How, in the era of the USSR, a collector of Greek origin, George Costakis, managed to assemble a unique collection of Russian-Soviet avant-garde, which had no equal in the world. Zeptzyk lpufbly – lpmmelgypoet y yuempchel Sale of the Greek part to the Museum of Modern
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Subject immigration remains relevant not only for ethnic Greeks living outside their historical homeland. The immigrant forum discusses how legal issues, as well as the problems of adaptation in the Greek world and, at the same time, the preservation and popularization of Russian culture. Russian Greece is heterogeneous and unites all immigrants who speak Russian. At the same time, in recent years the country has not met the economic expectations of immigrants from the countries of the former USSR, and therefore we are seeing a reverse migration of peoples.In 2018, fans of the unique collector Georgy Dionisovich Costakis celebrate the 105th anniversary of his birth. He rightfully takes an honorable place among those who made a huge contribution to the preservation of the works of Russian avant-garde artists of the 20th century.
Magic picture
The future owner of the richest collection was born in Moscow on July 5, 1913 in the family of a businessman with Greek roots. In the 1930s, he worked as a driver at Western embassies and often took diplomatic workers to antique shops. I watched with interest how they bought antiques wholesale and retail, how happy they were with every purchase.
He listened to their stories about great artists, sculptors, jewelers, furniture makers - and gradually he became involved in collecting. Objects of art fascinated and attracted him.
The father supported his son’s hobby in every possible way and even allocated him certain funds to purchase antiques. Inspired by the support, Georgy began collecting old Dutch paintings, porcelain, bronze, Russian silver, carpets, tapestries and fabrics. But all the time I thought that if he continued in the same spirit, he would not bring anything new to the history of art. Everything that he collected was presented in the Louvre, the Hermitage, other major museums and in rich private collections. And the vain young man wanted to do something original, extraordinary, epoch-making and certainly stand out from the crowd of ordinary collectors.
In the summer of 1946, Georgy was invited to the cozy apartment of a capital art collector and there for the first time he saw three paintings by avant-garde artists. One of them - the brushes of Olga Rozanova - made a magical impression on him. It was called "Green Stripe". The young man stood in front of her for half an hour, as if pinned by some unknown force.
After drinking tea with the hostess, Georgy left the hospitable home, which was more reminiscent of a museum, but his thoughts returned again and again to the work of art he had seen. With some sixth sense I realized that it was of great value and would live on for centuries. He made a lot of efforts to buy this work, and at the same time two other avant-garde paintings.
Forced confiscation
Costakis brought the paintings home and hung them next to the creations of the Dutch. He formulated his impressions as follows: “I had the feeling that I used to live in a room with curtained windows, but now they were wide open. The bright Moscow sun and the fresh wind of change burst into them.”
From that day on, he firmly decided to part with everything that he had acquired, and from now on acquire only the Russian avant-garde.
Among the artistic intelligentsia, the nickname “Greek Eccentric” firmly stuck to him, because at that time the official authorities of the USSR recognized only works made in the spirit of socialist realism. Everything else was ruthlessly rejected, subjected to harsh criticism and complete rejection.
All of Costakis’ efforts to assemble a collection of avant-garde were fully supported by his beloved wife Zinaida. Seeing her at a friend’s house, nineteen-year-old Georgy fell in love at first sight and did everything to win the beauty’s heart. The rapprochement was also facilitated by the fact that Zina sang beautifully, and Georgy masterfully accompanied her on the guitar. The creative duo quite harmoniously turned into a family duo.
A year after the wedding, Zinaida gave birth to her first child. Five years later, the family already had four children - three daughters and a son.
Zinaida dreamed of becoming a doctor, but Georgy said harshly: “Your job is to raise children and run a household, and mine is to provide for the family!”
The wife resignedly submitted to the dictate, and she also fully shared her husband’s passion. It got to the point that when he needed to pay for some painting, but there was no money in the house, he would say: “Zina, take the fur coat out of the closet. The one I brought from Paris."
This happened more than once or twice: he brought her a fur coat from abroad and after some time “confiscated” this fur coat, sold it and with the proceeds bought paintings by young authors, who were later called nonconformists and whose works soared in price by tens and hundreds of times.
But Zinaida was never offended by the “confiscation.” She saw how much “sacred delight” her husband’s next acquisition brought, and she was happy for him. As for fur coats, this is a real deal!
Place of attraction
Meanwhile, Kostaki’s collection was replenished with new works. Soon his name in artistic circles began to be associated with the history of the Russian avant-garde in the first third of the 20th century. Malevich, Kandinsky, Chagall, Rodchenko, Klyun, Popova, Filonov - the creations of these masters decorated the walls of Costakis’s apartment.
Its unique collection included works by dozens of artists, many of whom would otherwise have been simply forgotten. A self-taught collector who became a true expert in the art of collecting artistic treasures, forgotten in the Soviet Union, Costakis spent a lot of effort and money to preserve for the country the names of its innovative artists. He also persistently collected icons, considering them spiritual, sacred objects of art. Later he admitted:
The paintings of the avant-garde artists opened my eyes to the icon. I began to understand that these are very related things, I began to recognize in the icon elements of abstract painting and Suprematism, all kinds of universal symbolism...
Costakis's apartment and country house gradually became a place of attraction for fellow collectors, artists, musicians, actors and ordinary Soviet citizens who passionately wanted to join the then forbidden art.
At that time, Costakis had no hope of organizing an exhibition and showing his wealth to the general public, because the authorities stubbornly rejected the avant-garde as art, considering it low-grade hack work.
In 1976, there was a fire in his country mansion. The works that George valued very much were lost in the fire. This was a real blow for him. He himself believed that the cause of the fire was a simple arson, which was set by thieves who visited the house and stole several dozen works. And soon Kostaki’s Moscow apartment was attacked by robbers. The attackers stole the most precious exhibits. The affected family also considered this raid to be non-accidental and associated it with the fact that the authorities stubbornly do not want to allow the existence of an unofficial museum of prohibited avant-garde art.
The decision to emigrate
Meanwhile, a fierce struggle “against art speculators” unfolded in the country. Security forces began to clean up the underground collectors' market. In 1974, the famous collector Vladimir Moroz was arrested in Lviv, and his huge collection of art treasures was confiscated in favor of the state. This story caused panic among collectors in the USSR.
Threatening phone calls were regularly heard in Costakis' apartment.
We will dispossess you, you bastard! - shouted rude voices.
Georgy sent several letters to Brezhnev and Andropov with requests to protect his collection and family. The answer is cold silence. The collector realized that living with such a collection in Moscow had become dangerous.
In such a situation, Costakis in 1979 decided to emigrate with his family to his historical homeland - Greece. The authorities allowed him to leave only if he donated the majority of the collection's exhibits to the state Tretyakov Gallery.
As a result, more than eight hundred works from the Costakis collection formed the basis of the avant-garde collection of the Tretyakov Gallery, part of the collection of icons was included in the collection of the Andrei Rublev Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art, 700 drawings by Anatoly Zverev formed the golden fund of the collection of the Anatoly Zverev Museum.
The Western press reproached the collector Costakis for the fact that in the 1930s-1970s he paid artists relatively little money for paintings that are now worth millions. To which George himself replied:
It should not be forgotten that I did not have the financial resources of official artists, songwriters and other rich people who collected art, favored by the authorities. In addition (and many can confirm this), I have always supported young artists financially, as well as relatives of masters who have passed on to another world!
