Irina Antonova: biography, creative path and family

A life that is satisfied with himself, and which others admire about him, can be proud of ... Irina Antonova, former director of the Pushkin Museum, has every right to be respected by other people for their activities in this difficult post.

Short biography of Irina Antonova

Irina Alexandrovna was born on March 20, 1922 in Moscow, in the family of great art lovers. Although her father, Alexander Alexandrovich, a former revolutionary, was only an electrician, his love for the theater turned out to be passionate and passed on to his daughter. From the mother of Ida Mikhailovna, a musician in piano, she inherited the love of music. His father was attracted not only to the theater (he even took part in amateur productions), but also to glass production, which became his real vocation.

Thanks to the new profession of the father, Irina Antonova and her parents from 1929 to 1933. Lived in Germany, where she studied German enough to read the German classics in the original. After the Nazis came to power, Antonov's family returned to the Soviet Union.

After graduation, Irina entered the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature in Moscow, which closed when the war began. Irina Alexandrovna graduated from the nurses' courses and worked in the hospital all through the war.

After the war, Irina Antonova graduated from this institute within the Moscow State University, where he was transferred to, and simultaneously began to work and study at the Pushkin Museum, at which time there was a postgraduate study. Specialization Antonova - Italian art of the Renaissance.

In 1961, as a senior researcher at the museum, she was appointed to the post of its director, who occupied more than 40 years.

Spouse - Evsei Iosifovich Rotenberg (1920-2011), an art historian who worked for a long time at the Institute of the History of Art Studies, Doctor of Science. The son of Irina Antonova - Boris - was born in 1954. When he was 7 years old, he fell ill, after which he did not recover. Now he moves only in a wheelchair. This is a heavy burden for every mother, not an exception - and Irina Antonova. Son Boris has been sick for more than 40 years.

Work in the museum in the 1960s

Almost all her time Irina Alexandrovna dedicated to the museum, which was quite difficult in times of stagnation, when art had a direction exclusively for glorifying the ideas of the party. To manage, and even more so organize exhibitions in the museum of Western art, it required some courage when the law of censorship operated in the country.

Her work in the 60s can be called bold and innovative, since Western art, especially modern, was not in the credit of the Soviet authorities. In those years, contrary to the opinion of the Minister of Culture Furtseva and party policy, she held such bold exhibitions as the showing of works by Tyshler, Matisse. With her light hand, musical evenings began to be held at the museum, in which Stravinsky, Schnittke, Rachmaninov sounded, and the Soviet leadership did not like them.

Even in this period, she introduced the Vipperov Readings, dedicated to her teacher and the former scientific director of the museum Vipper BP

Pushkin Museum in the 1970s

Irina Antonova became the man under whose leadership the full reorganization of the halls and expositions was conducted.

Thanks to her, unprecedented exhibitions were held at that time - the work of foreign and domestic portraitists was placed in one room. Visitors could see and compare the work, for example, Serov and Renoir at the same time.

In 1974, Irina Antonova insisted that the pictures of Western European artists from former collections of patrons Shchukin and Ivan Morozov be removed from the museum's storehouses and displayed. They stayed in the storeroom for dozens of years and, thanks to Irina Alexandrovna, they were assigned the restored rooms on the second floor of the Pushkin Museum building.

In the late 70's, a closer cooperation with museums and exhibitions of Western countries began. Thanks to the work carried out by Irina Antonova, the museums of the Metropolitan (New York) and other countries were able to provide works of great artists to the Soviet spectators.

Museum in the period of perestroika

In the 80's and 90's brought to a new level by Irina Antonova Pushkin Museum. Exhibitions of paintings began to take a global scale. Thus, the exhibition "Moscow-Paris" was declared an event of the 20th century, since it was the first time that Kazimir Malevich, Kandinsky and other artists were exhibited, which were banned in the USSR.

