Astrakhan’s First Exhibition by Local Artists (1895) in the Context of the City’s Artistic Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article looks at the first art exhibition in Astrakhan organized by the local cultural community, with the official title “Exhibition of works of art by local artists, amateurs and architects in Astrakhan”. Pavel Alekseevich Vlasov (1857–1935), a graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, was the key organizer. Including works by a whole series of notable artists, the exhibition opened 19 March 1895 and attracted considerable attention. Among the participants were some who were to earn a sound reputation in later years: the artists P. A. Vlasov, I. S. Goriushkin-Sorokopudov, N. P. Protasov, I. A. Elatontsev, the architects S. I. Kariagin, L. L. Karbon’er, A. S. Malakhovskii, authors of many remarkable buildings in the city, and the teachers N. V. Bob rov, E. I. Neshmonina. Analyzing the surviving catalogue of the exhibition, as well as periodicals, literary materials and other primary sources, the author seeks to establish the place occupied by this exhibition in the artistic life of Astrakhan at the end of the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth.