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The
Nukus Modern Arts Collection
“Few Westerners have seen the Savitsky collection, but
when they do, a chapter of art history may need to be
rewritten”. (N/Y/Times 04.01.98)
Article: Igor Savitsky and the Museum he has created
How this collection came to this outlying place related
not only to the Aral Sea crisis, but to the long and rich
history of a once flourishing civilization. In Karakalpakstan
you can find specific, varied landscape and magnificent
ruins of historical monuments and archeological sites.
This magnificent and mysterious land attracted a moscow
artist Igor Savitsky, who came here in 1950 as a member
of the Khorezm archeological-ethnographic expedition of
the USSR Academy of Sciences led by Sergey Tolstov. The
activities of this famous expedition is well known for
the experts of archeological studies. Discovery of ancient
Khorezm is appraised as Troya’s discovery by Schlimann,
Carter and Carnarvon’s excavations in Egypt, Stephens
and Thompson’s in South America. This was one of
the greatest archeological discovery of the 20-th century.
Savitsky worked in this group as an artist for 6 years
(1950-1956). First, he started with documenting excavations
by sketches and drawings of the monuments and finds. Then
he joined the team of ethnographers led by the outstanding
Russian scholar T.Zhdanko. Her group was studying the
Karakalpaks, their ethnogenesis and culture. In those
years habituaries of Karakalpaks were not known and properly
investigated, even in the USSR.
Taking part in gathering samples of Karakalpak folk art
for this expedition and for Russian museum, Igor Savitsky
became ‘so ‘fascinated by the unique culture
of this small ethnic group, lost in the lower reaches
of the Amudarya river and the nearby Aral Sea, that he
made a decision to abandon Moscow, a nice flat in Arbat,
which is the heart of the city, and left for Nukus - the
capital of Karakalpakstan. Since 1956 to 1966 he worked
in the local Branch of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences in
the laboratory of Karakalpak applied art. During those
years he collected several thousand objects of Karakalpak
folk crafts - samples of jewelry, embroidery, woven textile
items, stamped leather and carved wood. Nobody cared about
this art at that time. People stopped to use and produce
those artifacts. Civilization and the political situation
had broken the links between generations. In the result
of these activities (Savitsky walked over almost all the
northern part of Karakalpakstan, where Karakalpaks are
settled), he managed to gather about 7000 exhibits. This
collection may be called a genetic fund of karakalpak
culture. He rescued the art that could have been lost
after some years.
At the same time while Savitsky was passionately gathering,
restoring and promoting the indigenous craftsmanship,
he was making paintings and studies of local scenery,
observing magnificient desert landscapes and the changing
faces of ancient and medieval ruins at different times
of the day or seasons of the year with the same passion.
He had in fact fallen in love with the Karakalpak land.
Karakalpakstan became his Polinesia and, like Gauguin,
he introduced his own style and, in general, European
influence to that of the local tradition through his painting
of local subjects.
Savitsky is the founder of the Karakalpak School of Art
and encouraged the first Karakalpak artists. He then persuaded
the local authorities to open an Art Museum and was appointed
its first director. He officially proclaimed two objectives
of the newly opened museum: 1) to create a collection
with ‘its own face’, i.e. not repeating the
model of all Soviet museums, which were following method
of the Tretyakov gallery in Moscow and 2) to show the
local artistic community the ways of their predecessors
in Russia in 1920-30s (period of formation of Soviet School
of art). In fact, Savitsky, having lived through the height
of repression in Stalinist Russia, also realized this
was an ideal spot to bring artworks he knew to be hidden
away in Russia’s major cities - art painted mostly
during the 1920-30s, before stalinist repression reached
its peak in the era of “Socialist Realism”.
