The KhNRTS is the oldest restoration institution in Russia, created on June 10, 1918 as a scientific and administrative center designed to manage all restoration work in the country. The initiator of the creation of the Commission for the Preservation and Disclosure of Monuments of Ancient Painting (as the center was originally called), as well as the creation of a national restoration school, was Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar, a famous art critic and art historian, author and editor of many fundamental publications, and a talented artist.
The commission began its activities with the examination of frescoes of monuments in the Kremlin and Moscow and the restoration of ancient Russian paintings from the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kremlin. The experience of the first three years of restoration activities was summarized at the First All-Russian Restoration Conference, which was held on April 12–14, 1921 and approved the principles of restoration of all types of artistic monuments - architecture, sculpture, painting, applied art.
In 1924, due to the expansion of the scope of work, the commission was transformed into the Central State Restoration Workshops, which were technically well equipped and brought together first-class master restorers and famous experts in the field of Russian and European art. During these years, the most ancient icons were uncovered and restored: “Our Lady of Vladimir” (XII century), “Savior of the Golden Hair” (beginning of the XIII century), “Savior Not Made by Hands”, icons written by Andrei Rublev, frescoes of Theophanes the Greek and a whole series of most valuable icons, included in the exhibitions of the country's largest museums.
In the process of work, scientific principles for the restoration of works of art were intensively developed, which found vivid expression in the works of Igor Grabar, the scientific director of the workshops. The methods he proposed to reveal works from later layers and the principles of careful treatment of the original author's structure of the work became fundamental in the creation of the domestic school of scientific restoration.
Large restoration exhibitions were successfully held in Moscow in 1918, 1920, 1927 and abroad: for example, the exhibition “Monuments of Ancient Painting. Russian icons of the 13th–18th centuries” was held in 1929–1932 in cities of Germany, England, Austria and the USA. Many foreign experts came to get acquainted with the work of the workshop restorers.
But the fateful 1930s came - the years of destruction of the national heritage, when it was considered inappropriate to protect all cultural heritage. “Romanov trash”, church values began to be considered harmful to the ideological education of the masses. The most active advocates for the preservation of the most valuable monuments of Russian culture, Alexander Anisimov and Yuri Olsufiev, were repressed and died; Nikolai Pomerantsev, Pyotr Baranovsky and Nikolai Sychev were exiled. For the same reason, in the summer of 1934, the workshops were disbanded, and the main functions of restoration, registration and protection of monuments were distributed between the leading central museums of Moscow and Leningrad. The painting section, scientific department and photo library of the workshops were transferred to the premises of the Tretyakov Gallery and practically continued to function as the central body for the restoration of works of art. Former workshop employees successfully carried out expeditionary activities to identify and protect monuments not only in Russia, but also abroad - in Kyiv, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kerch and other places, took emergency measures to maintain unique frescoes in Novgorod, Vladimir, Aleksandrovskaya settlement
By order of the Council of People's Commissars, the workshops' activities were resumed in the fall of 1944. General scientific leadership is entrusted to academician Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar, and Vera Nikolaevna Krylova is appointed director, who spent a lot of effort to gather restorers - former workshop employees. The main task of the workshops during this period was to carry out restoration work on domestic monuments damaged during the Great Patriotic War. Along with this, paintings and graphic works from the collection of the Dresden Art Gallery, as well as museums in Berlin, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria were restored. In 1966, restoration artists actively participated in the revival of world-famous art monuments that were damaged during the flood in Florence.
Since 1960, the workshops began to bear the name of the founder - I.E. Grabar, and in 1974 they transformed into the All-Russian Art Scientific and Restoration Center.
The center's restorers provide high-quality, highly professional work, using a wide range of different restoration methods and techniques, carefully and comprehensively conducting pre-restoration research of works, introducing into practice the results of the latest achievements of science and technology.
Practical and research experience is regularly summarized in scientific publications, methodological recommendations, manuals, catalogs, albums published by the center, and is also used during internships. Every year, VKHNRTS trains restoration artists of museums, universities, archives, and libraries. Almost all museums in Russia, as well as the Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia and Kazakhstan employ specialists who were once trained within the walls of the center, or their students. Trainees from Italy, the USA, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Holland studied restoration skills. The center's archive stores unique material - thousands of passports of returned and rescued works, historical and cultural monuments, containing a detailed description of the research and activities carried out, photographic materials documenting the progress of restoration.
