Tula Museum of Fine Arts: address, museum collection

The ancient Russian city of Tula is famous not only for its gunsmiths and gingerbreads, which are famous all over the country, but also for longstanding artistic traditions originating from pre-revolutionary times, when in the 19th century a museum of fine arts was established in the city. As a result, many pictures of Polenov and Surikov, Shishkin and Serov are known to townspeople not by reproductions, but became part of their spiritual life.

Patriotic undertaking

In 1884, that is, in the reign of Emperor Alexander III - a convinced Slavophile and passionate devotee of the original way of Russia's development - on the initiative of the diocesan administration of Tula, a national museum was founded in the city, called the Drevleshranilishche. Later, already in 1902, this Slavic and somewhat archaic name was replaced by a more modern one, calling it the Chamber of Antiquities.

However, its essence remained the same. As before, works of art related to Russian history, and especially to the past of the Tula region, were acquired, became part of the museum collection and carefully studied by both local specialists and those arriving from Moscow for this purpose. Most of the exhibits collected at that time were donations from private collectors who wished to contribute to the overall patriotic endeavor.

From the newspapers of that time it is known that on Sundays and holidays for all comers, free access to the hall where the exposition was held, and about the extraordinary popularity that she enjoyed was opened. Soon the premises, which the foundation had, ceased to accommodate the collection that had expanded by that time, and in 1908 the city authorities built a special building for it in the Tula Kremlin .

Expropriation, replenished museum

The situation changed after the October coup, when the collection of the Chamber of Antiquities was nationalized, and she herself was transformed into the Tula Museum of Fine Arts. As we know, immediately after coming to power, the Bolsheviks carried out a large-scale expropriation of artistic (and all other) values that belonged to the representatives of the wealthy strata of society earlier. In the course of this campaign, many works of art from rich country estates added to the exposition of the museum.

Since the Bolsheviks did not distinguish between the works of domestic and foreign artists, and confiscated everything that the previous owners could not hide or take away abroad, soon the Tula Museum of Fine Arts, where pictures arrived, lost its former, narrowly national orientation. In his halls appeared canvases of such recognized Western European masters as Luca Giordano, Domenico Fetti, Frans Snyders and many others.

Transformations of the First Soviet Years

In 1918, to systematize all the works that entered the museum from suburban estates, the city department of public education created a commission, which included artists who arrived from Moscow and art historians. As a result of their work, catalogs of exhibits and their descriptions were compiled. For a detailed acquaintance with all works of art, the commission took a year, after which the museum halls were open to the general public.

In 1927, the Tula Museum of Fine Arts was renamed into the local history department, since a significant part of its exposition belonged to the local history department created under it. A year before that the museum was replenished with a collection of paintings from the exhibition hall of the local Art and Technical College. It was mainly the work of Tula artists, but there were exhibits transferred from the Tretyakov Gallery.

The further life of the museum

As a result of these and a number of other receipts, the number of exhibits has significantly expanded, and in 1939 it was decided to create two independent museums - local history and art. Thus, the Tula Museum of Fine Arts once again became an independent exhibition center.

In the future, the museum survived many difficult periods of its history, the main of which was the war and the associated evacuation to Siberia. It was not easy to return to the destroyed and only started to rebuild Tula. The museum did not have its own premises in those years, and it was placed in the city House of Officers, where he had to stay almost two decades.

Housewarming and subsequent expansion of the exposition

Only in 1964 for him was built a building at the address: Engels Street, 64. Since that time, his collection was largely replenished due to acquisitions received from private collections in Moscow, Leningrad and Tula itself. Suffice it to say that it included pictures of Polenov, Shishkin, Repin, Borovikovsky and other artists whose names are known all over the world. Due to the subsequent replenishment the list of these names has significantly expanded.

Among the masters, whose works are the pride of the museum, IK Aivazovsky takes a special place. The paintings of this outstanding seascapes painter constantly attract attention, and in the hall where they are exhibited, always crowded.

Association of Tula Museums

In 1995, the entire exhibition complex entered the newly created association of the Tula Museum of Fine Arts. Tula is a city of old artistic traditions, and interest in art has never faded, so the abundance of museums and art galleries is quite natural. The problem was only to find ways to best organize their work.

To this end, five of them were solved, including the one that is located at: Engels Street, 64 (about which our story goes) - to unite together. As a result, the total exposition area of the complex was ten thousand square meters, which allowed on its territory, in addition to permanent exhibitions, to demonstrate also works coming here from the funds of numerous museums of the country and private collections.

Regional museum of federal significance

In 2013, the museum received a new name. From that time it became known as the Tula Regional Art Museum. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he rightly entered the list of the largest exhibition complexes in Russia. Today, its collection comprises more than twenty-three thousand exhibits, including works of painting, sculpture, arts and crafts and folk crafts.

Exhibition catalogs of the museum are decorated with names of many domestic artists such as Levitan, Korovin, Tropinin and Aivazovsky. The paintings of these artists are frequent guests of exhibitions organized by the world's leading museums. Great value is also the collection of Western European painting, which includes creations of recognized geniuses of Italy, France, the Netherlands and many other countries.

Educational activity of the museum

The museum's activities are not limited to the organization of exhibitions. Its employees conduct a large scientific and, what is very important, educational work. On the basis of the material shot in the museum halls, several thematic programs were broadcasted on the "Culture" TV channel and a number of others providing airtime for the propaganda of the aesthetic education of Russians.

In addition, on the shelves of the country's bookstores, you can see a lot of publications containing reproductions of pictorial and graphic works stored in the museum's funds, as well as articles of leading Russian art historians dedicated to them.