Russian art of the first quarter of this century had a
profound influence on everything we call modern. A brilliant
constellation of gifted artists emerged at a time when
many Russians believed they were on the brink of a new
epoch, where the human spirit would be truly liberated
for the first time. They were seeking for new ways of
conveying their sincere ideals, excitement, the originality
of their works was so extraordinary that the Soviet system
could not tolerate it. Its exponents were silenced, imprisoned,
exiled, driven mad or murdered in their motherland. In
the West, on the contrary, they were recognized long time
ago. Many of them left the country forever. We can find
their names in the catalogues of many famous exhibitions
in Paris and Munich in the first two decades of the 20th
century. However, in Russia building a collection of their
art, when mere possession of these works meant risking
imprisonment or worse, it could only have been a work
of madness. In our case it had become the product of one
man’s grand obsession. Realizing all these and at
the same time having almost no competitors Savitsky undertook
the greatest rescue campaign. This idea strengthened in
his mind when he started to collect the works of artists
who lived in Central Asia, or spent some years there,
or just worked on this subject (A.Isupov, R.Falk, R.Mazel,
V.Ufimtsev, A.Volkov, N.Karakhan, Usto-Mumin, E.Korovay).
Central Asia for Russian artists gave way for realization
of their strivings for orientalism. The Central Asian
subject was expressed by them in the spirit of time. It
is very important to know, that artistic investigation
of Turkestan and mastering was much ahead of its scientific
study.
Each artist had his own approach to Central Asian subject
- some regarded Central Asian art should be built on a
decorative base and on primitivism, which were characteristic
of indigenous decorative - applied art with its specific
way of vision the reality by simplifying forms and giving
them geometrical shapes (A.Volkov) - others have chosen
fauvism as the most expressive way of their vision (E.Korovay)
- some regarded impressionism as the best way of conveying
their new perceptions(P.Benkov) - some based on expressionism
combining together cezannizm, fauvism and other manners
and styles of European school (M.Kurzin, R.Falk, etc.)
In general, those artists, who formed, in fact, the Uzbek
School of Art, brought to this area the spirit and traditions
of the Russian avangarde and modern western art, which
were transformed and enriched by oriental culture and
philosophy. This synthesis gave life to a unique school,
which was admired by experts in the early 1930s. However,
Stalinism stopped this development. Many artists were
accused so called “formalism”. The world knows
about the methods of cultural policy in the USSR: many
artists disappeared in concentration camps and prisons,
mental hospitals, those who adapted to the regime, they
changed themselves and their art completely. Socialist
realism became the official and the only trend in art.
For many years, up to 1985’s Perestroika, the whole
layer of art, was excluded from official life. It was
Igor Savitsky who, already in the 1960s, started to save
this art, collecting the works of forgotten, forbidden
artists from their descendants and widows, who were happy
to give hundreds, thousands of canvasses, cartoons, paperworks,
which were languishing in the attics, basements and closets.
Though Stalin’s rule has ended, it was still a period
of strict prohibitions, a period of stagnation. Savitsky
was paying to the owners outright: he was the only official,
the only museum director, who expressed interest in the
legacy of their relatives. Many of them were dragging
miserable lives, and Savitsky was giving them money, at
least, for bread. In cases when he couldn’t pay at
once, he was giving his letter of guarantee (iou), promising
to pay out in 5-10 years. Month by month, the boundaries
of his activites expanded and he started to collect the
artists of Moscow, St. Petersbourg and other places of
Russia. Being aware of what was happening in cultural
policy and about the attitude to the art, that was real
and unique, he couldn’t pass by and was gathering
whatever interesting things he could find and take. Tens
of thousands of works were saved by him from neglects
and oblivion, or even from physical destruction. He found
many marvellous pieces in a special prison for artworks
- the Zagorsk Archive of Art Values, near Moscow - where
some exhibits from the Tretyakov Gallery and other central
museums were sent in “exile”. Method of collecting,
worked out by Savitsky, is of special interest. He wanted
everything from sketches to the mature works in order
to show the entire artistic development of the master
(“to show his kitchen”, as he said). As a result,
the Nukus museum demonstrates the development of individual
artists as well as of the entire Russian avant-garde,
a broader perspective than that of any other collection.
For instance, Ivan Kudryachev who has several works in
Guggenheim, New York is represented in Nukus by 261 of
his works. Similarly Kliment Redko, whose work is scattered
all over the world has more than 100 works in Nukus. Our
museum also boasts of 1400 works of Ruvim Mazel. Some
names are represented only in Savitsky’s collection
(N.Tarasov, A. Stavrovsky). These still unknown, due to
remoteness of the museum, to broader public artists, together
with key figures (like L.Popova, A.Shevtchenko, K.Redko,
S.Nikritin, D.Burliuk) has made the Nukus Museum a Mecca
for Russian art scholars. The Savitsky collection tells
a very different story about the development of Soviet
art than the doctrine of Socialist realism would suggest.