Art experts from the All-Russian Artistic Research Center enjoy well-deserved authority. They conduct scientific and technical examination of monuments of Russian and foreign art for the purchasing commission of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, museums, collectors and private citizens. In the process of comprehensive research, the authenticity of a work of art is confirmed, the author, school, and time of creation are specified, or a copy or fake is identified.
The importance of the expeditions regularly conducted by the center is great: thousands of priceless works of ancient Russian painting, applied art, and wooden sculpture were discovered during expeditions led by Yuri Olsufiev, Nikolai Pomerantsev and their followers. Master icon painter, researcher and restorer Adolf Nikolaevich Ovchinnikov, working on expeditions for many years, studied and reproduced life-size frescoes of eight churches from the 13th to 15th centuries (Pskov, Staraya Ladoga, Georgia), two of which have perished in our time, and copies-reconstructions of Adolf Ovchinnikov are the only evidence of their existence.
Currently, the VKHNRTS is a complex branched structure that includes departments for the restoration of oil and tempera painting, furniture, fabrics, ceramics, graphics, bones, metal, manuscripts, stone sculpture, as well as departments for physical and chemical research, scientific examination, archive, photo library . Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Kostroma branches have been created at the center.
The long-term placement of workshops in Moscow churches (in addition to the Marfo-Mariinsky Cathedral, various departments were located in the Church of St. Catherine on Vspolye, the Vladimir Cathedral of the Sretensky Monastery, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kadashi), which the All-Russian Scientific Research Center supported and restored with its own resources, ended in 2006, when the entire organization moved to a reconstructed building on Radio Street. The expansion of working areas made it possible to equip departments with modern equipment.
The days of celebrating the 90th anniversary of the All-Russian Scientific Research Center were marked by holding Grabarev readings and ceremonial events with the participation of fellow restorers from many Russian museums. The center staff received a letter from the President of the Russian Federation with gratitude “for their great contribution to the preservation of the cultural heritage of Russia.” All these events took place against the backdrop of an exhibition, the exhibits of which were museum objects “from the restorer’s desk.” Among them, paintings and graphic sheets from the collection of the Muranovo museum-estate, damaged during a fire in July 2006, that were rescued or were being rescued by specialists were displayed; sarcophagus (Panticapaeum, 1st century) from the collection of the State Historical Museum, found in 1890 during archaeological excavations near Kerch; miniatures from the Krasnoyarsk and Tchaikovsky art galleries, the most complex restoration of which was carried out using a specially developed technique.
Kommersant reports that the Ministry of Culture may soon prohibit the All-Russian Art Scientific and Restoration Center named after Grabar (VKhNRTS) from carrying out a commercial examination...
At the moment, VKhNRTS remains the last state institution engaged in the commercial examination of works of art for private individuals and individuals. Russian museums lost the right to issue expert opinions back in 2006 - due to scandalous errors in the attribution of paintings by Russian artists. According to Svetlana Vigasina, deputy director for science of the All-Russian Scientific Research Center, the center’s employees are indeed waiting for a letter from the Ministry of Culture, but “most likely there will be no talk of a ban,” they will simply ask to sort out the documents.
In September, the "grabari" changed their director - instead of the dismissed Alexei Vladimirov, Evgenia Perova, his former deputy, took the leadership position. The reason for the changes could have been a fire on July 15, 2010, which resulted in the destruction of two works of art: a carpet from the Muranovo estate and a banner from the Peter the Great era from the Pereslavl-Zalessky Museum. Many of the works that were undergoing examination and restoration at the center were badly damaged, and Mr. Vladimirov criticized the activities of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, saying that “out of 58 damaged works, 8 were damaged by fire, 50 by firefighters.”
However, it is possible that other problems were the reason for the termination of the contract with Alexei Vladimirov. In July 2010, one of the collectors who submitted their works for examination to the Grabar center wrote a statement to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he reported “illegal actions of A. R. Kiseleva,” the head of the examination department.
At the same time, it turned out that the center continued until June 2010 to issue examinations on invalid forms with the heading of the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography (to which the Grabar center actually belonged until 2008, when the agency was disbanded).
