The lost prewar collection of the Simferopol Art Gallery (1937–1941)

Abstract

The article highlights the history of the prewar collection of the Simferopol Art Museum in 1937–1941 and notes the most important works of art lost. The events that accompanied the loss of the collection during the Great Patriotic War were repeatedly covered by the museum in publications. According to official data, during the evacuation in October 1941, the boxes with the exhibits and the museum archive were transported to Kerch where they were burnt during a fire in the port caused by the bombing of enemy aircraft. For many years, the museum’s employees Galina I. Fedotova, Natalya D. Dyachenko and Natalya F. Grishchenko studied documents in the Simferopol, Moscow and St. Petersburg archives to restore the list of exhibits from the prewar collection. The result of their work was an extensive “Catalog of the values of the Simferopol Art Museum, lost during the Second World War” (2002), which is presented in the documentary archive of the museum. The main sections of the permanent exhibition of the prewar collection of the Simferopol Art Gallery are marked in the catalog. This information is of great importance for Russian museum science: many items transferred in 1937–1941 to the Simferopol collection were previously included in the funds of the State Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage and other major museum collections.