Irony and mockery
Costakis's genius lies in the fact that he understood the artistic value of the Russian avant-garde before others. I understood at a time when the authorities considered the creations of avant-garde artists to be outright hack work.
His daughter said:
Many people made fun of my dad and even laughed mockingly. Detractors believed that avant-garde art would never be recognized and appreciated, that he was simply engaged in some kind of devilry!
One of Lyubov Popova’s unique works, painted on a plywood sheet, was discovered by Costakis in Zvenigorod near Moscow: the residents of a dilapidated house blocked up a window opening with a painting. They didn't have the money to put in the glass. Georgy instantly solved this problem, and in return received the coveted canvas by Popova.
On the back of Kliment Redko’s painting “Uprising,” purchased from the artist’s widow Tatyana Fedorovna, Kostaki, shortly before transferring the painting to the Tretyakov Gallery, wrote: “The painting of the century, the greatest work of revolutionary Russia. George Costakis. Moscow, April 14, 77.”
In 1988, Georgy became seriously ill. He was treated in the best clinics, but the illness still struck the great collector. He left this mortal coil in 1990. After his death, the Greek state bought part of Costakis's collection and placed it in the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, founded in 1997.
George Costakis – vanguard driver
Even a brief and superficial description of his life is stunning in itself. Having discerned in the era of conservative Stalinist absolutism the innovation and enduring value of the despised and even persecuted Russian avant-garde, he collected a huge collection of seemingly unnecessary things, which two decades later turned in the eyes of the whole world from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.
But, having become the owner of fabulous wealth, the collector did not change himself. He continued to treat all the works of his collection as if they were his own children, regardless of their market value. He never considered himself the sole owner of the priceless collection, eventually donating most of it to the Tretyakov Gallery.
George Costakis died in Greece on March 9, 1990; he retained Greek citizenship all his life, but the largest and most important part of his and his family’s life was spent in Moscow, where he accomplished his feat as a guardian of the avant-garde heritage and a benefactor of Russian culture. The family of the legendary collector was immersed in the world of a select circle of inspired creators and bearers of genuine culture that always existed in parallel with the official “creative intelligentsia”. About the life of the Costakis family in this world, about his asceticism and self-denial to a special correspondent Nikos Sidiropoulos the collector’s daughter said: Natalya Georgievna Kostaki, who followed in her father’s footsteps into art.
– Having lived in such an environment since birth, it was probably not difficult for you to determine your range of interests?
– I grew up in a house where there were so many names, so many brilliant artists, that finding myself in adulthood, believe me, was a very difficult task for me.
– Who were you for these people?
“I am Kostaki’s daughter—as I was, so I remain.” Thanks to this, there are people next to me who were next to him. All connections and acquaintances have been preserved. Since the day I was born, I have been in this society, living and present there. Artists, art critics, critics, musicians, and diplomats constantly visited our home. Mom, despite the lack of musical education, sang romances at a professional level, and her father often accompanied her on the guitar.
The thing is that my father had the opportunity to buy food. He worked as an administrator at the embassy, received foreign currency and, therefore, could buy food at Beryozka, and our table was set for everyone. And my mother, Zinaida Semyonovna, was a very good cook.
We lived on Vernadsky Avenue, 59. My father had three combined apartments on the 15th floor of this building. The walls were completely covered with paintings. This world completely absorbs, forces you to live according to its canons. Imagine what an amazing atmosphere reigned in our house. There were so many guests that they sat right on the carpet - delicious food, jokes, conversations about art. Everyone, regardless of rank and rank, was welcome here. Naturally, there were also foreigners. At the same time, of course, the omnipresent KGB men were constantly present on the floor. Sometimes these people were among the visitors to our house.
– Have you learned to recognize the employees of the “office”?
– Yes, they, in fact, did not particularly bother themselves with secret ethics.
In those days when high-ranking foreigners came to us, it was necessary to prepare a list. Sometimes committee members carried out screenings. The popularity of our house among foreigners was enormous. I remember that after my father left, an American came to us and showed us a directory indicating the world-famous sights of Moscow, and our address was included in this list!
– The private gallery of the Greek Costakis was one of the anomalous phenomena of the capital of the socialist state. ...Not only the authorities knew about its existence?
– I understand what you mean. All this was not protected in any way. My father installed some kind of alarm system in the house, but it was not connected to the police. However, my father’s apartment was robbed before leaving. A terrible fire at a dacha in Bakovka in 1976 and an apartment robbery were the last straw that pushed my father to leave the country. The first to leave were the parents and brother Alexander, and then the sisters. The decision to leave was forced. Since the mid-70s, the question of the safety of all family members has been directly raised. Constant slander, threats, blackmail...
Fortunately, my father’s Greek citizenship, as well as his work at the Greek and then at the Canadian embassy, provided some protection. During the years of Stalinist repression, half of their family was imprisoned: grandmother, aunt, father’s younger brother. They were charged with attempting to assassinate Soviet military leader Semyon Budyonny. Through the efforts of my father, my grandmother and aunt were released quickly, since they were old, but he had to rescue his younger brother for a long time. He was a 19-year-old boy and was quietly going crazy there. But, in the end, using all his efforts, his father saved him too, and his uncle returned from Kotlas. It is not surprising that our father made attempts to go to Greece. During the war, he was told that he could leave, but his family would remain here, because our mother was Russian. So the father immediately registered all the children at the Greek embassy.
To the camp for my brother*
“...I’m sitting, waiting. Fifteen minutes pass, and here comes the lieutenant with my Mitya. I want to talk to my brother, but he can’t, his hands are shaking, his teeth are chattering, his head is twitching... My brother told me about camp life - it was scary to listen to. It turned out that there were a lot of Greeks in the camp. “And you know,” says the brother, “many of them die, mainly from hunger. Is it possible to help them somehow?
I left Mitka everything that I brought with me and promised to give him more money. We hugged, my brother went back to camp, and I went free. Later I found out that after our meeting my brother was found out after all! – they put him alone for a month, and the lieutenant also had troubles.
Russian people are amazing... Very sincere and I love them very much. When I returned from the camp, I again met with those people in Kotlas who had come to visit theirs. Among them was Vera Vasilyevna, the wife of a photographer from Vyatka. So she says to me: “Why are you freaking out? After all, they saw their brother and returned safely.” I told her that there were many Greeks in the camp and they needed help, but there was no more money. I gave most of them to the rogue teacher. But going to the station and sending a telegram to have money sent to me here is dangerous. What should I do? Vera Vasilyevna suddenly asks me: “How much money do you need?” I answer: “A lot, eight thousand.” “Well,” she replies, “I can’t give you eight thousand, but I’ll give you seven... My husband is sitting here, and you have a brother, we are both in the same position. I know you can’t help but repay the debt...”
– It so happened that Greek citizen George Costakis, forced to emigrate from the Soviet Union, did not leave for Greece...
“He didn’t immediately decide where to go. He had plans to leave for America, where it would be easier for him to decide on the collection that remained with him, since he worked for many years at the Canadian embassy. They knew him there. He came to America at the invitation of museums and universities to give lectures. But in the end he had to choose Greece, because in America his collection would have been disproportionately taxed. In addition to the avant-garde collection, my father left a large collection of clay and wooden toys to the Moscow Museum of Applied Arts, which he did not consider his own, since he bought them ready-made. His main goal was to preserve the best works and transfer them to museums. It was in the part that remained here in the Soviet Union that his life was. It was important to preserve the entire collection. He understood perfectly well that in the future the children might begin to divide everything and the meeting would come to an end.
– Was there a “Testament of George Costakis”?
– There was no will as such. He announced his decision to transfer the collection to the state via Voice of America while he was in the United States.
– There are different assessments of the activities of George Costakis. Some researchers characterize it as devotion for the good of society and charity towards artists, others in this last part place different emphasis...
– You know, one of the main problems, still relevant today for the vast majority of artists, is that it is very difficult to become in demand. Even for those who can be called famous, promoted artists. At the time when my father began collecting avant-garde paintings of the 20s, many did not understand what it was all about. Then, understand, these works did not cost money at all. Of course, they knew about Malevich and Kandinsky, but they had no idea about many dozens of other artists of the Russian avant-garde, whose works George Costakis actually preserved and saved for posterity. They said: “Bring all this to the Greek fool, he will buy everything.” And they brought it to him! My father spent all his money on this. He searched and found everything himself! He was emptied from the old family closets of what was considered unnecessary rubbish.
Reverse bargaining*
“The paintings that I collected were for me like my own children... On the eve of separation, I painfully thought that every thing that would leave me was a part of myself, and I would feel pain, as if from a bleeding wound.
However, perhaps because I had already experienced all this so vividly in my soul, at the decisive moment my wife and children were simply amazed at my resilience. Manin, deputy director of the Tretyakov Gallery, came, and we began the division...
I must say that Manin turned out to be a noble man. Sometimes we got into an argument with him. He said: “Georgy Dionisovich, keep this for yourself.” And I answered: “No, you should take this, because this is the only thing, and there is no other like it.” This was the case, for example, with my favorite relief “Running Landscape” by Clune, which I simply adored. It is reproduced on the cover of a large book - I knew that this Clune was the only one and did not want to take it with me, I insisted that the museum keep it.
And so our division went on... My mood was this: I, George Costakis, really did a great job, but for what, for whom? For yourself personally? No. Human life is short. Another ten, well, twenty years will pass, I will be gone, and I need to leave something behind, at least a good name. Every person should think about this, realizing that his time will come to go to heaven.
I have always believed that I did good by being able to collect what would otherwise have been lost, destroyed and thrown away through indifference and neglect. I saved a lot of wealth. This is my merit. But this means that salvation must belong to me or to someone else to whom I could bequeath my paintings. They must belong to Russia, the Russian people! The Russian people should not suffer because of the stupidity of the Soviet authorities. With such a mood, it was very easy for me to convey everything to people, and I tried to give away the best things. And I gave them away.
It would be easier to take the best for yourself. I could take Malevich’s “Portrait of Matyushin”. Give away several Larionovs, something else, and take Malevich... But I didn’t do it. I didn’t take it because while I was living in Russia and creating this collection, I had many friends who respected me. And I thought that if I take the “crown” things, including, say, “Portrait of Matyushin,” what will my friends say then? They will say that Costakis did not care for art, not for the Russian avant-garde, but simply maintained his own interest and, knowing the value of the works, he, the son of a bitch, took all the best and took it away! Even those closest to me would condemn me. I didn’t go that route and I think I did the right thing.”From the book by George Costakis My avant-garde M. 1993
“There was such a significant case when in one of the houses he found a painting that had been blocked up in a window opening...
- It was with me. I was still a girl then, but he took me with him. We arrived in Zvenigorod to visit some relative of Lyubov Popova. My father knew that he had some of her work. It was one of Popova’s works in the barn that boarded up the window. My father and I went to look for plywood, which was also not easy to find in those days.
– There was a fantastic story with Rodchenko’s “Abstraction”, which your father literally took off the table - it served as a tablecloth!
- Undoubtedly! And therefore, the words of criticism that he allegedly “robbed” these artists are absolutely unfounded. Look, today those artists who seem to sell their works at a high price still find it difficult to sell them and, therefore, have a hard time living. It’s difficult because today there are not many collectors willing to invest their money in works of art.
– Probably because most collectors collect works by authors who have already made a name for themselves...
- That's it. And for my father, in many cases, the question of whether a work belonged to a famous author was not so pressing, because he not only preserved the works of many artists for posterity, but also discovered new names. For example, he discovered Alexander Drevin. Initially, his wife Nadezhda Udaltsova was valued. Their father came to see Udaltsova’s work, and when he saw Drevin’s paintings, he was absolutely delighted. And this was his discovery! In the 50s these were Plavinsky, Rabin, Krasnopevtsev, Weisberg and many others. In the 60s - Vladimir Yakovlev, Igor Vulokh, Boris Sveshnikov and others. In the generation of young artists, my father had his favorites: Dmitry Krasnopevtsev and Anatoly Zverev. He was friends with Dmitry Krasnopevtsev for many years, and treated Anatoly Zverev as his own son. He often visited us, lived in our house, at the dacha in Bakovka. The wild, ingenious escapades of his work often took place in my presence. I was 10 years old then. In one day he could do dozens of works. Oil, watercolor, pencil. Anatoly came to our home after his father moved to Greece in 1978 until his death in 1986. My husband and I looked after him in every possible way, because he often appeared in the same form that homeless people wore at that time. He did not have anything. I gave him all my father’s suits, and we bought him underwear. He left us dressed and clean, but a week later he returned tattered and torn - he either drank on drink or was robbed. Exhortations were useless. His father was worried about him and in almost every telephone conversation from Greece he asked: “...How is Tolechka?”
– What do you think is the difference between a brilliant artist and a good one?
“You know, my father’s worst curse about artists was the word “epigon.” If an artist is an imitator, he has nothing of his own. An artist must have individuality. He must have a distinctive handwriting, unlike anything else.
– Tell me, did you start writing in Greece?
- Yes it is. Neither here, in Russia, nor in Austria, namely Greece!
Apparently, the blood of our ancestors makes itself felt! There, in Hellas, there is very strong energy. It also comes from the Athenian Acropolis. And in Delphi I feel this very strongly. Painting portraits of ordinary Greeks and Greek women is a powerful boost for me. And my father began to write in Greece. There he painted more than 200 works in oils, mainly Greek views and Russian villages. A large number of works in watercolors. True, back in 1959 in Bakovka, when Zverev lived with us, my father did several works. But everyone there tried the brush. Sisters, me, our brother Alexander. Several still lifes and landscapes from that time remain. Many of those works disappeared, were destroyed during a fire at our dacha in Bakovka, which served as a storehouse for my father’s collection.
– Have the causes of this terrible fire in 1976 been identified?
“It was definitely arson.” As is usual in such cases, no one was found then. For my father it was a terrible blow. For the first time in my life I saw him cry. A lot of good paintings perished, including a huge number of Zverev’s, among which were his “French” works.
– Did your father maintain relationships with fellow collectors?
– Yes, my father kept in touch with all of them. Usual conversations among collectors about who has what acquisitions. In St. Petersburg Chudnovsky, here in Moscow Zdanovich, Solomon Shuster, Ilya Zilberstein.
– Did the Greek George Costakis have fellow tribesmen among his friends?
– The only one of his Greek friends was Dmitry Nikolaevich Apazidi, with whom he had been friends since his youth. He worked at the Swedish Embassy and also collected icons and paintings. He and his wife and three sons left for Sweden a little earlier than their parents. Friendly relations with Dmitry Apazidi were maintained by his father until the end of his life.
Collector about Soviet power and avant-garde*
According to Costakis himself, the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government are not to blame for the fact that the Russian avant-garde has come to naught. On the contrary, the revolutionary government supported innovative art and until the early 20s the avant-garde in Russia developed freely. Then, gradually, the creative freedom of artists began to be limited until Stalin’s final choice in favor of socialist realism. In the era of his absolute power, revolutionary art with its irrational flight of thought was not only unnecessary, but also dangerous. Nevertheless, during this period of time the Russian avant-garde managed to live a short but vibrant life. We can say that he was completely burned out by the enormous creative energy he had released. Here's what the collector himself writes about it:
“There is an opinion that the avant-garde was ruined by Soviet power. I think this is not entirely true. The death of the avant-garde occurred for several reasons. One of them is the one I already talked about: the artists began to give up - the entire pre-revolutionary period they did not achieve any success, then the Soviet government and the revolution came, supported them for two or three years, but the people continued their ignore. And the second reason is confusion among the artists themselves. All this taken together led to the fact that when Stalin decided to do away with the avant-garde and move on to socialist realism, the ground was well prepared.
It seems to me that one way or another, the “fading” of the avant-garde would have happened anyway. After all, this happened not only in Russia, the same process occurred in other countries. We often hear: “Well, the Bolsheviks ruined it..., all this developed in the West.” Wrong. It was not the Bolsheviks who were to blame, but time itself. If you look closely, in the West, in countries such as England, Germany, France and many others, modernism was also in the fold at one time, with the only “small” difference compared to Russia, that there is no soot there People were sent to prison, but they simply weren’t recognized. Take, for example, such artists as Mondrian, Paul Klee, Cup and many others. They were very poor, and, in general, no one needed them...
Only in the last 16-18 years has interest in the avant-garde appeared. And I think that this happened for the reason that in recent years science and technology have developed incredibly and colossal changes have occurred in the world, which have attracted attention to contemporary art, which is directly related to this ... "*from the book by George Costakis My Avant-Garde M. 1993
– Immediately upon his arrival in Greece, in 1979, your father probably made attempts to determine the future of the exported part of the collection?
“He offered to organize an exhibition, but everything was delayed, which certainly offended him. After her father's death in 1990, Aliki's sister resumed negotiations about the collection. This was the fulfillment of his will so that the collection would not disperse. In 1996, her future was virtually decided. The Costakis collection is housed in Thessaloniki's Museum of Contemporary Art. Several years ago, in Moscow, I had the opportunity to meet the current director of the museum, Maria Tsantsanoglu. An extraordinary person who devoted a decade and a half of her “creative trip” to Russia to studying the works of the Russian avant-garde. Aliki’s sister maintains contact with Maria.
– Was Greek spoken in your family?
- No Unfortunately. My father knew Greek quite well. It was, understand, the language of his family, in which he communicated with his mother, brothers, sister. His father died early, in his early 30s at the age of 57. He was crippled by the death of his eldest son Spiridon in a motorcycle race. Dad's mother, our grandmother Elena, was an educated person, from an impoverished noble Greek family. My grandmother’s parents separated, and as fate would have it, she ended up in Constantinople and, subsequently, in Tashkent. Somewhere there he and his grandfather met.
– Have you ever crossed paths with your fellow tribesmen in Russia along the creative line?
– I heard about Nikos Masteropoulos. I knew that he worked in a monastery and was engaged in mosaics, but I did not know that he was engaged in enamels. I saw his works at the exhibition. Amazing work! And the mosaic is very delicately executed.
I can rightfully call Nikolai Masteropulo a great artist.
– Tell me, did your father later come to Moscow from Greece?
– He came to Moscow in 1986, eight years after forced emigration, at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture as an honored guest at the opening of the exhibition of his collection in the Tretyakov Gallery. This invitation, I think, was facilitated by a letter to the Ministry of Culture, written by a friend of my brother Alexander, Andrei Andreev, and signed by the three of us. The point of this letter was that it would be completely fair to invite him to the opening of the exhibition of George Costakis’ collection. If my father somehow found out about this letter, then... He experienced everything connected with his collection as the main part of his life. I would call what he did in one word – a feat. He had a unique instinct - he felt the genius of the artist. He discovered and saved for posterity the rich heritage of the Russian avant-garde. He collected these works when no one cared about them. The decision to transfer the collection of Russian avant-garde to the Tretyakov Gallery was made consciously - the collected paintings, saved from destruction, “must belong to Russia and the Russian people!” .
Nikos Sidiropoulos, Moscow.
Irina Pronina
EXHIBITIONS
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EXHIBITION “GEORGE KOSTAKI. "EXIT FROM THE USSR IS ALLOWED...". FOR THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COLLECTOR” BECAME THE MAIN PROJECT OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY IN THE PAST 2014. THE ATTENTION AND INTEREST OF NUMEROUS MUSEUM VISITORS IN THE ACTIVITIES OF GEORGE DIONISOVICH KOSTAKA (1913-1990), A FAMOUS MOSCOW COLLECTOR, GENEROUS DONOR AND ACTIVE POPULARIZER OF ART, WAS ATTRACTED ANOTHER JUNE 5 IN 2013, THE OPENING OF AN INFORMATION ROOM IN THE EXHIBITION ON KRIMSKY VAL. THE EXTENDED DISPLAY OF WORKS FROM HIS COLLECTION, ALMOST A YEAR AFTER, HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A GENUINE CLIMAX OF THIS SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY MARATHON.
The widespread celebration and attention to Costakis’s achievements that replaced oblivion is associated with one significant fact - he donated part of his collection, namely the best and most valuable works of art from those that the collector managed to find and acquire over many years, as a gift to the state in 1977 . The events of those years changed and illuminated his life with high civic meaning. Therefore, probably, Kostaki and his activities are often compared with other domestic major collectors - S.I. Shchukin and I.A. Morozov or even with the famous Moscow donors brothers P.M. and S.M. Tretyakov. This comparison is only partly fair. Before the revolution of 1917, everyone - aristocrats, entrepreneurs and merchants had the opportunity to openly make their acquisitions and publicly express their will on the disposal of their property, and charity and patronage of the arts were widespread and encouraged. Kostaki had a much harder time. He lived in a completely different, Soviet era, when any collecting was equated with hoarding, ethically condemned and even persecuted as a manifestation of bourgeois relics. And Costakis’ “ideologically alien” hobbies for collecting icons and works of Russian art of the 1910-1930s, the so-called Russian avant-garde, were completely covered by a political article. Overcoming many dangers on the thorny path of the seeker of “forgotten masterpieces” in ways known to him alone, he saved a huge number of priceless works. His will, the very desire to transfer to the state for public review part of the “forbidden” artistic property collected in such difficult conditions - this gesture of a private person at the time of “collective intelligence” was a bold and daring challenge to the entire system of established rules. The example of Costakis in the 20th century is unprecedented.