If the Grabar Center stops issuing expert opinions on the letterhead of the Ministry of Culture, this will mean that the state has finally withdrawn from the art market, leaving its participants to figure it out for themselves. This scheme operates in Europe, where state museums deal with science and exhibitions, and private experts (who can be both scientists and art dealers) deal with commercial expertise. On the one hand, this is a blessing - you can sue a private expert who issued an incorrect conclusion and demand compensation for damages (try sueing the state).
On the other hand, there may be problems. Other experts, except for the well-known employees of the largest museums and the All-Russian Scientific and Research Center, are currently nowhere to be found. It would be quite logical if, after the ban on conducting examinations at the place of work, VKhNRTS experts create some kind of independent institute that will provide private collectors and art dealers with the expert opinions they need.
After the ban on expert examinations, specialists from the Russian Museum provide “consulting services of a scientific research nature” to private individuals. St. Petersburg collector Konstantin Azadovsky, dissatisfied with these services, for example, discovered that the contract included a clause stating that the written result of the research, no matter what it turned out to be, was not subject to transfer to the judicial authorities.
Story
The Federal State Cultural Institution “All-Russian Art Scientific and Restoration Center named after Academician I. E. Grabar” (VKhNRTS) - the oldest state restoration organization in Russia - was founded on June 10, 1918 on the initiative of the artist and art researcher Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar, under the Department of Museum Affairs and the protection of monuments of art and antiquity of the People's Commissariat of Education (32nd Department of the People's Commissariat of Education) of the RSFSR in the form of the All-Russian Commission for the Preservation and Disclosure of Old Russian Painting. I.E. was appointed chairman of this commission. Grabar. In 1924, the commission was transformed into the Central State Restoration Workshops (TSRM). Through the efforts of I.E. Grabar in the Central State Museum of Art brought together the best of the national scientific restoration of that time: both outstanding art scientists and experienced restoration practitioners.
In 1934 the Center was liquidated. Some of the leading employees of the Center were subjected to repression, up to the “highest measure of social protection.” The accusations, of course, are false, but in the conditions of that time they were almost “deserved”: “propaganda of religion” under the guise of preserving culture. Fortunately, I.E. Grabar was a figure of such magnitude that he was not touched. The return of restorers from disgrace is a “merit” of the war. As the occupied part of the USSR was liberated, the scale of damage caused by the war not only to the economy, but also to culture - historical monuments and artistic values - became clearer. On September 1, 1944, the Council of People's Commissars issues Order No. 17765-r, signed by the deputy. Chairman V. M. Molotov on permission for the Committee for Arts under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to organize a Central Art Restoration Workshop. Naturally, the most experienced I.E. Grabar was brought in for the organization, who, having become the artistic director of the “new” workshop, actually recreated the old ones, attracting surviving restorers for this, even recalling them from the fronts. It is thanks to I.E. Grabar that the current Center is rightly considered the successor of those workshops that began in 1918.
Over the almost century-long history of the center, through the efforts of its employees, thousands of monuments of fine and decorative arts have been preserved for domestic and world culture. Among these monuments are frescoes of Novgorod and Vladimir churches, cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin, ancient Russian icons, including such shrines as “Our Lady of Vladimir” “Trinity” by Andrei Rublev; painting from the collection of the Dresden Gallery, the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin; panorama “Battle of Borodino” by F. Roubaud; medieval manuscripts and ancient ceramics.
From 1986 to 2010, the Center was headed by the artist and art critic Alexey Petrovich Vladimirov. In the difficult conditions for all cultural institutions of the last decades, the All-Russian Scientific and Cultural Center managed to preserve the best traditions of the restoration school, laid down by I. E. Grabar and his associates.
VKHNRTS specializes in conservation, restoration, examination of monuments of oil painting, icon painting, graphics (including on a parchment base), books (including “incunabula”), monuments of wooden, stone, plaster and oriental lacquer sculpture, objects of applied art (metal , bone, sewing and fabrics, ceramics).
Center today
Corridor. Along the walls lie 18th-century icons laid out to dry from one of the northern churches, sent to Moscow for restoration. Premises before the fire
Today, the Center is one of the few restoration organizations that have a time-tested system for training new employees. Back in 1947, the State Center of Artists and Artists adopted the “Regulations on Restoration Artists,” which obligated each master to “constantly improve: a) in the history and theory of art; b) according to the methodology of restoration processes; c) by general artistic level (performing creative work in accordance with one’s specialty - drawing, painting, modeling, copying, etc.).”
