To the 100th anniversary of Irina Antonova

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the legendary Russian museum figure Irina Antonova (20.03.1922 — 30.11.2020), who worked at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts for 75 years, 52 years of which as its director. The development of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts under the leadership of Irina Antonova is seen by the author of this article as part of the evolution of museum work in the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. The article emphasizes that the Pushkin Museum was often ahead of its time, laying the groundwork for major changes. For example, with the opening of the Museum of Private Collections as part of the State Museum of Fine Arts, the rehabilitation of private collecting in the country took place. The December Nights festival created by Irina Antonova in collaboration with the brilliant pianist Svyatoslav Richter in 1981 became a matrix of art festivals that took place in various museums of the country during the following decades. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts was charged with promoting Western art in the USSR, of which it brilliantly took the advantage when started displaying works by Picasso, Matisse, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, masterpieces of drawing from the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Western European and American paintings from American museums and others famous exhibitions. This is the visible part of Irina Antonova’s dynamic activity. She approached academic work no less thoroughly, as well as the organization of study and cataloguing of the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts. And, of course, much credit must go to Irina Antonova for preparing the program for the development and reconstruction of the Pushkin Museum, which has been repeatedly revised and is being finalized before our very eyes under the direction of Marina Loshak.