Description

For the exhibition Matisse to Malevich. Pioneers of modern art from the Hermitage some 75 paintings have been selected from one of the world's finest collections of French painting from the early twentieth century: that of the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Matisse, Picasso and Derain receive special attention, as do Fauvists like Van Dongen and De Vlaminck and their outstanding works in this collection. Its origins go back to the Moscow collectors Ivan Morozov and above all Sergei Shchukin. Their collecting policy is the subject of an article in the catalogue. Another article focuses on the well-known Russian artists of that period, Kandinsky and Malevich. This is the first time that all these avant-garde masterpieces will be shown in the Netherlands. The exhibition and the catalogue chart the origins of Modernism as an art-historical movement, and the artists' inspiration when they initiated a revolution in art at the beginning of the last century. They may be regarded as pioneers of modern art.