It does not sterilise the epoch, but give objective evaluation
of very diverse art life of the 1920-30’s.
Savitsky was experimenting also with method of displaying
artifacts in the rooms of the exposition. Numerous treasures
of his collection needed space, but even now, when we
got one more building after Savitsky’s death, we
have space only for about 2000 objects (2,5%). All the
walls, corridors, corners are covered by paintings and
other exhibits. The rest are stored in narrow storage
rooms.
Savitsky’s activities has no analogy in the world
practice of museum collecting. Within a period of about
15 years he managed to gather collection in a quantitative
and qualitative scale that is immense. Although he lived
in a more or less safe distance from the corridors of
soviet power he constantly ran the risk of being denounced
as an enemy of the people. Sometimes comissions were coming
to his museum, and they prohibited to show and acquire
the art of dissidents. Despite the obvious threat, the
Nukus museum director used various tricks finding the
way out of predicaments. With great audacity he amassed
over 50.000 examples of Soviet avant-garde and post-avantgarde
art which could have been lost to posterity. His achievement
ranks him with other great Russian art collectors like
Tretyakov, Morosov, Costakis. But these had money, Savitsky
had none. He had passion for art and commitment.
This is a story in short telling how the whole layer of
Russian art of the period from the turn of the century
up to 1930’s which was crushed at its peak had found
a shelter in deserts of Kzyl-Kum.
It is very hard to avoid emotions while speaking about
the history of formation of the Nukus museum. Nowadays,
great changes in our ex-Soviet states gave more freedom,
and successful exhibitions from Russian museums, which
opened their store rooms, where they kept for more than
fifty years proscribed art, bring them fame and recognition.
But many of the central museums prefer to silence the
significance of the Nukus museum and its late director
I.Savitsky, who started this process already in the 1960s.
Being the evidence of his heroic efforts, we knew that
this genius and fanaticism cost Savitsky very much. The
triunph of his museum, which in fact, was all that he
needed, cost him health and wealth. Savitsky had enemies:
he saw jealousy and meanness, he suffered from the "dirty"
business around him and different kind of accusations.
Nevertheless, he continued to work: sometimes he slept
only 4-5 hours. He had no holidays or vacations. He did
not care about his health. He had no family: the museum
replaced all human joys. But he had true friends. Those
who supported him, forced him to be cured, when he fell
seriously ill. For example, his last year Savitsky spent
in one of the Moscow hospitals, where one of his friends,
Doctor Efuni arranged everything possible to save Savitsky’s
life - best consultants, good treatment, the hospital
ward was transformed into the study of a restless patient.
Doctors were praying to stop working so hard, but Savitsky
was writing articles, letters, applications. He was using
even his helplessness, illnesses for the sake of his museum,
asking for money to cover the debts. When he left the
hospital and was recommended to go to sanatorium, instead,
he undertook gatherings, still revealing more new names,
visiting former friends and owners. As a result, he was
sent twice to hospital. Third time was the last. He died
on July 27,1984. He was buried in Nukus, on his second
motherland.
The last collections of Savitsky were brought by us to
Nukus in 2 big containers. Those were not only paintings
and works on paper, sculpture, antique furniture and also
pieces of decorative art and rare books for the museum
library were squeezed into transport containers.
Some people ask us, why we, the staff of the museum still
continue to work in a place, where our work is not appraised
and understood properly , what makes you be there? Though
Savitsky had no special pedagogical principles, his own
deeds, his own examples can not make us betray his creation
- the museum.
Savitsky believed that one day our people will understand
the value of the museum. He also said: “Time will
come when people from Paris will be visiting the Nukus
museum”. This day has come and we feel great satisfaction,
hearing their impassioned appraisals.
Please continue reading at the source of this information
under http://webcenter.ru/~museum/igor.htm |
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