PARIS – The Fondation Louis Vuitton presents The Morozov Collection, one of the world’s foremost collections of Impressionist and Modern art. Opened on September 22 and on view through February 22th, 2022, this major international exhibition brings together in Paris 200 masterpieces from the French and Russian modern art collection of the brothers Mikhail and Ivan Morozov. This is the first time the collection has traveled outside of Russia since its creation at the turn of the 20th century.
The landmark exhibition is the second in the Icons Of Modern Art series, organized by the Fondation Louis Vuitton in partnership with the State Hermitage Museum (Saint-Petersburg), the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow) and the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow). It follows the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s influential Shchukin Collection exhibition (2016), which attracted 1.3 million visitors, and continues the Fondation’s series dedicated to prominent collectors and pioneering patrons of modern art, which has also included The Courtauld Collection, A Vision for Impressionism (2019).
Vincent van Gogh, ‘Seascape at Saintes-Maries, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,’ 1888 oil on canvas. 44.5 × 54.5 cm. Pushkin Museum, Moscow
Installed across all of the galleries in the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s iconic Frank Gehry building, The Morozov Collection brings together a selection of works by renowned French artists including Manet, Rodin, Monet, Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Sisley, Cezanne, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Bonnard, Denis, Maillol, Matisse, Marquet, Vlaminck, Derain and alongside Russian masters including Repin, Vrubel, Korovin, Golovin, Serov, Larionov, Goncharova, Malevich, Mashkov, Konchalovsky, Outkine, Saryan and Konenkov. Conceived by Anne Baldassari, the exhibition’s chief curator, The Morozov Collection includes astonishing discoveries and memorable moments, with a unique design that evokes historical references and highlights the timeless nature of works that exemplify the emerging artistic modernity of the late 19th- and early 20th centuries.
For the first and only time, the Music Room in Ivan Morozov’s Moscow mansion are being presented outside the State Hermitage Museum as part of a special exhibition design and installation that marks the ending of the presentation of the Morozov works. Consisting of a monumental decorative installation of seven panels commissioned by Ivan Morozov in 1907 from Maurice Denis on the subject of The Story of Psyche (1908-1909), and of four sculptures by Aristide Maillol, the Music Room provides a rare window into the life of the prominent collector.
The exhibition is captured in a 520-page scholarly catalog, The Morozov Collection – Icons Of Modern Art, co-published by the Fondation Louis Vuitton and Les Editions Gallimard. Based on Mikhail and Ivan Morozov’s extensive unpublished archives, which are preserved at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the Tretyakov Gallery, the publication features unpublished texts and documents that illustrate the Morozov family’s unique history.
THE MOROZOV BROTHERS
The brothers Mikhail Abramovich Morozov (1870-1903) and Ivan Abramovich Morozov (1871-1921) were arts patrons who dominated Moscow’s cultural life at the turn of the 20th century, in much the same way as the Tretyakovs, Mamontovs, Riabouchinskys and Shchukins did. They stood out for their unconditional patronage of contemporary European and Russian art, which greatly contributed to enhancing the international reputation of modern French painters.
On the advice of Paris’s leading art dealers – Paul Durand-Ruel, Ambroise Vollard, Georges Bernheim, Eugene Druet and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler – the Morozovs acquired more than 250 iconic paintings and sculptures by Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Matisse, Marquet, Derain and Picasso, as well as monumental decorative works by Bonnard and Denis and bronzes by Rodin, Claudel and Maillol. They also committed to collecting contemporary Russian art by bringing together nearly 400 modern Russian paintings by artists of the Realist (Wanderers), Symbolist, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist movements such as Vrubel, Korovin, Golovin, Serov, Outkine, as well as by Larionov, Mashkov, Konchalovsky, Saryan and Konenkov.
Their collections, nationalized in 1918, allowed the creation of the world’s first museum of modern art: the State Museum of Modern Western Art / GMNZI, which opened in Ivan Morozov’s Moscow mansion in 1928. From the 1930s to 1948, their collections were gradually spread out among Russian public institutions: the State Hermitage Museum, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the Tretyakov Gallery.
Visit the website of the Fondation Louis Vuitton and see its dedicated page for The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art.
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