MOSCOW — Irina A. Antonova, a commanding paintings historian who led the Pushkin State Museum of great Arts in Moscow for more than a half-century, used it to bring backyard way of life to remoted Soviet citizens and became it into an incredible cultural establishment, died on Nov. 30 in that city. She became 98.
The cause became heart failure advanced by a coronavirus infection, the museum noted.
Ms. Antonova recommended the museum throughout the rigid and isolationist cultural policies of the Soviet Union and into the period following the fall of Communism. In contemporary years she elevated the museum to adjacent buildings — every now and then angering their tenants — to accommodate mushrooming exhibitions.
From early on, Ms. Antonova used her inexhaustible energy to build connections with the area's leading museums. In 1974, she introduc ed the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in Paris. a whole bunch of hundreds of americans lined up to peer it, the only queues the Soviet govt turned into pleased with at the time. Many knew that with the country's borders shut, it should be would becould very well be the sole opportunity to peer that famous Leonardo da Vinci work all the way through their lifetimes.
She further opened the area to the Soviet americans with an exhibition of a hundred paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of artwork in big apple and the exhibition "Treasures of Tutankhamen."
On Ms. Antonova's watch, the Pushkin museum additionally exhibited summary and avant-garde works by Russian and international artists. That changed into frequently not possible in a country where an unofficial artwork reveal changed into once broken up with the aid of a bulldozer, and whose leader on the time, Nikita S. Khrushchev, whereas traveling an exhibiti on of latest Soviet artwork in 1962, shouted that some summary artwork had been made with a "donkey's tail" and that even his grandson might do more suitable.
In 1981, the museum hosted "Moscow-Paris, 1900-1930," a landmark exhibition that blended works by way of French artists like Matisse and Picasso with highlights of the Russian avant-garde of the time, together with works by way of Chagall, Malevich and Kandinsky. The exhibition confirmed how well Russian artists slot in with Western European developments, and how they'd from time to time helped form those developments.
because of her Bolshevik father, Ms. Antonova had a pedigree that made it less difficult for her to barter with Soviet cultural bureaucrats. using her attraction and wit, she become in a position to transform what became nonetheless mostly a group of plaster casts of noted statues right into a finished museum precious of a tremendous capital.
"We had been allowed to do things that were by no means allowed elsewhere," Ms. Antonova stated in a documentary film committed to the museum's 100th anniversary. "It was very easy to ban. They didn't even ought to do plenty, while we were nevertheless allowed to do anything."
After the crumple of the Soviet Union, she endured her quest of bringing Russia nearer to the outside world with exhibitions of works through Joseph Beuys and Alberto Giacometti, among others.
She additionally moved to discover art treasures that had been seized by the Soviet army in Germany during World warfare II and hidden in the museum's depositaries. Critics faulted her for relocating slowly and even for failing to renowned their existence. however Ms. Antonova argued that it will were inconceivable to act during the Soviet period.
In a message of condolence upon her demise, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia pointed out Ms. Antonova deserved knowledgeable and public acclaim, having "served Russian culture with notion" as a "dedicated expert, enthusiast and educator."
Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova turned into born in Moscow on March 20, 1922. Her father, Aleksandr A. Antonov, changed into an electrician who grew to become the pinnacle of a analysis institute; her mom, Ida M. Heifits, labored in a printing condominium.
Irina moved together with her family to Germany in 1929 when her father turned into sent to work at the Soviet Embassy. She lived there for 4 years, researching German and buying a style for European lifestyle.
right through the conflict, she knowledgeable as a nurse and cared for Soviet pilots, many of them severely injured, in Moscow hospitals.
She graduated from Moscow State college and become sent to work at the Pushkin museum presently earlier than the warfare ended. The museum changed into founded in 1912 by way of prosperous retailers; when she arrived, the constructing had no heating, and its glass roof had collapsed throughout bombings.
Olga L. Sviblova, a pal and director of the Multimedia art Museum in Moscow, noted in an interview that Ms. Antonova had brought to the museum "a deep conviction that way of life and artwork don't have any borders: temporary, geographical, countrywide."
"She defended these convictions under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, and right through the 30 years that she lived and labored in new Russia," Ms. Sviblova introduced.
In 1961, Ms. Antonova grew to become the first lady appointed director of the museum. She held that post unless 2013, when she changed into named its president a nd gave up daily administration to be aware of strategic construction. Her normal tenure in a lot of roles spanned 75 years.
all over the Soviet period, Ms. Antonova had been lucky to be allowed to go back and forth, however she observed that she sometimes cried when leaving a culturally rich Italian metropolis, realizing that it can be her ultimate time there.
In these years, at the side of the acclaimed Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter, Ms. Antonova started hosting a sequence of concert events interior the museum's expansive halls each December. The live shows, called December Evenings, stay one of the crucial most sought-after performances in Moscow.
Her husband, the artwork historian Yevsey I. Rotenberg, died in 2011. She is survived by means of her son, Boris.
She changed into succeeded as museum director with the aid of Marina D. Loshak , who said, "it is complicated to think about the Pushkin museum devoid of Irina Antonova."
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