Natalia Polenova (born July 12, 1975, Moscow) is a Russian museum expert and the director of the State Memorial of History, Art and Natural Museum Reserve - Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov since 2011. She is an expert on Russian painting from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a specialist of French culture and a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM Russia). In 2018, she was awarded the title of Honoured Functionary of Culture of the Russian Federation in Tula. [1]
Natalia Polenova is the great grand-daughter of the Russian realist artist Vasily Polenov, member of the Itinerants (Peredvizhniki movement), and the great grand-niece of Elena Polenova, watercolorist and illustrator. [2] Following in her parents' footsteps, Fiodor Polenov and Natalya Gramolina, and in that of her grandparents before them, Natalya Polenova takes over the management of the museum POLENOVO (usual name of the State Memorial of History, Art and Natural Museum Reserve Vasily Dmitrievitch Polenov) in 2011. She thus carries on the legacy of the founder artist [3] and of the family traditions. [4] She is married to the Russian poet Yuri Kublanovsky, [5] who lived as a political exile for numerous years in France and who was awarded with the literary prize Soljenitsyne in 2003. [6] She is mother of two children.
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Polenova studied at the Faculty of Sociology at the Moscow State University|Lomonosov Moscow State University. She graduated in 1998 with a specialization in Public Relations. In addition to this, she took a course at the Gelos Auction House, an association specializing in antiquities, entitled "'Certification, identification and restoration" (1999). Subsequently she studied with the auction house Christie's on "European Art Market and History of the French Art" (Paris, 2006-2007), earned a Master in Museology at the École du Louvre (Paris, 2007-2010). [7] Between 2010 and 2014, while working on her thesis, [8] she continued her academic expertise at INSEAD with the "Team Management" course.
Besides Russian, her mother tongue, Natalya Polenova perfectly masters French.
Since 2000, she works as consultant and art critic, as well as writes articles for Russian press and art magazines, including the newspaper The Art Newspaper Russia and also Музей (Museum), Интерьер+дизайн (Interior+design), Антиквариат (Antiques), etc.
In 2010, in the context of the crossed year France-Russia, she takes part in the organisation of French-Russian programs, including the project "Russian artists and French publishing houses - end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century art the Salon Livre Paris. She works on the catalog of the eponym exhibition held at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris. She also takes part in the organisation of the festival Étonnants Voyageurs in Saint-Malo.
Since her official appointment as the director of the museum-house Polenovo after her mother in 2011, Natalya Polenova shows a vivid interest in perpetuating family traditions, while seeking to establish international partnerships in order to transmit Vasily Polenov's legacy beyond Russian borders. [9] [10]
She is committed to the protection and preservation of the collections and of the domain's atmosphere, and has stimulated research and creation activities. [7]
Natalya Polenova called herself a “curator and a cultural promoter”, [11] always trying to match “innovation and tradition, modernity and the pre-revolutionary culture”. [12] Her main goal is to transform the House Museum into “a powerful cultural and educational center, catching up with European institutions”.
As the director of the Polenova Museum, Natalya Polenova develops its international activity, while also leaning on the Association Vassily Polenov PRÉSENTATION DE L’ASSOCIATION, created in Paris in 2007.
In 2012, under the direction of Polenova, the program of international creative residences in Polenovo was launched under the name A-I-R (standing for Artists In Residence), [13] which welcomes every year painters, [14] poets, writers or philosophers, [15] with the aim to support them in their creative work. [16]
In 2013, the museum signed a cooperation agreement with the George Watts Gallery (Guildford, UK). [17] From this partnership born out the first monographic exhibition of Elena Polenova in a foreign country. [18]
In 2014, in the context of the crossed year Great Britain/Russia, Natalya Polenova organises a series of conferences on the movement "Arts and Craft at the end of the XIXth century", notably at the department of Art History of Cambridge University and at the Courtauld Institute of Art. [19]
In 2015, she involves herself in the creation of the international network of the house-museums The Artist's Studio Museum Network, and actively contributes to its expansion by encouraging several Russian museums to take part in. The same year, a partnership was settled with the mayor's office of the town of Veules-les-Roses [20] (Normandy, France) resulting in the opening in July 2015 of a Square named after Vasily Polenov in this town.
Another important event was the unveiling, on 6 October 2018, in Paris, at Montmartre, 31 rue Véron, of a commemorative plaque to honour Russian painters of the itinerant movement, Vasily Polenov and Ilya Repin. [21] [22] [23] [24]
Since 2016, on the 21st of every year, she organises the "Fête de la Musique" (Feast of Music) in Polenovo.
She also initiates the tradition of international artistic festivals taking place on the domain. The first edition, in 2016, was dedicated to the Francophonie, [25] [26] [27] in the context of the Cross Russian-French Cultural Year. [28] In 2017, many artists are reunited around the topic of the Holy Land [29] and in 2018, on that of Italy. [30] In 2019, the festival is dedicated to the topic of music in the works of Vasily Polenov, in order to commemorate the 175th artist's birthday. [31]
In 2018 and 2019, Natalya Polenova organises exhibitions on the history of the Polenovo domain during the stalinist era, with the historian Gabriel Superfin. Realised on the domain, these exhibitions are entitled 37/101. A new edition is planned for autumn 2020.
