Malaga's new St Petersburg Museum to open with Chagall, Kandinsky and Malevich

Art lovers with a holiday or permanent home in Marbella are eagerly awaiting the day when the new St Petersburg Museum in Malaga is to open its doors in March. Some of the greatest names of the 20th century avant-garde movement will feature in the museum's first long-term exhibitions.

The Malaga branch of the State Museum of Russian Art of St Petersburg will also boast a contemporary of Malevich and Chagall, the artist Alexander Rodchenko, another iconic name from the beginning of the 20th century.

Francisco de la Torre, Malaga's mayor, and Vladimir Gusev, director general of the State Museum of Russian Art of St. Petersburg, proudly announced the first two long-term exhibitions during an official presentation recently. The Malaga branch of this world-famous Russian museum will be housed in the Tabacalera Building and will open to the general public some time in March this year.

“Everything will be ready for the museum to receive works in February and show the collection to the public in March,” said Mayor de la Torre. The museum will be launched into the international art world with two major exhibitions, one covering Russian art from the 15th to the 20th centuries, which will remain in Malaga until November 2015, and one covering the era of Sergei Diaghilev, which will remain in Malaga until September.

Sergei Diaghilev Exhibition

The former exhibition will present five centuries of Russian art, including religious icons and paintings of the 20th century. Sergei Diaghilev, born in Selishchi-Novgorod in 1872, was the founder of the Ballets Russes as well as an impresario, art critic and patron of the arts. When he died on 19th August 1929, he had effectively created modern ballet. Several important artists, including Valentin Serov and Leon Bakst, would paint portraits of him over the years. He mounted productions by works of Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov and was responsible for catapulting young ballet dancers like Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova to international stardom. The Malaga exhibition should give art and music lovers a fascinating glimpse into this exciting period of modern culture.

Forming the third Exhibition: Works by Pável Filonov

Malaga will also be hosting a third exhibition of important avant-garde art. This time the Russian avant-garde artist on display will be the lesser known Pável Filonov.

Vladimir Gusev explained the museum's choice for the third exhibition candidate at the recent official presentation: “There is a stereotype that avant-garde is just Kandinsky, Chagall, Malevich and nothing more, but in reality this was a much more extensive period. I believe that Filonov is a somewhat complicated artist, but in Spain there is going to be a great deal of interest in him."

Malaga Collection of the Russian Museum

The Tabacalera Building will be devoting two pavilions with more than 7,000 square metres of exhibition space to Russian art for the next decade, with an option to extend that term by a further ten years. The first three exhibitions will cost 400,000 euros to stage out of a total budget of 3.69 million euros for the first year of operation.

Director general Vladimir Gusev said that the two pavilions devoted to Russian artworks would henceforth be called the Collection of the Russian Museum to play its part in the corporate image of the museum as a whole and to provide a visual identity that can be used to promote the new museum world-wide.

Mr Gusev also said that the "Russian House" would display many of St Petersburg's most wonderful art treasures over the next few years. Art lovers living in Marbella will no doubt be flocking to Malaga in droves, when the Tabacalera Building opens its doors to the general public this spring!