Since 1955, the Center was among the founders and permanent participants of the State Certification Commission of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR, which determined the level of skill of restorers. The center was at the origins of the creation of a state system for training new restoration personnel, and currently it is one of the few cultural institutions that carefully preserves the order of consistent advanced training of young specialists that has developed over decades. As a rule, new employees coming to the departments of VKhNRTS have a higher or secondary specialized art education. They learn the basics of the profession under the guidance of restorers of the highest and first categories. Gradually, as they acquire new knowledge and experience, they are allowed to work with increasingly complex exhibits.
VKHNRTS closely cooperates with the domestic and international museum community; its specialists have taken an active part in the work of the Russian branch of ICOM UNESCO since its founding. Now the Center’s partners include more than 200 museums, restoration workshops and research organizations in Russia and countries near and far abroad.
VKHNRTS employees conduct inspections and restoration of museum exhibits and funds on site during business trips, accept museum restorers and curators for internships, and exchange scientific information with Russian and foreign colleagues during numerous conferences and exhibitions.
Training of restoration personnel at VKhNRTS
VKhNRTS today is not only a restoration and research organization, but also a scientific and methodological base of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, including the training of qualified personnel for restoration centers, workshops, and restoration departments of Russian museums.
Before the Great Patriotic War and immediately after its end, the USSR had not yet practiced the training of restorers in special educational institutions, although the need for them was enormous, especially in the post-war years. First of all, what was needed was not so much high-class art restorers to restore what was lost, but rather conservator restorers to provide “first aid” to damaged monuments - capable of monitoring the safety of museum funds, preventing the final loss of historical and artistic values, carrying out urgent conservation and, as soon as possible, possibilities, simple restoration work.
To solve this important task, the Central State Restoration Workshops, as the Grabar Center was then called, in 1955 organized two-year training courses for restorers of easel painting, graphics, sculpture and applied art objects. Course participants underwent the necessary training, not only practical, but also general cultural theoretical, and, having received qualification certificates indicating the list of works that they were allowed to perform, they became a real salvation for thousands of exhibits in many museums of the Soviet Union. The best graduates were hired by the TSRM, many of them to this day are the pride of the Center.
Currently, the training of restoration personnel in Russia usually consists of two stages: restoration faculties and departments have been opened in a number of art educational institutions in the country, after which graduates are trained by experienced master practitioners.
It is this kind of mentoring that is traditional for VKhNRTS - a qualified and experienced artist-restorer supervises for several years, teaching in practice, the work of students, bringing them to a high professional level.
In order to train and retrain restorers for the country's museums, the All-Russian Scientific Research Center has developed a system of internships in different departments with mandatory reading of theoretical courses on technology, restoration methods and various types of pre-restoration and restoration studies of monuments (physical, chemical, x-ray, biological, etc.). Internships are carried out on the basis of agreements between VHNRTS and interested organizations and individuals.
Fire 2010
At the beginning of 2011, an employee of the manuscript restoration department, Evgenia Osipova, for rescuing ancient manuscripts from a fire, incl. Spassky Gospel of the 13th century, was awarded the “Own Track” Prize named after V.S. Vysotsky for 2010.
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Wikimedia Foundation.
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Scientific and Restoration Center named after. I. Grabar is the largest institution in Russia engaged in the restoration of movable objects of art - statues, icons, paintings, graphics, manuscripts, books, furniture, fabrics, ceramics, metal products, leather and bones.
The Center for Scientific Restoration was created in 1918 by the artist and historian I. E. Grabar. The task of the institution included not only the restoration of ancient monuments, but also the coordination of the activities of all restoration workshops and schools in the country.
The Center's first major work was the examination and restoration of Kremlin frescoes, ancient Russian icons and paintings from the Annunciation Cathedral. In 1921, the First All-Russian Restoration Conference was held in Moscow, at which Academician I. Grabar presented the results of the Center’s activities and reported on new methods and principles of scientific restoration of art objects.
By the standards of the 20s. Grabar's workshops were unusually well equipped; they employed the most experienced craftsmen and art experts. By 1930, many icons from the 12th and 13th centuries had been restored, including masterpieces by A. Rublev, F. Grek, the icons “Our Lady of Vladimir” and “Savior of the Golden Hair”.
