Soviets Invade United States!

Monday, May 9th, 2005, marked the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2. In Russia tens of millions of people celebrated the smashing of Hitler’s regime while simultaneously honoring the Soviet Red Army and the role it played in the decisive battles against fascism. Nearly 27 million Soviet citizens perished in the war against the Nazis. May 9th, 2005, also marks another historic day, although one not quite so earth shattering - it’s the date The Museum of Russian Art (TMORA) opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Dedicated to the exhibition and preservation of art created during the Soviet era, TMORA houses Soviet art dating from 1921 to 1991. The first exhibition to be presented is In the Russian Tradition, a historic collection of 20th century Russian paintings from TMORA’s own collection, as well as 50 paintings on loan from Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery. The loaned works were created by 46 exemplary Soviet artists working in the realist tradition. Because of the Cold War and America’s shrill anti-communism, Soviet artists are little known in the US, but their works have all the vibrancy, energy and mastery of French Impressionism. The president and director of TMORA, Bradford Shinkle IV, put it this way. "Due to the political isolation of the Soviet Union during the Cold War years, the world outside Russia is just beginning to discover the quality of the art created in the country during this time period." He went on to say that "The paintings represent a different view of art that many Americans are not familiar with. Yeah they're familiar with the strident propaganda pieces, they're familiar with the poster art, but they're not aware of - because they just haven't had any opportunity to view - the fine visual art that was produced over years of Russian history."

Featured in TMORA’s inaugural exhibition is the famous painting The Bathing of the Red Horse, by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. The magnificent painting was created just prior to the 1917 October revolution, and many see the piece as a prophetic work that foretold of the upheavals that would topple the Czar and establish the world’s first communist state. Petrov-Vodkin’s painting, on loan from the Tretyakov, depicts a young man astride an enormous muscular red horse standing in a churning river - a powerful metaphor for revolution. TMORA was founded in 2002 by art dealer Raymond E. Johnson, and the original museum operated in an out of the way facility in Bloomington, Minn. However, the decision was made to relocate to a more accessible and larger exhibition space, a move which began in January of 2005. Johnson started the museum because he found that others were lining up to borrow from his extensive collection of Soviet-era realist art. Shinkle said this of the TMORA collection "If you think you know something about Russian art, you might want to come by and challenge yourself to see if your dispositions and paradigms fit what visitors will see on the wall. Because I think they'll change."

While I haven’t as yet seen the TMORA collection in person, I can’t criticize Shinkle’s high appraisal of Soviet painting. I’ve seen such works before and can attest to their excellence. In November of 2003 I attended an exhibit at the Soicher Marin Gallery in Southern California, called Sixty Years of Russian Impressionism and Soviet Realism. The paintings were awe-inspiring, colorful and jewel like representations of life in Soviet Russia, and I was amazed at how little they resembled the stereotypical “socialist realism” mocked by US art critics and cold warriors. All politics aside… while America’s artists turned to abstract expressionism in the 1950’s, tossing out all the rules and conventions of painting, the Soviet Union's working class Impressionists continued to build upon painting’s time honored traditions of skill, craft and narrative realism. Any US artist or art aficionado interested in realistic painting would benefit greatly by studying the works of Soviet painters, and TMORA affords the American public the perfect opportunity to do so.

The Museum of Russian Art is housed in a converted 1940’s Spanish colonial style church (no irony there - a church being turned into a museum of Soviet art!), with enough wall space to display more than 200 paintings. The museum also includes a seminar hall that can seat 200 for lectures and educational programs, plus a gift shop. TMORA is located at 5500 Stevens Ave South, Minneapolis, MN. 55419. Phone 612-821-9045. To find out more about the museum, or to view its online gallery of paintings, visit: www.tmora.org