Now it is no longer possible to connect everything that Costakis’s eye once took away. Like any other private collection, it underwent changes - first at the will of its creator, then his heirs. It is almost impossible to “reconstruct” his collection even for 1977, when a grandiose division of the then world-famous collection of Russian avant-garde of the 1910-1930s took place into two parts - what was left as a gift to the state, and what Costakis took with him , leaving the USSR. Since then, exhibitions of works from both parts of the collection, separately or together, have been held in many galleries and museums around the world more than once. “Kostakievsky” masterpieces of the Russian avant-garde often come for a general viewing from two places - Moscow and Thessaloniki, where they, as legal residents, have permanent “Russian” and “Greek” registration, however, they have never met in Russian halls. The curators of the anniversary exhibition proposed a new angle of view on the Costakis collection and a departure from the already established international exhibition strategy: to present the main thing as effectively as possible - “avant-garde from Costakis”. For the first time, the organizers focused attention on the scale of the personality of the collector himself, and through carefully thought-out techniques, the audience was led to reflect on his fate in a historical context. Costakis’s collection is shown in different dimensions: it is diverse in the breadth of collecting trends and the height of the scale of artistic quality of works, unique as a visible “encyclopedia of the Russian avant-garde,” and his gift is grandiose in its generosity and extraordinary as a landmark event for the Soviet era. Together with Kostakis and his family, we all received the news - “exit from the USSR is allowed...”, or will definitely be allowed. The anniversary presentation of the collection is addressed to the modern viewer, and the wording “Exit from the USSR is permitted.” - this is a sign, a kind of meta-message to our present. In the USSR in the 1970s, all varieties of innovative trends in art of the 1910-1970s, that is, what G.D. collected. Costakis were under a strict ideological ban. The works of now recognized masters such as Chagall and Kandinsky, Filonov and Tatlin, Popova and Klyun were not exhibited in museums until 1986, and mentioning the names of many other famous artists in official literature was prohibited. The very question of accepting a donation of part of the Costakis collection was stuck in the bowels of the USSR Ministry of Culture for a long time, undergoing discussions in the highest spheres of various departments. There was no ready answer to such a bold proposal; officials needed to show creativity and not make a mistake with a comma in the right place in the well-known phrase “permit cannot be prohibited.” The historical reality of the Soviet state structure, the atmosphere of constant ideological and spatial constraint of those days influenced all manifestations of culture, public consciousness and the personal life of an individual. Therefore, the post-war period and the cultural life of the era of thaw and stagnation are also another hero of the exhibition. An artistic image, a kind of metaphor for the atmosphere of that time, became a kind of luminous cube house in the exhibition space. This symbolic “Costakis house” contains two huge photographs, enlarged to the size of panels, showing how the collection was housed in three rows in a low, small-sized Moscow apartment. On the other wall, small black and white documentary photographs in black frames hang tightly, in a homely manner - silent evidence of those meetings that took place in the Costakis house under the canvas “Red Square” by V. V. Kandinsky. Costakis's collection attracted the attention of a large number of people, including foreign diplomats and famous representatives of the Russian and foreign artistic elite. The apartment on Vernadsky Avenue was visited by I. Stravinsky, S. Richter, M. Chagall, E. Kennedy, A. Vaida, M. Antonioni, D. Rockefeller, S. Kapitsa, A. Voznesensky and many others. From the outside of the cube, from stunning photographs from the 1970s by the famous photographer I.A. Palmina's gaze is turned to the audience by a tightly knit group of nonconformist artists, and in the center of them is always he, Georgy Dionisovich, their friend, breadwinner, connoisseur and brave defender at the famous “bulldozer exhibition”, dispersed by the authorities half an hour after the opening. This is the premise of this story. The main space of the exhibition's main hall is divided in such a way that different parts are presented in proportion to the place they occupy in the Costakis collection.
For the part of the collection of icons and images on liturgical embroidery that is especially revered by the entire Costakis family, a “red corner” has been created at the exhibition. Of the over 60 items donated to the Andrei Rublev Museum, 15 examples of different icon painting schools are exhibited, such as the Novgorod land icon of the first third of the 16th century “The Miracle of George on the Dragon”, the double-sided icon “Epiphany - Descent of the Cross” of the second half of the 17th century, identified in a series traditions of the Russian North. An extremely interesting example of Serbian work, rarely found in Russia, is the nadiconostasis cross “Crucifixion of Christ,” created around 1600. The transferred works of ancient icon painting of the 16th-18th centuries are regularly shown at exhibitions. The unique surviving fragments of the monumental murals of the 12th century Church of the Savior on Nereditsa, destroyed during the war, have become an inviolable part of the permanent exhibition of the Andrei Rublev Museum.
At the opposite end of the large hall there are convenient display cases for a comprehensive examination of the smallest exhibits of the exhibition from the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve. Georgy Dionisovich had the opportunity to acquire a rare complete collection of folk toys made of clay, wood and even straw and thereby save from disintegration the result of many years of collecting activity of one of his fellow collectors, actor and historian, author of one of the first books about the centers of production of folk toys N.I. . Tsereteli. This collection was also among the rarities transferred to the state. The clay toy is represented by several personal works of the noble master Larion Frolovich Zotkin from the village of Abashevo (“Goat with Silver Horns”, 1919), old Dymkovo “ladies” and “roosters”. The sculptural composition “Musicians” was made from wood in Sergiev Posad in the 1920s, and the figurine “Nicholas II on the Throne” (Tsaritsyno State Historical Museum) was carved in the Nizhny Novgorod province at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the rarest peasant toys-symbols of the Russian North is the very short-lived “Red Mossfly”, assembled at the beginning of the 20th century from many available materials: wood, moss, tow, birch bark, twine, paper. The donated over 200 objects of folk and decorative and applied art, awaiting transfer to the newly formed specialized museum, were first temporarily placed in the storage facility of the USSR Ministry of Culture, and only in 1993 the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve became their new “home”.
The largest space is devoted to the most iconic and titular part of the collection and Costakis' gift - avant-garde works from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery. All paintings and graphic works of this group are divided into separate sections - early avant-garde; cubism, cubo-futurism; plastic painting; Suprematism, constructivism; experimental movements of the 1920s, new figurativeness of the 1930s; late avant-garde 1940s. This division corresponds to the aspiration and ultimate goal of the collector himself - he wanted to create a visible “encyclopedia of the Russian avant-garde”, to display the entire history of this direction of Russian art, which brought the domestic artistic program of the 1910s to the forefront in the pan-European pre-war movement towards updating the visual language.
To the exhibited selection of works from the huge gift transferred to three state Moscow museums, a few items were added, provided by the collector's daughters. These are watercolor portraits of the Costakis family, made by A. Zverev, several works by “nonconformist” artists of the 1950-1970s, and seven canvases by G.D. himself. Costakis, created by him after 1978. These two sections fit on the mezzanine of the main hall. An album of the same name accompanying the exhibition, and a multimedia project, which includes many works and archival materials stored for many years in Greece, the historical homeland of G.D. Costakis, significantly complement the exhibition's exposition. Information about the Greek part of the collection became available to Russian-speaking readers for the first time. Costakis has come a very long way to recognition of his contribution to Russian and European culture, and the biographical outline, first documented by L.R. Pchelkina, serves as a clear confirmation of this.