Natalya Polenova produced the following documentaries:
After the premieres on the Russian TV channel Culture, [33] [34] several projections are organised in the United-States, in Great-Britain, in Israel, in France, in Germany.
In 2019, in the context of the celebrations of Vasily Polenov's 175th birthday, the museum lends 80 artworks for a great retrospective exhibition "Polenov", curated at the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow from 17 October 2019 to 16 February 2020. [35]
From the beginning of the quarantine caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Natalya Polenova launches the project polenovostream, an online channel offering short videos on curious objects preserved in the museum. [36]
Natalya Polenova directed the publication or contributed to the publication of the following works:
Natalya Polenova wrote essays on the cultural life of her country and of foreign countries, as well as publishes interviews of illustrious people from the art world:
Peredvizhniki, often called The Wanderers or The Itinerants in English, were a group of Russian realist artists who formed an artists' cooperative in protest of academic restrictions; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions, in short Peredvizhniks, in 1870.
Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists. His contemporaries would call him the “Knight of Beauty” as he embodied both European and Russian traditions of painting. His vision of life was summarized as following: “Art should promote happiness and joy”. As a painter and a humanist, he would truly believe in the civilizing mission of Art, Culture and Education.
Emily Shanks, also known as Emiliya Yakovlevna Shanks, was a British painter living in Moscow. She was the first woman to be elected to the Russian Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions or Peredvizhniki.
Maria Vasilievna Yakunchikova-Weber was a Russian painter and graphic artist.
Yelena Dmitrievna Polenova was a Russian painter and graphic artist in the Art Nouveau style. She was one of the first illustrators of children's books in the Russian Empire. Her brother was the landscape painter Vasily Polenov.
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Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky was a Russian and Soviet genre, romantic, and impressionist artist who was an active participant in the Peredvizhniki (Itinerant) Movement.
Igor Vladimirovich Mukhin, also known as Igor Vladimirovich Moukhin, is a Russian photographer. He was a member of the In-Public street photography collective.
Polenovo is the Museum Estate of Vasily Polenov. It is situated at the high right bank of the Oka river in Zaoksky District of the Tula Region, Russia. The estate was acquired by Polenov in 1891. The white three-storied house was designed by Polenov himself. It was built in 1892.
Natalya Andrianovna Lisenko, also known as Nathalie Lissenko, was a Russian actress who was active during the silent era.
Igor Alekseevich Novikov, also Igor Alexejewitsch Nowikow, (Russian): Новиков, Игорь Алексеевич is a Swiss-Russian painter, art theorist, philosopher, artist and member of the Russian Academy of Arts. Igor Novikov belongs to one of the areas of postmodern art, Sots Art. He belongs to the generation of Moscovian Soviet Nonconformist Art painters who have been shaped by the demise of the Soviet Union.
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Moscow Courtyard is a landscape painting by the Russian artist Vasily Polenov (1844–1927), completed in 1878. It belongs to the State Tretyakov Gallery. Its dimensions are 64.5 × 80.1 cm. Together with two other works by Polenov from the late 1870s: the paintings Grandmother's Garden and Overgrown Pond, the canvas Moscow Courtyard has been attributed to "a kind of lyrical and philosophical trilogy of the artist".
Overgrown Pond is a landscape painting by Russian painter Vasily Polenov (1844–1927), completed in 1879. The painting, which measures 80 × 124.7 cm, is part of the State Tretyakov Gallery's collection in Moscow.
Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery is a large-format painting by the Russian artist Vasily Polenov (1844–1927), dated 1888. The painting is in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg. Measuring 325 × 611 cm, it depicts the story of Christ and the woman taken in adultery, described in the Gospel of John.
All in the Past is a painting by Russian artist Vassily Maximov (1844-1911), completed in 1889. It belongs to the State Tretyakov Gallery. The size of the canvas is 72×93.5 cm. The painting depicts two elderly women: a lady and her maid, sitting on the wing's threshold of an outhouse on a sunny spring day. In the background, the main building of the estate is in a neglected state, with boarded up windows.
Christ and Sinner is a large-format painting by the Polish and Russian painter-academist Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902). It was completed in 1873 and is currently held in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. The dimensions of the painting are 250 × 499 cm.
Grandma's Fairy Tales is a painting by Russian artist Vassily Maximov, completed in 1867. It is held in the State Tretyakov Gallery. The dimensions of the canvas are 67 × 92 cm. The painting depicts a large peasant family gathered in a village hut on a winter's evening, illuminated by the glow of a luchina, as adults and children listen with rapt attention to a fairy tale being told by their grandmother.
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