the formated profile museum, first temporarily put in the repository of the USSR Ministry of Culture, and only in 1993 the new "house" was the Museum-Reserve "Tsaritsyno".

The greatest place is given to the most sign and title part of the collection and the gift of Kostaki - the works of the avant-garde from the Tretyakov Gallery Meeting. All the picturesque and graphic works of this group are distributed across separate sections - early avant-garde; cubism, cubaceuturism; Plastic painting; Suprematism, constructivism; Experimental directions of the 1920s, a new figuration of the 1930s; late avant-garde of the 1940s. Such a division corresponds to the desire and topsack of the collector himself - he wanted to create the visible "encyclopedia of the Russian avant-garde", to display the entire history of this direction of Russian art, which brought the domestic artistic program of the 1910s to the front edge in the pan-European pre-movement towards updating the visual language.

Few items provided by the daughters of a collector have been added to the exhibited selected works from a huge gift transmitted by the three state Moscow museums. These are watercolor portraits of the Kostaki family, made by A. Zverev, several works of the "non-conformist" artists 1950-1970 and seven canvases of the GI itself. Kostaki, created after 1978. These two sections fit on the mezzanine of the main hall. The same album, accompanying the exhibition, and a multimedia project, which includes many works and archival materials that have been kept for many years in Greece, on the historical homeland. Kostaki, significantly complement the exhibition exhibition. Information about the Greek part of the collection for the first time became available to Russian-speaking readers. A very long way, Kostaki was held to recognize his contribution to the domestic and European culture, and the biographical canva, for the first time documented by L.R. Pchelkina, serves as a bright confirmation.

Greek nationals Georgy Kostaki was born on July 5, 1913 in Moscow and most of his life lived in Russia. His father Dionysius Spiridonovich (1868-1932), a leaving from Zakynthos Islands, a follower of a family case tobacco commerce and has been engaged in commerce in Russia since the beginning of the 1900s, and the mother Elena Emmanuilovna (in Maiden Papachristeodulo, 1880-1975) created a big and strong family They lived in sufficiency and had strong links with the Greek diaspora. Mother knew several languages, was dialed and possessed a special gift of tactful treatment with all others. Five children were born in the family: Mary's daughter (1901-1970) and four sons: Spiridon (1903-1930), Nikolai (1908-1989), George (1913-1990) and Dmitry (1918-2008). After the revolution, when the family lost all the sources of existence, the children began to help parents, engaged in small sales of property balances on the market; Then sons, early accustomed to the technique, mastered the chauffy business. The family moved to the village at Bakovka station, where grandmother, mother, aunt and sister with children, supported by the whole male part of the family, until the end of their days will live. This house in Bakovka will later become one of the most expensive memories and at the same time collector alarm. In the mid-1920s, the father's father as a Greek citizen could get a job in the Greek embassy, \u200b\u200band the older sons began to work there. Thus, it turned into a family tradition. In the 1930s, George Kostaki, studied at school, only seven classes, enters the same embassy to work by the driver. Soon the family comprehend the losses - the death of his beloved Spiridon, a passionate motorcycle row, during the competitions in which Vasily Stalin took part, and the death of the father, whose heart could not stand grief. But at this difficult time, fate presented his gift - in 1932 he meets and in a few days it is crowned with Zinaida Semenova Panfilova (1912-1992). Daughters in their family were born inna daughter (1933), Alik (1939), Natasha (1949) and Sasha's son (1953-2003). Zinaida Semenovna came from a Moscow merchant family, "alien classroom", which did not give her opportunities to get an education worthy of her rare beauty and wondrous voice. Both spouses loved music, and the fulfillment of the ridges in the ridges, accompanied by the "dear Jora", was a signature "treat" of hospitable hosts of the house at all occasions.

