The Christmas Present. Academy of Porcelain

On 21 December 2004 an exhibition jointly organized by the State Hermitage and the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory opened in Room 152 of the Winter Palace. The exhibition is part of a series of activities called The Christmas Present. It attracted participation by contemporary Russian artists and resembled a program that was carried out at the factory at the beginning of the 20th century, when the results were outstanding porcelain objects by Malevich, Kandinsky, Petrov-Vodkin, Kustodiev and Matveev. The art project of 2004 took place over five months from June to October and its culmination is the current display of original works of porcelain in the State Hermitage.

More than 50 well known contemporary artists from Petersburg, Moscow and Germany took part in the project: Zaven Arshakuni, Leonid Borisov, Olga and Alexander Florensky, Zurab Tsereteli, Nikas Safronov, Natalya Savinova, Svetlana Platonova, Vasily Golubev, Anatoly Belkin, Rashid Dominov, Mikhail Kopylkov, Inna Olevskaya, Vladimir Tsivin, Alexander Zadorin, Vladimir Zatorov, and others. Most of them worked in the factory ateliers and production lines, where they received materials and technical advice on working with porcelain. Those who were dealing with porcelain for the first time had their works fired by qualified masters of the Lomonosov Factory.

The project resulted in the creation of more than 1,000 separate porcelain objects, of which more than 300 have been put on display in this final exhibition in the Hermitage. Among the display items are traditional porcelain table service of classical as well as avant-garde forms, sculptures and vases, decorative dishes and platters, compositions consisting of several objects and installations, decorative ornaments, as well as a whole assortment of original objects. There is unusual diversity and emotional intensity in the painting applied to the porcelain. It reflects a broad rànge of creative art by participants in the project. One can also see at the exhibition new works on the subject of the ballet Nutcracker which Mikhail Shemyakin has created for the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory.

Staff of the State Hermitage have prepared an illustrated catalog to the exhibition (State Hermitage Publishing House, 2004).

The originator of the Academy of Porcelain project was the director of the State Hermitage's Porcelain Museum, T.V. Kudryavtseva, and the exhibition is dedicated to her memory. The curator of the exhibition is staff researcher I.K. Maistrenko.

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Galina Tsvetkova, chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Lomonosov
Porcelain Factory plc

At the exhibition