Arkhangelsk Museum of Fine Arts

About museum

Arkhangelsk Museum of Fine Arts (since 1994 — the State Museum Association "Artistic Culture of the Russian North") was established on August 29, 1960. It was founded on the basis of the art collections of the regional local history museum and the Solvychegodsk Historical and Art Museum. The director of the museum association is Maya Vladimirovna Mitkevich, an Honored Worker of Culture, an honorary citizen of the Arkhangelsk Region, and an honorary citizen of the city of Arkhangelsk.

The process of forming the museum collection took place in the 1960s–1980s. It was initiated by numerous expeditions to the districts of the region. The active collecting activities of the museum in those years and the work of restorers made it possible to create a unique collection in the Department of Old Russian Art, including about 5,000 works of painting, sculpture and decorative-applied arts from the 14th–18th centuries. A large part of the collection consists of icon painting works grouped under the general name "northern writings." All the exhibits from the Old Russian art collection are monuments to the distinctive culture of the Russian North.

The folk art collection in the museum's holdings is one of the most extensive. It brings together all types of traditional art that existed in the Arkhangelsk North in the 18th–20th centuries: folk embroidery, weaving, gold embroidery, sewing with pearls and beads, wood carving and painting. Among them are unique items that have survived to the present day only in isolated examples.

The Arkhangelsk Museum holds the most significant collection of contemporary Kholmogory bone carving, an art whose roots date back to the 16th century. The works of contemporary masters in this collection are not inferior to the finest examples of the celebrated masters of the past.