In 1938, the mother, aunt and younger brother Dmitry, women managed to pull out a few months later, and Dmitry spent several years in the Kotlas camp. George, strongly risking personal freedom, managed to get there and visit his brother, and on his return did not cease to bother about him through the embassy. When closing the Greek Embassy in Moscow in 1939, Kostaki for family reasons does not use the opportunity to go to Canada. A foreigner find a lesson is difficult, he agrees to the temporary work of the guard that in Finnish, then in the Swedish embassy. In 1944 he was lucky: he comes to the service at the Canadian Embassy, \u200b\u200bbecoming the crown. Soon, Georgy Dionisovich, executive and conscious, lifeling and enterprising on nature, becomes the chief administrator over Russian staff and, together with the status of diplomatic integrity, receives a significant advantage over the Soviet Embassy staff - the salary is charged in currency, and a certain part can be officially changed in the bank to rubles . Such were the conditions of the prisoner with him, foreign subjects, employment contract.

When Kostaki had to take diplomatic workers in antique shops, he allowed himself to make small acquisitions. Gradually drawn into collecting and tried to learn as much as possible about the subjects. He remembered his teenage confuse. Immediately after the revolution, he was inherited by Uncle Xlerosophone, a collection of brands, and a boy, not knowing about her true cost, without the knowledge of adults with ease, exchanged for a bike. The insight arrived later, when rich buyers arrived specifically for this collection. An indignation of the family was difficult to postpone, and George even decided to escape, but was discovered at the station and returned to the father's house. He remembered that lesson and always tried to study rarity to him. At first, collected old Dutch, porcelain, Russian silver, carpets and fabrics. After the war, the interests of the collector changed sharply, and the collection has changed as well.

George Kostaki in his memories described how in 1946 there was almost accidentally several works of the artists of the avant-garde, in particular the Green Strine (1917) Olga Rozanova. The native of the ancient Vladimir, Olga Rozanova belonged to a small group of artists. Suprematism Malevich revealed them the way in understanding of "weightlessness", a free parish of bodies in space - after all, after the invention, the cinema suddenly somehow felt "fatigue" from contemplating the statics of classical schemes. Through the "green strip", Kostaki discovered the world of new art, opened before many others. He "fell ill" by the avant-garde, to collect which in the ideological conditions of that time was a dangerous and, according to many, useless. He could not understand anything in abstract painting, but a new one, an unknown world of bright colors and simple forms shook his imagination, hurt his curiosity and inspired in search of "new art." His first enlightener became a neighbor in the village of Bakovka, a well-educated archivist, an expert on old libraries and a hereditary collector I.V. Kachurin. He helped with the first acquisitions, something even gave, suggested how to look for knowledgeable people. And Kostaka found them, listened, greedily absorbing knowledge. Appealed to the well-known researcher creativity V.V. Mayakovsky - N.I. Xardzhiev, who introduced him to St. Petersburg Avangard, Heritage Malevich, Matyushin, Filonova, family of artists Ender. Included information he and D.V. Sarabaunova, who later became the leading expert on the avant-garde and creativity LS Popova. Kostaki helped in the search by him of young art historians V.I. Rakitin and S.V. Yamchikov, there were other assistants among artists who carried him to lead about curious meetings and finds. Kostaki was driving, looked, selected and, finding the right amount, acquired, cleaned himself and gave the restorers himself, framed and finally hung on the wall. He passionately wanted to prove to the whole world the priority of many Russian artists-innovators of the beginning of the 20th century and all their efforts sent to achieve this goal. Of course, there was hope that it is he who opens this Klondike of the Russian avant-garde and over time, once, everything will pay off, the funds torn off from his family will return and children will understand, for which all their fears were, the presence in the entrance of the eternal "observers" from the authorities KGB. The deep conviction of the collector is that the art capturing and admiring his art will continue and recognize and recognize, helped to preserve the invaluable works of Russian avant-garde artists, are now known all over the world. So it happened.