Under the scientific leadership of I. Grabar, the basic principles of scientific restoration were developed. The academician proposed a unique method of returning a work of art to its original appearance by cleansing it of later layers. Grabar called the main task of the restorer’s work to be the strictest adherence to the author’s concept of the work of art.
In addition to its main activities, the center organized exhibitions of ancient Russian paintings, icons, and sculptures. The exhibitions were shown both in the USSR and abroad.
In the 1930s, a huge layer of Russia’s cultural and historical heritage was called “Romanov trash” by the authorities. This became the starting point for the destruction of many “ideologically harmful” artistic and church values. Active defenders of national culture were subject to repression, many died in the camps.
In 1934, Grabar's workshops were closed. The authorities entrusted the restoration of monuments to several large Moscow and Leningrad museums, and the employees of the Workshops were included in the staff of these museums. After 10 years, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR resumed the work of the Grabar Center. Leadership functions were transferred to the academician, and all organizational activities were taken over by the director of the Workshops, V. N. Krylova. This woman accomplished the impossible by returning almost all of its restorers to the Center.
After the Second World War, Grabar's Workshops became a key element in the restoration of damaged art monuments. Over the course of several years, restorers have restored their original appearance to priceless paintings from domestic museums, as well as from many museums in Dresden, Berlin, Warsaw, Sofia, Budapest and Vienna.
In 1966, the city of Florence suffered a terrible flood, and the Italians turned to restoration artists from the Grabar Workshops with a request for assistance in restoring the greatest paintings of the Renaissance.
Nowadays, the Research and Restoration Center named after. I. Grabar is engaged in the restoration of all types of art objects, using modern and time-tested techniques.
The center conducts extensive publishing activities, producing magazines, teaching aids, and catalogues. Restorers from around the world are trained within the walls of the institution.
Private collectors and government organizations can order scientific and technical examination of cultural property from the Grabar Center - one of the most authoritative in the world. Specialists are engaged in confirming the authenticity of antiques and identifying fakes.
A separate area of activity of the Center is expeditions. Experts travel to the most remote corners of Russia to search for works of art. In this way, hundreds of icons, frescoes, and paintings were discovered.
The structure of the Center, in addition to the restoration departments and the scientific examination department, includes a library, an archive and a music library. There are branches of the institution in Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Kostroma.
The Center regularly hosts Open Days, scientific conferences, temporary exhibitions, and excursions.
All-Russian Art Scientific and Restoration Center named after. I.E. Grabar is the oldest restoration institution in Russia, created on June 10, 1918 as a scientific and administrative center designed to manage all restoration work in the country.
The commission began its activities with the examination of frescoes of monuments in the Kremlin and Moscow and the restoration of ancient Russian paintings from the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kremlin. The experience of the first three years of restoration activities was summarized at the First All-Russian Restoration Conference, which took place from April 12 to 14, 1921 and approved the principles of restoration of all types of artistic monuments - architecture, sculpture, painting, applied art.
Currently, the VKHNRTS is a complex branched structure that includes departments for the restoration of oil and tempera painting, furniture, fabrics, ceramics, graphics, bones, metal, manuscripts, stone sculpture, as well as departments for physical and chemical research, scientific examination, archive, photo library . Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Kostroma branches have been created at the center.
The long-term placement of workshops in Moscow churches (in addition to the Marfo-Mariinsky Cathedral, various departments were located in the Church of St. Catherine on Vspolye, the Vladimir Cathedral of the Sretensky Monastery, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kadashi), which the All-Russian Scientific Research Center supported and restored with its own resources, ended in 2006, when the entire organization moved to a reconstructed building on Radio Street. The expansion of working areas made it possible to equip departments with modern equipment.
The days of celebrating the 90th anniversary of the All-Russian Scientific Research Center were marked by holding Grabarev readings and ceremonial events with the participation of fellow restorers from many Russian museums. The center staff received a letter from the President of the Russian Federation with gratitude “for their great contribution to the preservation of the cultural heritage of Russia.” All these events took place against the backdrop of an exhibition, the exhibits of which were museum objects “from the restorer’s desk.”
Opening hours of the exhibition hall:
- Tuesday-Friday - 12:00, 14:00, 16:00;
- Saturday - 14:00, 16:00;
- Monday, Sunday - closed.
Cost of visit:
- adult - 150 rubles;
- preferential - 100 rubles.
