LUKOIL PROMOTES COOPERATION WITH TRETYAKOV GALLERY

Thursday, October 14, 2010

A jubilee exhibition dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Isaak Ilyich Levitan, a distinguished landscape-painter, opened today with LUKOIL’s support at the State Tretyakov Gallery. The exposition comprises about 300 paintings, sketches, pastels, water-colors and drawings from 17 Russian museums and Moscow's private collections, as well as from two foreign collections. The gem of the exposition is the famous canvas “Golden Autumn”, restored with the Company’s financial support.

The exposition comprises not only Levitan’s best paintings, but also a number of his lesser-known paintings which were overlooked by spectators and experts. For instance, Levitan’s heritage in graphics (prints, pencil drawings, and water-colors) will be displayed for the first time. The exposition will be complemented by archival materials: I. Levitan’s letters to P.М. Tretyakov, V.D. Polenov, V.М. Vasnetsov and I.S. Ostroukhov, as well as photographs. The exhibition will be open from October 15, 2010 to March 20, 2011.

LUKOIL and the Gallery are partners of long standing. For the Gallery’s 150th anniversary, the Company presented it with a bas-relief of Mikhail Kozlovsky, a famous Russian painter and sculptor. The Company also sponsored the restoration of several paintings: “The Portrait of General Vasily Perovsky” by Karl Brullov, “The Judgment of Sanhedrin: He is Guilty!” by Nikolay Ge and “A Fair by the Arkhangelsk Quay” by Konstantin Korovin. In 2008 and 2009, the Tretyakov Gallery and the Company organized exhibitions by Russian painters in Finland.