Greek citizen George Costakis was born on July 5, 1913 in Moscow and lived most of his life in Russia. His father Dionisy Spiridonovich (1868-1932), a native of the island of Zakynthos, the successor of the family business of tobacco trade and engaged in commerce in Russia since the early 1900s, and his mother Elena Emmanuilovna (nee Papakhristodoulo, 1880-1975) created a large and strong family , lived in prosperity and had strong ties with the Greek diaspora. The mother knew several languages, was pious and had a special gift for tactfully dealing with everyone around her. The family had five children: daughter Maria (1901-1970) and four sons: Spiridon (1903-1930), Nikolai (1908-1989), Georgy (1913-1990) and Dmitry (1918-2008). After the revolution, when the family lost all sources of livelihood, children began to help their parents by small-scale selling the remaining property on the market; then the sons, early accustomed to technology, mastered the driver's business. The family moved to the village at Bakovka station, where the grandmother, mother, aunt and sister with children will live until the end of their days, supported by the entire male part of the family. This house in Bakovka would later become one of the collector’s most cherished memories and, at the same time, worries. In the mid-1920s, the father of the family, as a Greek subject, was able to get a job at the Greek embassy, and his eldest sons also began working there. So it became a family "tradition". In 1930, George Kostaki, who had studied only seven years at school, entered the same embassy to work as a driver. Soon the family suffers losses - the death of their beloved Spiridon, a passionate motorcycle racer, during a competition in which Vasily Stalin took part, and the death of his father, whose heart could not withstand grief. but in this difficult time, fate presented Georgy with its gift - in 1932 he met and a few days later married Zinaida Semyonovna Panfilova (1912-1992). Their family had daughters Inna (1933), Alika (1939), Natasha (1949) and son Sasha (1953-2003). Zinaida Semyonovna came from a Moscow merchant family, “an alien class environment,” which did not give her the opportunity to receive an education worthy of her rare beauty and marvelous timbre of voice. Both spouses loved music, and Zinochka’s performance of romances, accompanied by “dear Zhora,” was a signature “treat” of the hospitable hosts at all gatherings.
In 1938, Dmitry’s mother, aunt and younger brother were arrested; the women were pulled out a few months later, and Dmitry spent several years in the Kotlas camp. George, greatly risking his personal freedom, managed to get there and visit his brother, and upon his return he did not stop bothering about him through the embassy. When the Greek embassy in Moscow was closed in 1939, Costakis, due to family reasons, did not use the opportunity given to him to go to Canada. It is difficult for a foreigner to find something to do; he agrees to a temporary job as a guard, either at the Finnish or at the Swedish embassy. In 1944, he was lucky: he joined the Canadian Embassy, becoming a supply manager. Soon, Georgy Dionisovich, executive and courteous, quick-witted and enterprising by nature, becomes the chief administrator over the Russian staff and, along with the status of diplomatic immunity, receives a significant advantage over the Soviet embassy employees - his salary is paid in foreign currency, and a certain part can officially be exchanged at the bank for rubles . These were the terms of the labor contract concluded with him, a foreign national.
When Costakis had to take diplomatic workers to antique shops, he allowed himself to make small purchases. Gradually I became involved in collecting and tried to learn as much as possible about objects. He remembered his teenage embarrassment. Immediately after the revolution, Uncle Christopher bequeathed a collection of stamps to him as an inheritance, and the boy, not knowing its true value, easily exchanged it for a bicycle without the knowledge of the adults. The epiphany came later, when wealthy buyers came specifically for this collection. The family's indignation was difficult to bear, and Georgy even decided to run away, but was discovered at the station and returned to his father's house. He remembered that lesson and always tried to study the rarities that came to him. First he collected old Dutch items, porcelain, Russian silver, carpets and fabrics. After the war, the interests of the collector changed dramatically, and the collection changed as well.
George Kostakis in his memoirs described how in 1946 he almost accidentally saw several works by avant-garde artists, in particular “Green Stripe” (1917) by Olga Rozanova. A native of ancient Vladimir, Olga Rozanova belonged to a small group of innovative artists. Malevich’s Suprematism then opened the way for them to understand “weightlessness”, the free floating of bodies in space - after all, after the invention of cinema, they suddenly somehow felt “fatigue” from contemplating the statics of classical schemes. Through the Green Strip, Costakis discovered a world of new art, before many others. He “fell ill” with the avant-garde, which, under the ideological conditions of that time, was a dangerous and, according to many, useless task to assemble. He could not understand anything in abstract painting, but a new, previously unknown world of bright colors and simple forms shocked his imagination, touched his curiosity and inspired him to search for “new art.” His first educator was his neighbor in the village of Bakovka, a well-educated archivist, expert on old libraries and hereditary collector I.V. Kachurin. He helped with the first acquisitions, even gave something as a gift, and suggested how to look for knowledgeable people. And Kostaki found them, listened, greedily absorbing knowledge. I turned to the famous researcher of creativity V.V. Mayakovsky - N.I. Khardzhiev, who introduced him to the St. Petersburg avant-garde, the legacy of Malevich, Matyushin, Filonov, and the Ender family of artists. He also gathered information from D.V. Sarabyanov, who later became a leading specialist in the avant-garde and creativity of L.S. Popova. Kostaki was helped in the search by young art historians V.I., carried away by his passion. Rakitin and S.V. Yamshchikov, there were other assistants among the artists who brought him news of interesting encounters and finds. Costakis drove, looked, selected and, finding the required amount, purchased it, cleaned it himself and gave it to the restorers, framed it and finally hung it on the wall. He passionately wanted to prove to the whole world the priority of many Russian innovative artists of the early 20th century and directed all his efforts towards achieving this goal. Of course, there was hope that it was he who would open this Klondike of the Russian avant-garde and over time, one day, everything would pay off, the funds torn from his family would return and the children would understand what all their fears were for, the presence of eternal “observers” from the authorities at the entrance KGB. The collector's deep conviction that the art that so captivated and admired him would be understood and recognized in the future helped preserve priceless works by Russian avant-garde artists, now known throughout the world. And so it happened.
In 1955, Costakis met R. Falk, who told him about creative life in Moscow and Paris in the 1910-1930s. Soon, Costakis traveled outside the USSR for the first time and immediately after consultations with doctors in Sweden, he rushed to Paris to meet with Goncharova and Larionov, Nina Kandinskaya and Chagall himself. Goncharova, seeing the enormous enthusiasm of an unusual collector from the USSR for the distant years of her and Larionov’s youth, painted a small picture in the “Rayism style” and presented it as a kind of homage to Costakis’ passion. He returned home inspired and entered into a short correspondence with Parisian artists. Then - festival exhibitions in 1956, interesting new acquaintances, and the arrival in Moscow of the famous critic Alfred Bahr Jr., founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The American looked at the collected things and outlined his understanding of the art he saw. Their points of view did not coincide in everything, but Costakis was interested in knowing the opinion of a prominent professional, and they began to exchange rare letters. In 1959, he was already taking his early “Chagalls” to the maestro’s exhibition in Hamburg. Life is in full swing around Costakis. In the early 1960s, he visited the houses of experimental artists of the 1920s and 1930s, I. Kudryashov and I. Babichev, acquiring works by leftist artists, his contemporaries, primarily A. Zverev, V. Weisberg, D. Krasnopevtsev, O. Rabin, I. Vulokha. His hospitable home became for a whole generation of the sixties the place of their first acquaintance with the artists of the Russian avant-garde, which largely determined the direction of their creative searches. As the collection grew, Costakis’ knowledge deepened and his authority grew. In 1973, Costakis gave a series of lectures at universities in America and Canada, as well as at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Also in 1973, an exhibition from the Costakis collection took place in London.
