ACADEMY OF ARTS MUSEUM

17 Universitetskaya naberezhnaya 199034 St. Petersburg
Open: 11am - 6pm
Closed: Mondays and Tuesdays
Tel. 323-3578, 323-6496
Nearest metro station: Vasileostrovskaya

This is one of Russia's oldest art museums, founded in 1757 along with the "Academy of the Three Noblest Arts" - painting, sculpture and architecture. It was originally conceived as an academic museum for the preservation of works by the Academy's students, especially those who had received awards or other honours. As time went. by, however, the museum gradually accumulated one of the finest art collections in the country. The museum is housed in the halls of the so-called "Circle", the central block of the Academy building constructed between 1764 and 1788 to plans by the architects Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe and Alexander Kokorinov.

Visitors can see works by Russian artists from the mid-18th century to the present; a collection of plaster casts of classical and Western European sculpture; architectural drawings and designs; and a unique collection of wooden models of the Academy, the Stock Exchange, St. Michael's Castle, the Smolny Convent (made under Bartolomeo Rastrelli's supervision) and other famous buildings. A marvellous academic collection of 32 models of ancient Roman monuments, made from cork by A. Chicchi in 1774, is also to be found here.

On the whole, the displays reflect the history of the Russian academic and Soviet art schools. Among the names represented are Anton Losenko, Ivan Prokofiev, Fedor Gordeyev, Theodosius Shchedrin, Karl Briullov, Gavriil Skorodumov, Alexander Ivanov, Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov, Vasily Mathe, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva and many others. A large number of training assignments and diploma works by Academy students are also on show.

The studio of the great Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko, who lived and worked in a small flat located in a wing of the Academy building from 1858 to his death in 1861, constitutes an independent department in the museum.