The Savitsky Collection- Nukus
Nukus is the capital of Karakalpakstan a State …. sort of a country, an Autonomous Region of Uzbekistan. It is a long way from anywhere. Especially anywhere you would expect to find the World’s best collection of Russian Avant-garde Art.
It was collected by Savitsky in a James Bond undertaking of sleuth and daredevil.
It is priceless or worth at least a billion $ according to what I can find online.
Having visited it, I can say it is breath taking in its beauty. What was on display was stunning. Uzbekistan is worth visiting just to gaze at this collection, although I do use it as a kind of appetizer for what is to follow.
Uzbekistan is a place of great beauty, so many visual delights 😍
“So how did this priceless collection end up there? It got there thanks to Russian artist Igor Savitsky, who came to the region in 1950 on an archaeological expedition from Moscow and decided to settle there.
An educated and cultured man, Savitsky became director of the Nukus Museum in 1966 and made it his mission to find forbidden Russian avant-garde works that have been lost.
It was a difficult task. Artists who did not conform to the communist-approved ideals of socialist realism were purged—facing imprisonment and even death. Many fled Russia and settled on the fringes of the Soviet Union.
Savitsky travelled to Uzbek and Russian cities where family members of banned artists kept paintings stashed away in basements and attics. Because the risk of being caught with forbidden art was so great, in some cases masterpieces were nearly discarded.
Savitsky saved works by Russian masters such as Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall. Without his intervention, they would have almost certainly been lost, irreparably damaged, or even destroyed.
“He brought back full railroad wagons,” Valentina Sycheva, the museum’s chief curator, told Al Jazeera.” Quote from ArtNews.net
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