Photo: Artemy Furman (FURMAN360), 2015
However, by the mid-1970s, there was a noticeable deterioration in relations between George Costakis and representatives of the Soviet government, and he decided to leave the USSR. As Georgy Dionisovich writes in his memoirs, he decided to leave Moscow, where he was born and where most of his life was spent, not easily, for medical reasons and under the pressure of anxiety that thickened around him after a strange fire in his house in the village of Bakovka - many people burned there works of nonconformists of the 1960s. The collection collected over many years was one of the obstacles - it was difficult to officially take it all out. According to Soviet laws, only works created in the last 40 years were subject to unhindered export, with the payment of a significant customs duty. Of course, he, a foreign national, could have used various diplomatic channels. but how can his wife, who had Soviet citizenship, and his adult children get permission to leave? After consulting with one long-time friend, Semenov, a famous Soviet diplomat and collector, G.D. Costakis found a solution - on October 26, 1976 he wrote a letter to the USSR Minister of Culture P.N. Demichev. For almost 36 years it was hidden from the eyes of researchers, and for the first time we were able, based on it and other recently declassified documents, to reconstruct the procedure for the state to accept the Costakis gift.
Photo: Artemy Furman (FURMAN360), 2015
“Currently, I have matured the desire to donate to the state the result of my many years of work - a unique collection of Russian and Soviet art of the 20th century. Among the transferred works there are works of high aesthetic and economic value, very important for the development of the artistic culture of the era, such as: “Portrait of Matyushin” by K. Malevich, “Red Square” by V. Kandinsky, relief by V. Tatlin, “Proun” by El Lissitzky , landscape by A. Yavlensky, relief and pictorial compositions by L. Popova, paintings by M. Chagall, N. Udaltsova, A. Drevin, A. Ekster, G. Yakulov, M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, A. Rodchenko, P. Filonov , O. Rozanova, I. Klyuna / "Running landscape" /, I. Puni,<...>a number of projects of propaganda art of the revolutionary years by L. Popova, I. Kudryashov, G. Klutsis,<...>paintings by A. Volkov, S. Nikritin, M. Plaksin, K. Redko,<...>paintings by Serge Polyakov."
The description of the nature of the collection was followed by the conditions for its further existence in state collections, the main of which were the following: all works are transferred to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow; “Landscape with an Amphitheater” by G. Yakulov is transferred to the collection of the State Art Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan; an appropriate part of the collection should be exhibited in the permanent exhibition of Soviet art, with an indication of the gift of G.D. Costakis. This condition is mandatory when exhibiting works at all exhibitions, including foreign ones. The collection should not be fragmented, works should not be transferred to other museums and institutions, sold or donated. “By transferring most of the collection to the state, I ask that I be allowed to take part of the collection abroad /<.>two separate lists are attached/. To solve all the problems related to the fate of the collection, in my opinion, trustees should be appointed: V.I. Popova, A.G. Khalturina, V.S. Manina, V.S. Semenova, V.I. Rakitina. , Sarabyanova D.V., Kostaki N.G...” The Minister of Culture of the USSR did not have the right to give an answer to all the collector’s conditions on his own, and at the beginning of January 1977, his request was made to the culture department of the CPSU Central Committee.
Photo: Artemy Furman (FURMAN360), 2015
The correspondence of the USSR MC with the ideological body of the party was kept classified as “secret” for many years; it indicated the reasoning for which almost all of G.D.’s conditions were accepted. Costakis: “It is also safe to assume that the acceptance of Costakis’ gift and his departure with part of the works he collected will receive a positive political response for us.” As a result, the minister’s request, set out in a certificate signed on February 25, 1977 by the heads of three departments of the CPSU Central Committee, was brought to a draft decision and considered at a meeting of the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat on March 1, 1977. By a resolution of the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee, consisting of six secretaries who unanimously voted “for”, the main condition of the donor was supported: his gift was accepted, Costakis himself received “permission to leave with the right of entry and permanent residence in the USSR, to own a cooperative apartment that belonged to his wife , citizen of the USSR." Permission to export part of G.D.’s collection abroad Kostaki was given as an exception to the current law. Rights to reproduce works donated by G.D. Costakis, in accordance with the norms of Soviet legislation, were transferred to the state.
After five months of waiting and uncertainty, on March 16, 1977, the collector was sent a response from Deputy Minister of Culture of the USSR V.I. Popov outlining all the accepted conditions and adding: “The USSR Ministry of Culture expresses its sincere gratitude to you in connection with your noble deed.” The last formal point in the donation of the collection was Order No. 175 of the USSR Ministry of Culture of the USSR on March 14, 1977 on the creation of a commission and on acceptance for permanent storage in the State Tretyakov Gallery.
Members of the commission and employees of the State Tretyakov Gallery spent several weeks accepting the works. a new life began for G.D.’s collection. Costakis.
In the fall of 1977, having received permission to leave (with the right to re-enter for permanent residence! - an unprecedented case for those leaving for permanent residence from the USSR), daughter Alika and son Alexander and their families took out most of the collection. A few days after their arrival in Germany, the first avant-garde exhibition in Germany from the Costakis collection opened at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. She created a real sensation. In January 1978, Georgy Dionisovich and his wife left the country, and later the family of Inna’s daughter left the country. To support the entire large family, already in the fall of 1979, works by A. Arapov, A. Archipenko, D. Burliuk, N. Goncharova, V. Kandinsky, I. Klyun, E. Lisitsky, L. Popova and many others were put up for auction at Sotheby’s . A little later, at the very end of 1979, the exhibition “Paris-Moscow” opened, at which some avant-garde works from Costakis’ gift were presented abroad for the first time, but for some reason the organizers “forgot to indicate” whose gift it was. Inattention is always unpleasant, in this case it hurt especially painfully...
Kostaki's peace of mind was helped to restore his painting, which he became interested in after leaving Russia, when the works no longer filled the walls of his house - they were “kept” in museums and in special safe deposit boxes in banks. In 1981-1982, a grand exhibition tour took place in eight US cities, accompanied by the publication of an avant-garde collection and a series of performances, then the works were shown in many museums in Europe. In 1986, he came again to the USSR for an exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery, in the catalog of which nine works from his gift and the usual five lines, as well as about other donors, were published for the first time.
George Dionisovich Costakis, who died on March 9, 1990, was buried in the Athens cemetery not far from the resting place of the great Schliemann, the discoverer of the legendary Troy. At the end of his life, Costakis understood: donating part of his treasure, his discovered “Troy” of the Russian avant-garde, to the people with whom he had to share the trials of revolution, repression, war and devastation, became the main act in his life. THANK YOU KOSTAKI!
* The captions to the illustrations indicate works donated by G.D. Costakis at the State Tretyakov Gallery in 1977
- Osip Mandelstam. Poems in memory of Andrei Bely. 1934
El Lissitzky. Sketch of the monument to Rosa Luxemburg. 1919-1920. From the collection of George Costakis at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki
At the end of June, the State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA) opened a permanent exhibition of Russian revolutionary avant-garde art entitled “Thessaloniki. Costakis Collection. Restart."
The Russian or Soviet revolutionary avant-garde has long been part of the world artistic process. The works of Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, Lyubov Popova and many others have firmly taken pride of place in the exhibitions of the world's largest museums.
And yet the exhibition in Thessaloniki is an extraordinary event. It reflects the unique collection of Soviet art collected over decades by the Greek collector George Costakis.
The exhibition of 400 masterpieces is only a third of the nearly 1,300 works from the Costakis collection, which has found a permanent home in the Greek city.
