Central Moscow hotels are also available through our online booking engine. To learn more browse our site dedicated to Central Moscow hotels

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts has one of the most representative collection in Russia of foreign art dated from ancient times to modern days. The exposition of the Museum includes today a vast collection of tinted plaster casts of famous ancient, medieval and Renaissance sculptures and a collection of original works of foreign artists, sculptors and graphics together with objects of decorative arts

The rooms of the ground floor present mainly the original works: works of art of Ancient Egypt, antiquities, European paintings of the VII-XVIII centuries; two halls — Italian and Greek courtyards are housing casts. On the first floor there are rooms with casts of Ancient Greece, Rome, Middle Ages and Renaissance. The rooms of painting acquaint the public with the art of the XIXth and XXth centuries.

The solemn ceremony of stone laying of the Museum took place on August 17, 1898 in the presence of the Emperor Nikolas II and members of the royal family. The Museum was opened on May 31, 1912 as a Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III under the University of Moscow. On May 31, 1923 ceased its subordination to the University. In 1932 was named The State Museum of Fine Arts, in 1937 was named in honour of Alexander Pushkin the great Russian poet. The founder of the Museum and its first Director (1911-1918) was Prof. Ivan Tsvetaev, the head of the Department of Theory and History of Art at the Moscow University, Ph.D. of Roman Arts and Letters.

The Museum has been created on the basis of the Cabinet (museum) of Fine Arts and Antiquities of the Moscow University as an educational and public institution where the most important periods of art history from the ancient times to the New Age have been represented: in plaster casts, maquettes, pictorial and galvanic copies, in accordance with the unique scientific program. The Museum became the first institution of this type in Russia. The ideas of founding a Museum of this type in Moscow have been expressed many times in the past: by princess Zinaida Volkonskaja and S.P.Shevyrev (1831), by Prof. K.K.Gerz (1858) by N.V.Issakov, director of the Moscow Public and Rumiantsev Museum (1864). The Tsvetaev's conception has developed the basic ideas of his predecessors.

The Museum has been constructed in the centre of the city on the territory of the former Carriage court (Kolymazni) not far from the Kremlin and turned by the Moscow Duma to the University for this purpose in 1895-1898. In 1896 a competition for the best project of the Museum building was announced that attracted 19 architects from a number of cities of Russia. The Board of the University has chosen Roman.J.Klein (1858-1924) a Moscow architect, a competition participant awarded a golden medal. He adopted his final project to the demands of the Board and the Committee on the Construction of the Museum of Fine Arts attached to the Moscow University. The construction of the building answered the latest achievements of the techniques and museum requirements. It has been conceived in the style of an ancient classical temple on the high podium with the Ionic colonnade along the facade. Its splendid interior was executed in the architectural styles of different historical periods corresponding to various collections. Well-know Russian engineers I.I.Rerberg and V.G.Shukhov participated in the construction of the building.

The Museum was created mainly with the financial support of the members-founders of the Committee and other donors whose number exceeded 40 people. A.E.Armand, N.P.Bogolepov, S.Mamontov, A.D.Mein, S.T.Morozov, F.O.Shekhtel, A.A. and N.S.Scherbatovs, D.A.Khomjakov, Z.N. and F.F.Yusupovs were among them. Y.S.Netchaev-Maltsov (1834-193) the associate-Chairman of the Committee, an important industrialist, a graduate of the Moscow University, owner of the Gus-Chrustalni glass manufacture, contributed to the construction and acquisition of the collections about 2 million rubles (one third of the total cost of the Museum).

The Chairman of the Committee was the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (1857-1905) whose active participation and great interest for the construction of the Museum gave the project particular significance and won popularity among the Moscow nobility and high bureaucratic circles.

The building was raised in 1904. Ivan Tsvetaev has invited many Russian scolars to participate in the works: D.V.Ainalov, N.P.Kondakov, V.K.Malmberg, B.A.Turaev, artists: V.M.Vasnetsov, V.D.Polenov, A.Y.Golovin, I.I.Nivinski. Plaster casts and other copies were commissioned in 1890-1911 from the originals at workshops abroad. Some of them were copied for the first time. The unique collection of Egyptian antiquities (over 6 thousand objects) became a jam of the Museum's collection. Acquired by the Russian Egyptologist V.S.Golenischev this world renowned collection was purchased by the State and passed to the Museum in 1909-1911. The collection of the Museum contained at its start other valuable original works of art as well: Italian paintings and objects of decorative art of XIII-XV centuries formerly owned by M.S.Tschekin etc.

