In a memoir, the museum’s longtime director takes the reader on a private tour of this global treasure. Holding one of the largest collections of Western art in the world, the Hermitage is also a product of Russia and its dramatic history. Founded by Empress Catherine the Great in 1764, the stunning Winter Palace was built to house her growing collection of Old Masters and to serve as a home for the imperial family. Tsars came and went over the years, artworks were acquired and sold, buildings were burned down in terrible fires, and still the collections grew. After the violent upheavals of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the palaces and collections were opened to the public. Now, in an unprecedented collection of illuminating essays, Piotrovsky explores the cultural history of a collection as rich in adventure as art. From fascinating intrigues to revelatory scholarship on the collection’s incredible art and artifacts, My Hermitage is a profound and captivating story of art’s timelessness and how it brings people together.
This exclusive volume - Hermitage, a Palace and a Museum - with dimensions of 48 x 40 cm, contains 200 pages, with approximately 15,000 words of text and an additional 102 colour plates. The volume was printed in Germany, in a state of the art offset printing facility with special Japanese inks. The large format 8 x 10 inch photographic plates by Ahmet Ertug were processed in the leading London photographic laboratories, in order to capture their best colour fidelity. The digital darkroom work and colour separation for the volume has been carried out using PrimeScan 16 bit drum scanners, Eizo high end monitors and specially calibrated proofing systems. The technical team, which has many years of collaboration with Ahmet Ertug, has devoted many hours to each image, and has utilised leading-edge technology in order to emphasise the full range of colour captured on each original film. The paper used in the volume is 250 gsm Scheufelen Phoenixmotion Xantur, an exceptional German paper with FSC Qualification (the mark of responsible forestry). The volume was hand-bound in Italy by master binder Ruggero Rigoldi. It is bound in an exceptional red silk and presented in a slipcase. A limited edition of 100 copies is also available, bound with exclusive hand-embossed leather and presented in a leather box. The Introduction is by the Director of The State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky. An essay by Michael Forsyth and Marion Harney describes the outstanding architecture of the Hermitage. A contribution by Geraldine Norman illustrates the highlights of the Hermitage Museum collection. The clarity of the photography by Ahmet Ertug displays the outstanding qualities of the Hermitage, making this book a collector's item."--Publisher's website
- First contemporary exhibition to be presented in the galleries of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg with Marc Quinn's works integrated amongst the Museum's 3,000-piece collection - Showcases existing works including Bread Sculptures (1988-1994), The Complete Marbles (1999-2005), and many more Marc Quinn is an internationally-celebrated British contemporary artist whose work includes sculpture, installation and painting. Quinn explores 'what it is to be human in the world today' and uses materials varying from blood, bread and flowers, to marble and stainless steel. In 2020 Quinn presents a major exhibition at The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg from 22 May to 23 August 2020 - the first contemporary exhibition to be presented in the galleries of the Winter Palace. This book accompanies the exhibition, and brings together around 70 works, including a number of new pieces created especially for the exhibition. Quinn's work uses the language of Classical sculpture to explore the fundamental subject of human existence, cultural perceptions of beauty and expressions of identity. Through interviews and essays, this publication discusses Marc Quinn's practice in the context of ancient and Classical sculpture, explore contemporary sculpture techniques and examine new charitable projects that engage with some of the most important issues of our times. Marc Quinn was born in 1964 in London, where he lives and works. He belongs to the Young British Artists group, which became famous in 1997 through the legendary Sensation exhibition of works from Charles Saatchi's collection. Quinn's pioneering sculpture was Self, a frozen sculpture of his head, made with 4.5 liters of his own blood, extracted over five months. In 2005 his statue of Alison Lapper, a woman born with no arms and severely shortened legs, attracted much attention. The 15-ton marble statue, exhibited from 2005 until 2007 on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, was extremely controversial. With his materials and techniques, Quinn - who studied history of art at Robinson College, Cambridge, in the early 1980s - challenges the boundaries between art and science. Besides using ice, glass, metal, marble and lead, he has experimented with flowers and plants frozen in silicon in order to conserve the beauty of their full bloom. Many of Quinn's works are in the vanitas tradition, showing clear, concrete references to classic works of art history. Text in English and Russian. Germano Celant (born 1940 in Genoa) is an Italian art historian, critic and curator who coined the term 'Arte Povera' (poor art) in 1967 and wrote many articles and books on the subject. Adam David Rutherford is a British geneticist, author and broadcaster. He was an audio-visual content editor for the journal Nature for a decade, and is a frequent contributor to The Guardian. Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday life'. Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky is the director of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. He is an author of over 250 works on art history. Natela Tetruashvili - Curator, Contemporary Art Department, State Hermitage Museum. Dimitri Ozerkov - Director, Contemporary Art Department, State Hermitage Museum.
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