In 1955, Kostaki met R. Falkov, who told him about creative life in Moscow and Paris of the 1910-1930s. Soon Kostaki first left outside the USSR and immediately after consulting, the doctors in Sweden rushed to Paris to meet with Goncharova and Larionic, Nina Kandinskaya and Chagall himself. Goncharova, seeing the huge enthusiasm of an unusual collector from the USSR for distant years with Larionic youth, wrote a little picture in the "style of radiation" and presented it as a kind of madness of Kostaki's hobby. He returned home to home, joined the short correspondence with the painters-Parizhans. Then - Festival exhibitions of 1956, the most interesting new acquaintances, arrival in Moscow of the famous critic of Alfred Bara Jr., founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. The American looked around the collected things and outlined his understanding of the art seen. Their points of view did not coincide in everything, but Kostaki was interested in finding out the opinion of the prominent professional, they began to exchange rare letters. In 1959, he is already lucky of his early "Shagalov" to the Maestro exhibition in Hamburg. Life is boiling around Kostaka. In the early 1960s, he bypassed the student-experimenters of the 1920-1930s of I. Kudryashov and I. Babicheva, acquired the work of the left artists, its contemporaries, primarily A. Zverev, V. Weisberg, D. Krasnophetseva, O. Rabin, I. Vuloha. His hospitable house has become for the whole generation of the sixties by the place of the first acquaintance with the artists of the Russian avant-garde, which largely determined the focus of their creative searches. With the growth of the collection, Kostaki's knowledge was deepened and his authority was grew. In 1973, Kostaki read a series of lectures at the universities of America and Canada, as well as at the Gugenheim Museum in New York. In the same 1973, an exhibition from the Kostaki collection in London took place.

Photo: Artemy Furman (Furman360), 2015

However, by the mid-1970s, there is a noticeable deterioration in the relationship between Georgy Kostaki with representatives of Soviet power, and he decides to leave the USSR. As Georgy Dionisovich writes in his memoirs, he decided to leave Moscow, where he was born and where most of his life passed, it was not easy for medical testimony and under pressure from anxiety, thickened around him after a strange fire in his house in the village of Bakovka - Many were burned there Works of nonconformists of the 1960s. The collection collected over long years was one of the brakes - it was difficult to take it all officially. On the Soviet laws, only works created in the last 40 years, with a considerable customs duty, were subject to unimpeded export. Of course, to him, foreign subjects, it was possible to take advantage of various diplomatic channels. But how to get permission to depart to his wife who had Soviet citizenship and his adult children? After consulting with one long-time friend, Semenov, famous Soviet diplomat and collector, GD. Kostaki found a decision - October 26, 1976 wrote a letter to the Minister of Culture of the USSR P.N. Demichev. For almost 36 years, it was hidden from the eyes of the researchers, and we were first able to rely on it and other declassified documents recently, reconstruct the procedure for admission to the state Dara Kostaki.

Photo: Artemy Furman (Furman360), 2015

"Currently, I have matured a desire to bring to the state the state of my many years of work is a unique collection of the Russian and Soviet art of the 20th century. Among the transmitted works, there are works with high aesthetic and economic value, very important for the development of artistic culture of the era, such as: "Portrait of Matyushin" K. Malevich, "Red Square" V. Kandinsky, Relief V. Tatlin, "Proow" El Lisitsky , Landscape A. Shvalsky, relief and picturesque compositions of L. Popova, paintings M. Shagal, N. Udaltsova, A. Tree, A. Exter, G. Yakulova, M. Larionova, N. Goncharova, A. Rodchenko, P. Filonova , O. Rosanova, I. Klyona / "Running landscape" /, I. Pugi,<...> A number of projects of campaigning art of revolutionary years L. Popova, I. Kudryashova, Kurcis,<...> Pictures A. Volkov, S. Nikritina, M. Plaksina, K. Rishko,<...> Picturesque canvas Serzh Polyakova. "

The description of the nature of the collection followed the conditions for its further existence in state meetings, the main of which were the following: all works are transferred to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow; "Landscape with the amphitheater" Yakulov is transferred to the meeting of the State Art Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan; The expedient part of the collection should be exhibited in the permanent exposition of Soviet art, indicating the gift of GD. Kostaki. This condition is required when exposure to works at all exhibitions, including foreign ones. The collection should not be fragmented, the work should not move to other museums and institutions, to be sold and grant. "By passing most of the collection to the state, I ask you to allow me part of the collection to take out abroad /<.> Two separate list are attached /. To solve all the problems associated with the fate of the collection, in my opinion, trustees are appointed in the composition: Popova V.I., Xalturina A.G., Manina V.S., Semenova V.S., Rakitina V.I. , Sarabenova D.V., Kostaki N.G. ... ". To answer all the conditions of the collector, the USSR Culture Minister did not have the right, and in early January 1977 his request followed the CPSU Central Committee Department.