How and why these works ended up in the hands of a Greek, and then in Greece itself, is an exciting, semi-detective story that can become material for an exciting film.
Driver-collector
In the Soviet years, among artists and lovers of the then forbidden avant-garde, the name of Georgy Dionisievich Kostaki was legendary.
Unlike many other Western collectors, Costakis was not a newcomer to the USSR. He was born in Moscow in 1913 in the family of a Greek businessman. Despite the revolution, the family did not leave Russia, and, moreover, even managed to retain Greek citizenship.
Georgy Dionisievich Kostaki lived most of his life in Moscow. Photo from 1973
Without receiving any special education, Costakis worked as a driver at the Greek embassy in the 1930s, drove diplomatic workers to antique stores and gradually became involved in collecting. At first it was quite traditional: classical painting of the old Dutch, porcelain, silver.
“Continuing in the same spirit, I could get rich, but... no more. Everything that I collected was already in the Louvre, and in the Hermitage, and, perhaps, in every large museum in any country, and even in private collections. But I wanted to do something extraordinary,” he later recalled.
He encountered something extraordinary by chance in a Moscow apartment, where he saw two or three avant-garde canvases (including Olga Rozanova’s painting “Green Stripe” (1917), which made a “strong impression” on him.
Nadezhda Udaltsova. "Yellow Jug", 1913. From the collection of George Costakis at the Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki
“And so I bought avant-garde paintings, brought them home and hung them next to the Dutch. And it felt like I was living in a room with curtained windows, and now they opened and the sun rushed in. From that moment on, I decided to part with everything I had collected and acquire only the avant-garde. This happened in 1946.”
"Crazy Greek"
The sudden insight and unexpected fascination not only with the forgotten and abandoned art, but also with the harsh Stalinist times, which was considered ideologically harmful art, did not meet with understanding among the collector’s former comrades.
“Most of my friends and family looked at me with pity. They were convinced that I was making a big mistake by selling my old collection and buying what they thought was “nonsense.” In the circles of Moscow collectors, I acquired the not very flattering nickname “crazy Greek” - a collector of useless and useless garbage.”
Costakis, however, did not give up. He tirelessly searched for still living artists of the Russian avant-garde - Tatlin, Rodchenko, Stepanova, Goncharova, Larionov, their friends and relatives, meticulously, methodically collecting his collection over three decades.
All these years he continued to work in the embassy system, and in low-level, non-diplomatic positions. From 1940 he was a driver at the British Embassy. Then he moved to the Canadian Embassy, where for 37 years, from 1942 to 1979, he worked as an administrator and was in charge of the local Soviet servants of the embassy: drivers, gardeners, cooks and maids, reporting daily to the most junior official of the embassy.
In the 60-70s, Costakis’s apartment on Vernadsky Avenue became an unofficial museum of modern art in Moscow - a place where artists, musicians, writers, and foreign diplomats gathered almost every day.
George Kostakis in his Moscow apartment
The list of celebrities who visited Costakis’s apartment looks more than impressive, not only from the world of art, but also politics and business: Marc Chagall, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andrzej Wajda, Maya Plisetskaya, Malevich’s daughter Una, Kandinsky’s wife Nina, Edward Kennedy, David Rockefeller.
Future world-famous masters of Soviet non-conformism also studied here at the avant-garde school: Lydia Masterkova, Francisco Infante, Eduard Steinberg, Anatoly Zverev, Vladimir Yakovlev, Oleg Vasiliev, Lev Kropivnitsky, Dmitry Plavinsky, Igor Makarevich and many, many others.
Attempts to legalize and departure
For the first time, paintings from the Costakis collection appeared in an official Soviet museum in 1967 - as part of the “Revolutionary Art” exhibition held at the Tretyakov Gallery and dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the revolution.
It was still almost thaw time, and, inspired by success, Costakis decided to take a radical step. He found an abandoned mansion in the center of Moscow and proposed to the Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva to make the first Museum of Contemporary Art in the USSR in this building based on his collection, and he himself volunteered to become its director. The refusal was predictable and expected.
Costakis realized that in the USSR he would not be able to achieve his cherished goal - to make his collection accessible to a wide audience and at the same time preserve it as the result of his own long-term collecting work, as the fruit of his own love and passion.
Gustav Klutsis. "Dynamic city" 1919-1921. From the collection of George Costakis at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki
He also understood that it would not be possible to remove such a large collection - legally or illegally.
There was only one way out - difficult, unwanted, a compromise, but a way out. The collection must be divided into parts.
In 1977, he decided to donate a significant part of his collection to the Tretyakov Gallery. As gallery curator Irina Pronina later recalled, “the very question of accepting a part of the Costakis collection as a gift was stuck in the depths of the USSR Ministry of Culture for a long time, being discussed in the highest spheres of various departments. There was no ready answer to such a bold proposal; officials needed to show creativity and not make a mistake with a comma in the right place in the famous phrase “allow cannot be prohibited.”
Kazimir Malevich. "Portrait of a Woman", 1910-1911. From the collection of George Costakis at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki
As a result, the collection was accepted. However, there was no talk about preserving the integrity of even the part of the unique collection that entered the collections of the largest museum of Russian art. A considerable part of the works ended up in the collections, the rest - even those that were awarded the exhibition - were distributed among various halls of the gallery, and there was no indication of their belonging to the Costakis collection during the exhibition. Only now are these works beginning to be identified at the Tretyakov Gallery.
Be that as it may, in exchange for the transfer of such a significant gift to the fund of the official Soviet museum, 64-year-old George Costakis was allowed not only to leave the USSR, but also to take with him the rest of his collection. The decision was forced. As the collector’s daughter Aliki Costakis recalls, he received it with tears in his eyes.
New life to an old collection
Already in 1977, the year Costakis left for the West, a selection of works from his collection was exhibited at the Düsseldorf Kunstmuseum in Germany. In 1979-80 his paintings made up a significant part of the French half of the legendary Paris-Moscow exhibition, held at the Pompidou Center.
Alexander Rodchenko. "Two Figures", 1920. From the collection of George Costakis at the Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki
A special milestone in the new life of the old collection was its presentation at the New York Guggenheim Museum in 1981 - it was then that it was properly documented and provided with an impressive catalog. As exhibition curator Margit Rowell wrote in the accompanying text to the catalogue, “When we opened the boxes of paintings that arrived at us, I immediately realized that the history of the avant-garde must be written anew.”
During the 80s, the collection traveled extensively around the world: Houston, Ottawa, Indianapolis, Chicago, Stockholm, London, Helsinki, Montreal. In 1992, it became the basis of a series of exhibitions “The Great Utopia” (Frankfurt, Amsterdam, New York, Moscow).
George Costakis died in 1990, without waiting for the historical event - in 1995, at the National Gallery in Athens, for the first time since 1977, two parts of the famous collection were reunited.
Alas, not for long. Repeated attempts since then to hold a joint exhibition of the two separated parts of the collection have encountered so far insurmountable bureaucratic and legal obstacles.
Mikhail Matyushin. Musical and pictorial design. 1918. From the collection of George Costakis at the Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki
However, in Moscow in 2014, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the collector, an extensive exhibition of the Russian part of the Costakis collection entitled “George Costakis. “Exit from the USSR is allowed...”.
From the publication of Alexander Kan, you can read the full text of the publication