Òhe Solemn ceremony of the inauguration of the Museum of Fine Arts named after Alexander III took place on May 31, 1912.

In April 1923 the People's Commissariat on Education adopted a resolution on re-organising the University Museum of Fine Arts by setting up in Moscow a Central Museum of old Western art on the basis of Western European collection of the Moscow Public and Rumjantsev Museum. In 1924 the Museum has adopted paintings from private collections of G.A.Brokard, D.J.Shchukin, from the State Museum fund and a few from Museums of Leningrad. Research work on the collection and organisation carried out by the Museum's staff and its Director N.J.Romanov were unprecedented in scope. On November 10 1924 its first galleries were opened.

In the period from 1924 to 1930 a great number of paintings of Western European masters were turned to the Museum from the nationalised Moscow estates, from the History Museum, Icon Museum, Kremlin Museums, Tretiakov Gallery. Several groups of paintings have been received from the Hermitage and the Museum fund of Leningrad. As a result a nucleus of the Picture Gallery of old Western Art has been formed at the Museum. Over one thousand of cuneiform plates and about 3 thousand of other monuments of Ancient East from the former Institute of Classical Oriental studies became part of oriental collection of the Museum.

In 1941-44 the greater part of the Museum funds were evacuated to Novosibirsk and Solikamsk. In 1944 reconstruction of the Museum's building that suffered from the bombing has started. And work on the exposition commenced under the guidance of its Director Sculptor S.D.Merkurov, the deputy Director Prof. B.R.Wipper and the Head Curator A.A.Gouber. Aquisition work and educational activities have been renewed, as have archeological excavations held by the Museum's stuff in Crimea and Taman since 1927.

In 1948 when the Museum of Modern Western Art was closed and its collection was divided between Moscow and Leningrad the Museum has acquired 300 paintings and over 60 sculptures of Western-European and American masters of the second half of the XIX and the early XX centuries, mainly the works of French Impressionists and postimpressionists from the collections of two Moscow collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, a large selection of graphic art and their archive. This acquisition changed the Museum of Fine Arts' orientation completely having extended the parameters of the collection chronologically right up to the present time and bringing the Museum a new fame.

From 1949 to 1953 the exposition of the Museum has been curtailed. The complete building was occupied by the huge "Exposition of Gifts to Joseph Stalin from the peoples of the USSR and foreign countries".

The beginning of post Stalin era in the Museum was marked with the demonstration in 1955 of masterpieces from the Dresden Picture Gallery, saved by Soviet solders from annihilation in the Second World War and fully restored by the Pushkin Museum's experts. From this moment the scope of the exhibition activity of the Museum has been extended. During the Museum's time of existence over 700 exhibitions have been held showing both works from its reserves and from collections of foreign Museums.

In 1983 at the initiative of a Soviet collector, Ph.D. in art history Dr. Ilya S.Zillberstein and Museum's Director Irina A.Antonova a Department of Private Collections was set up, housed in a specially reconstructed and equipped building of the XVIII-XIX centuries next to the main building of the Museum (Opened on January 24, 1994).

In 1996 Educational Art Museum was organised, as a new Department of the Pushkin Museum situated in the premises of the Russian State Humanity University (RGGU) on Chayanova street (Opened on May 30, 1997). Plaster casts that have not been in the main exposition of the Pushkin Museum and some duplicate sculptures formed the exposition of the new Department.

At present the collection of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts constitutes more then 500.000 works of art — paintings and sculptures, graphic art, decorative art, archaeological monuments and numismatic items, photography.

Documents on the history of the Museum, scientific and epistolary heritage of its founders, other museum's prominent individuals and important arthistorians and artists are kept there. Archives of some other museums whose collections have been passed to the Pushkin Museum are preserved as well.

In 1991 the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts acquired a status of the "Institution of particularly valuable cultural heritage of the Russian Federation".

The Pushkin Museum has initiated various forms of educational activities for children.

The Museum is publishing on the basis of its collection research almanachs, catalogues of the collection and exhibitions, guide books, albums, series of pamphlets "To assist school education" etc.

Since 1981 on the initiative and with participation of the great musician Svyatoslav Richter the Museum has been yearly holding the international music festival "December Nights".

The Museum has its own restoration workshops and a research library.

12, Volkhonka ul.
Tel. (095) 203-95-78, 203-79-98, 203-74-12
www.museum.ru/gmii
Finearts@gmii.museum.ru
Nearest metro station: Kropotkinskaya

Open: 10:00-18:00
Closed: Mondays

For foreigners 100-300R

Discounts at all of our hotels in Moscow. hotel Moscow discounts equal up to 50% off rack rates