Together with the exhibits Irina Alexandrovna managed to visit many countries, meet with outstanding people there, others she was lucky to accompany through the halls of the beloved Pushkin Museum: Mitterrand, Rockefeller, Chirac, Juan Carlos, Oppenheimer, King and Queen of the Netherlands.

To attract the public to the museum, she had to generate new ideas all the time. So, the idea to combine music with fine art developed into the joint creative work of Antonova and Richter "December Evenings."

Great musicians played in the halls of the institution, which brought it to a completely different level both in the eyes of the world community and in the Soviet public's assessment of the role of the museum in the cultural life of the country.

"Schliemann's Gold"

One of the most scandalous exhibitions of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts was the 1996 exhibition "Gold of Troy". Many Western and domestic artists believed that this exhibition was tainted with her biography. Antonova Irina was charged with concealing the truth about the Troy gold exported from Germany in 1945, which the Soviet Union had previously said had nothing to do with him.

Silence in Soviet history was more than enough, but usually historical values returned to their homeland. So it was with works from the Dresden Gallery for example.

The fact that gold was withdrawn from the storages for public inspection was an indicator of the openness of the new government of Russia.

Anniversary of the museum

In 1998, the centenary of the Alexander Pushkin museum's museum was celebrated with a grand scale. In 1898, Nikolay II was present on the laying of the first stone. The celebration took place at the Bolshoi Theater and was marked by a grand concert of the best musicians, singers and dancers.

Thanks to its director, the Pushkin Museum has become one of the most important "centers" of culture, like the Louvre, the Hermitage, the Metropolitan, the Prado, the British Museum and others.

Pushkin Museum in the new millennium

With the beginning of the new century, the museum began to undergo multiple changes. So, he has grown considerably thanks to Irina Alexandrovna. On the territory there were new museums - impressionists, private collections, Children's Center. But, according to the director, this is not enough. Given that the collection of the Pushkin Museum has more than 600,000 works of art, of which only 1.5% are exhibited in the exhibition halls, the construction of a real museum town is required for a full-fledged work.

The museum has been allocated funds, so that in time it will be able to become a real city of art and culture.

The family of Irina Antonova

A small family, however, was of great importance to her, especially Boris Antonov, the son of Irina Antonova. He was a talented boy, he was happy with his parents' successes, he knew a lot of poems by heart, quickly developed. In those days, when the first child was born to parents who are over 30, it was considered to be late.

The son of Irina Antonova fell ill at the age of seven. After that, as she herself admits, any problems and troubles began to appear to her small and insignificant.

Treatment with the best doctors did not help, and today Boris is a hostage to a wheelchair. Irina Alexandrovna hopes that there will be a person who will take care of his son when she does not become. Today Antonova is 93, but this active, creative and purposeful woman is still working.

Now she is president of the Pushkin Museum and continues to actively participate in his life. She is also a member of the advisers to the president of the Russian Federation.

Merit

Today, Irina Aleksandrovna has more than 100 publications, work in the museum, a huge contribution to the cultural development of the country. For her services she was awarded the Order of the October Revolution, the Red Banner of Labor, "For Service to the Fatherland", 1 and 2 degrees, she is a full member of the Russian and Madrid Academies, she has the French Order of the Commander of Arts and Literature and the Italian "For Merits".

She was not only the director of the great museum, but she also taught at the Institute of Oriental Languages in Paris, at the Department of Art Studies at Moscow State University, and at the Institute of Cinematography.

For 12 years, Antonova was vice-president of the Council of Museums at UNESCO, and now she is an honorary member. Together with outstanding cultural figures of the country is a permanent member of the jury of the independent competition "Triumph".

In her time Irina Aleksandrovna constantly goes to theatrical performances, concerts, to the circus. The habit to go twice a week to cultural performances to her as a child was instilled by parents. She is very fond of ballet, music, theater, she drives with pleasure. It was the car that Irina Antonova called her fortress.