New exhibition "Faces of War" in Underground Museum: first online

The exhibition shows how three generations of Moscow artists, actors, poets saw one of the main tragedies of the twentieth century.

The first section of the exhibition is dedicated to students of the legendary Moscow secondary art school for gifted children, which was opened in 1939. The school brought together talented students from all over the country. In the summer of 1941, instead of holidays, an evacuation awaited them. Someone would return to Moscow workshops, finish their studies and make up the glory of Soviet art. Others would go to the front, having left student sketches in the school archives — evidence of talent that was destined never to be revealed.

The exposition includes the works of students: Geliy Korzhev, Viktor Ivanov, Lucian Shitov, Oleg Savostyuk and others. They painted city streets, as well as portraits of civilians and soldiers.

The second section of the exhibition presents a modern view of the military events of those who did not participate in the war themselves, but for whom it became family and global history. Actors of Dmitry Brusnikin’s workshop Kirill Odoevsky, Andrey Gordin and Eva Milgram will read poems about the Great Patriotic War: “The City Retreats in a Night Dream” by Dmitry Melnikov, “Grandfather” by Pavel Velikzhanin, “Bless Heroes of the Great Country,” by Ah Astakhova and others.

The center of the exposition are three paintings by the Soviet and Russian artist, the outstanding master of the “severe style” Igor Obrosov: Moscow. Seeing off the echelons (2001), dedicated to people escorting soldiers to the front on the platform, work 1941. Evacuation (2001), which depicts people who moved from their home to an unknown village during the war and evacuation, and Frontiers outside Moscow (2001), the painting is dedicated to the defense of the capital in 1941-1942.