Photo: Artemy Furman (Furman360), 2015

Correspondence of the USSR MK with an ideological body of the party for many years was kept under the vulture of "Secretly", there was a motivation in which almost all conditions GD were taken. Kostaki: "It is safe to assume that the adoption of the gift of Kostaki and his departure with part of the work collected by him will receive a political resonance positive for us." As a result, the request of the minister described in the certificate signed on February 25, 1977 by the leaders of the three departments of the Central Committee of the CPSU, was brought to the draft decision and considered at a meeting of the CPSU Central Committee on March 1, 1977. Resolution of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU, consisting of six secretaries, unanimously voted "for", the main condition of the donor was supported: his gift was adopted, Kostaki himself received "permission to leave the right of entry and permanent residence in the USSR, to possession of a cooperative apartment belonging to his wife , Citizen of the USSR. " Permission to export abroad parts of the collection GD. Kostaki gave an exception to the existing law. Rights to reproduction of works from Dara GD. Kostaki in accordance with the norms of Soviet legislation crossed the state.

After five months of waiting and uncertainty on March 16, 1977, the collector was sent a response to the Deputy Minister of Culture of the USSR V.I. Popova with the presentation of all the conditions taken and adding: "The USSR Ministry of Culture expresses you sincere thanks in connection with your noble act." The latest formal point in the transfer of the collection as a gift was the order of the MK of the USSR No. 175 of March 14, 1977 on the establishment of the Commission and on admission to permanent storage in TG.

The admission of works by members of the commission and employees of the GTG were engaged in several weeks. The new life of the collection GD began Kostaki.

In the fall of 1977, having received permission to leave (with the right to return permanent residence permit! - An unprecedented case for leaving for permanent residence from the USSR), Daughter of Alik and Son Alexander with families were taken out by most of the collection. A few days after their arrival in Germany, the first exhibition of the avant-garde from the Kostaki collection in Kunsthalle Düsseldorf opened in Germany. It produced a real sensation. In January 1978, Georgy Dionisovich and his spouse left, later left the country's daughter inna's country. For the content of the whole large family, in the fall of 1979, the auction of A. Arapova, A. Ariphenko, D. Burluk, N. Goncharova, V. Kandinsky, I. Klin, E. Lisitsky, L. Popova were exhibited at auction auction . A little later, at the very end of 1979, an exhibition "Paris-Moscow" opened, at which they were first introduced abroad some works of avant-garde from the gift of Kostaki, but for some reason the organizers "forgot to indicate", whose gift is. Inchange is always unpleasant, in this case it wounded especially painfully ...

The spiritual equilibrium Kostaki helped restore painting classes, which he was carried away after leaving Russia, when the works stopped filling the walls of his houses - they were "kept" in museums and in special cells of banks. In 1981-1982, a grand exhibition tour was held on the eight cities of the United States, accompanied by the edition of the collection of avant-garde and the cycle of speeches, then the works were shown in many European museums. In 1986, he arrived again in the USSR to the exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery, in whose catalog for the first time published nine works from his gift and five-line duty, as well as about other donors.

Georgy Dionisovich Kostaki, who died on March 9, 1990, was buried at the Athens Cemetery near the place of restoring the Grand Shliman, the legendary Troy opener. At the end of the life of Kostaki understood: the donation of his treasure, his tender "Troy" of the Russian avant-garde, the people with whom he fell out to divide the tests by revolution, repression, war and devouring, became the main thing in his life. Thank you, Kostaki!

* In the signatures of the illustrations are marked by works, donated GD. Kostaki State Tretyakov Gallery in 1977

1. Osip Mandelstam. Memory poems Andrei white. 1934.