Akexey Bakhrushin. A Look into the Future

16 September 2020 – March 2021

The Bakhrushin theatre museum presents an exhibition dedicated to the 155th anniversary of the birthday of Alexey Alexandrovich Bakhrushin — the founder of the first Russian theatre museum. The first part of the exhibition focuses on the art collector’s inner circle. A portrait gallery represents photos of people who used to visit Bakhrushin’s house and sign autographs in his home album. Among them there are the director Konstantin Stanislavsky, the singer Feodor Chaliapin, the artist Alexaider Benois, the Italian tragic actor Tommaso Salvini, the actress of the Maly Theatre Maria Yermolova and many others. The Bakhrushins went down in the history of Russian culture as patrons of the arts. The exhibition represents historical and contemporary photos of buildings that Bakhrushins created for Moscow and Zaraysk. The contemporary photos were made by the famous theatre photographer Alexander Ivanshin. Alexey Bakhrushin was a relentless researcher of the history of Russian theatre. He saved unique archives and historical documents. Some of them you can see at the exhibition: diaries of Mathilde Kschessinska and Vladimir Telyakovsky, memoirs of Marius Petipa. This exhibition shows for the first time materials connected to Alexey Bakhrushin’s scientific work at the State Academy of Art Sciences, which was dissolved in 1930. There’s also Bakhrushin’s collection of paintings and graphics by Alexander Golovin, Vasiliy Polenov, Konstantin Korovin, Mikhail Vrubel, Ivan Shishkin, Alexander Rodchenko, Aleksandra Ekster, Natalya Goncharova et al. The memorial section showcases Bakhrushin’s personal belongings, photos from the family archive, narrative sources, a story about Vera Vasilyevna Bakhrushina — Alexey Bakhrushin’s wife and one of the first Moscow beauties, about his children Yura and Kira, about their summertime and travels to Europe. A documentary chronicle and music of the beginning of the 20th century help us to feel the spirit of the age. Alexey Bakhrushin believed that his work would be useful for posterity. His collection formed an encyclopedia of Russian theatre. It's thanks to Bakhrushin that we can immerse ourselves into Russian theatre in the 19th century and the “golden epoch” in the making, learn more about great actors, painters, playwrights, composers, and choreographers. The exhibition represents diverse materials connected to the Imperial Theatres and their distinguished actors, to private theatre companies, to the birth of the Moscow Art Theatre.