RUSSIA: Fourth Moscow World Fine Art Fair opens at the grand Manege Exhibition Hall

Record ID: 580553

  • Title: RUSSIA: Fourth Moscow World Fine Art Fair opens at the grand Manege Exhibition Hall
  • Date: 3rd June 2007
  • Summary: PAINTING BY MARC CHAGALL ON THE WALL
  • Embargoed: 18th June 2007 13:00
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  • Reuters ID: LVA7SI60TMX58A7EWF8BZL4AI49W
  • Story Text: Art dealers from around the world target Moscow's growing number of millionaires at the Russian capital's biggest fine art fair.
    Some 6,000 works of art, including a Picasso portrait and a Renoir pastel, were on display at the fourth Moscow World Fine Art Fair (MWFAF) on Wednesday (May 30), held in the grand Manege Exhibition Hall next to the Kremlin.
    While only 20 galleries participated in the first fair in June 2004, this year four times as many galleries shipped works of art over to the Russian capital, where buying art seems to have become the latest fashion for Russia's new rich.
    Rooms with works by the German Expressionist Emile Nolde, Sevres vases and Linke cabinets were among the more than one billion euros (1.3 billion dollars, USD) of work up for sale at the week long event.
    Gallery Shkola offered a 1901 blue period Pablo Picasso, "Buste de Femme Souriante'' (Portrait of a Smiling Woman) for $10 million; a Renoir pastel on paper, ``L'Enfant Jean Renoir, dans la Chaise'' (The Child Jean Renoir in a Chair) circa 1895, for $1.5 million.
    But, there were also lots of art works of Russian origin on sale, reflecting a growing interest in Russian art.
    "We intend to bring Russian original pictures from Russian origin like Sutin, Chagall, Konchalovsky and, of course, Zatkin and many sculptures. So we tend to have a very basic and successful team of Russian painters on our walls. It's the reason we try to be successful and I think we are successful in this country," said Jacques de la Beraudiere, owner of the Gallery Philippe Cazeau and J. de la Beraudiere.

    Russia's booming economy, fuelled by natural resources such as oil and natural gas, has created a class of wealthy people eager to spend money on luxury items and art. Gallery holder Michel-Guy Chadelaud who owns a gallery in Paris, said Russians show a real and impressive enthusiasm for 19th century French Furniture and said more than fifty percent of the global clientele is now Russian. "I came to Moscow because I love this city and because all of our clients in Paris, or to be precise, 70 percent of our clients in Paris are Russian," said Chadelaud who attended the fair for the third time.
    For Artist Andrei Batenev, the collection and boom in popularity in Russia for fine art stands in comparison to some of Russia's history,
    "Everything you see here, after the revolution our proletarians threw this kind of art in the ovens to burn it. Now French, Germans, English and American people are bringing this art back to Russia," he said.
    Among the other galleries attending were Berko Fine Paintings from Belgium, with 19th- and 20th-century paintings, Brussels-based Georges DeJonckheere, with Old Master paintings; and Partridge Fine Art from London, with European and English fine art.
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