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Contact information • History • Access & Facilities • Bibliography
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-47Last update of repository: 17 March 2020Gosudarstvennyi muzei izobrazitel'nykh iskusstv im. A.S. Pushkina (GMII)Previous names
The predecessor of the museum in the mid-nineteenth century was the collection gathered by the Coin Cabinet (Mintskabinet, from the German, Münzkabinet), which also served as a Fine Arts Exhibit, or Cabinet (Kabinet iziashchnykh iskusstv) of Moscow University. The organization of a Museum of Fine Arts and the public fund-raising required was first undertaken by Moscow University Professor I.V. Tsvetaev in the early 1890s and subsequently by the Committee to Found a Museum of Fine Arts (Komitet po sozdaniiu Muzeia iziashchnykh iskusstv) (1898–1912). In 1912 the Museum of Fine Arts was opened at Moscow University and given imperial patronage under the name of the Emperor Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts. It was housed in a building specially designed for the museum by the architect R.I. Klein. In the same year the museum library was also founded. An Oriental Division was formed in 1912 on the basis of a collection made by the Egyptologist V.S. Golenishchev, which was acquired as state property in 1909. In 1917 the imperial name was dropped and the museum holdings were enriched by the nationalized private collections of D.I. Shchukin and the Museum of Antiquities (Muzei stariny) of the French perfume manufacturer Henri Brocart (G.I. Brokar) in Moscow, among others, by collections acquired from the reorganized Rumiantsev Museum, the Hermitage, and various palaces and museums in Petrograd. In 1932 the museum was renamed, and since 1937 it has been known by its present name, honoring Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin. In December 1991 the museum was added to the federal register of the most valuable monuments of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation. The Division of Graphic Arts dates back to 1862, when an Engraving Office (Graviurnyi kabinet), as it was called, was opened in the Rumiantsev Museum on the basis of duplicate fonds taken from the Hermitage. This collection was turned over to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1924. During the Second World War most of the museum collection was evacuated, and the building suffered bomb damage. At the end of the war the collection of the Dresden Gallery, together with many other “trophy” collections which had been seized by the Soviet Army, including the “Trojan Gold” from Berlin were deposited in the museum. Most of the Dresden collection was returned to the German Democratic Republic in 1955, but some Dresden paintings remain, along with treasures from other museums, such as a large part of the Koenigs Collection from the Netherlands. In 1948 the chronological extent of the museum collections was significantly broadened with the accession of part of the collection from the Museum of Modern Western Art (Muzei novogo zapadnogo iskusstva), which since 1925 had been a branch of the museum. The Archive (now Division of Manuscripts) was established in 1945. In 1972 the Division of Expeditions and Division of Ancient Art were combined as the Division of Ancient Art. In 1988 the Division of Ancient Art and the Division of Ancient Orient were joined to the Division of Art and Archeology of the Ancient World. This new division had two sectors: Sector of Ancient Art and Archeology and Oriental Sector. The Division of Art and Archeology of the Ancient World and the Division of Ancient Orient became independent again in 2008. The Cabinet of Reproductions was established in 1945. From 1972 to 2006 it was part of the different divisions. In 2007 it became as independent unit again and renamed Division of Visual Information. The Division of Photographic Art was established in 2009. |
