OREANDA-NEWS. October 27, 2010. An exhibition titled “Masterpieces of the European Graphics from the Collection of V.N. and N.V. Basnin” opened in Moscow today at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition, organized with the support of LUKOIL, continues the series “Collections and Collectors” dedicated to the history of artwork collection in Russia. It is part of a range of large-scale projects by the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts dedicated to studies of private collections.

The collection of engravings, drawings and books of Vasily Nikolaevich and Nikolay Vasilyevich Basnin stored in the reserve stocks of the graphics section at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is the core of the exposition. In total, more than 250 engravings and drawings by European and Russian painters, as well as unique books, will be exhibited. In addition, visitors will see artwork, furniture and archive recordings that belonged to the collectors’ family. The exposition will include works that are considered the absolute pride of the European schools of painting. The exhibition will be on till January 16, 2011 at the Section of Private Collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

LUKOIL and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts are partners of long standing. Previously, the Company acquired and donated to the museum the piece “Evening Cafe” by the Spanish impressionist Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa and a multi-volume catalog of West European graphic arts. With the Company’s financial support, restoration work at the Art Gallery of the European and American Countries of the 19th and 20th centuries was performed and another unique project was implemented, i.e., restoration of the ceramic bath-tub, a relic of ancient culture, discovered in the 1980s in the Crimea. Also, Russia’s only numismatics information resource was established. Moreover, two exhibitions were recently arranged: “Great Russian Victories in Medals and Engravings: the 300th Anniversary of the Battle of Poltava” and “The Familiar Unknown”. LUKOIL also participated in establishing a Center of Aesthetic Education for Children and Youth under the auspices of the museum.