DOI article:
Kachurin, Pamela Jill: Purchasing power: the state as art patron in early Soviet Russia
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48915#0176
Purchasing Power: The State as Art Patron in Early Soyiet Russia
171
Heller argues, the highest intensity of terror was targeted at the intelligentsia. He States
that from the first days of the Revolution, Lenin saw the intelligentsia as the chief enemy.
Lenin wrote about the intelligentsia: “one cannot do otherwise than arrest them, for they
are ‘capable’ of aiding conspirators [...] and are potentially dangerous.”8 It is important to
keep the Cheka’s threatening presence in mind when discussing artists’ decisions
to cooperate with the Bolsheviks. The combination of the proverbial carrot - private
studios and extra food rations - and the proverbial stick - the Cheka - impelled many
Futurist artists to work within Soviet institutional structures.
The Purchasing Commission operated under the auspices of the Museum Bureau, one
of several sub-departments within IZO. Alexander Rodchenko, as head of the Museum
Bureau, was also the head of the Purchasing Commission. Membership of the Moscow
branch of the Purchasing Commission was in constant flux, but at its inception
the commission was madę up of Rodchenko and Alexander Drevin. Its original task was
the purchase of works of contemporary art from living artists to fili the planned Museum
of Contemporary Art. Vladimir Tatlin, the head of the Moscow Collegium of IZO, and
artist Sophia Dymshits-Tolstaya envisioned this museum as a showcase in the Capital for
the “best works of living art.” Tatlin and Dymshits-Tolstaya specified in their description
of the projected museum that acąuisitions could be approved only by the artistic Collegium
within IZO, and that artists themselves would choose which works they would sell to the
Commission.9 The Collegium of IZO, which included Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandin-
sky, Pavel Kuznetsov, Sergei Konenkov and Boris Korolev, immediately approved the
plan for the museum, and began to purchase paintings from living active artists: each
other. Artists who could barely survive the year before were in a position to sell their
work to a generous patron, the State. In taking fuli advantage of this new-found position,
nepotism was unavoidable.
The first purchase, madę in September 1918, was of five paintings by Malevich, for
20,000 roubles, the equivalent of his salary within IZO for ten months.10 A few days later,
three Tatlin paintings were bought for 21,000 roubles, and by 17 October 1918 a total of
61 works had been purchased for 215,000 roubles - all for the so-far non-existent Museum
of Contemporary Art.11 The majority of works were by Futurist artists such as Nadezhda
Udaltsova, Rodchenko, Kandinsky, Olga Rozanova, and Anton Pevsner, all working
within IZO. In November 1918, an unnamed Pravda author took notę of the activity of the
Purchasing Commission, criticizing the IZO Museum Bureau and the Purchasing Fund for
not acquiring works from all deserving artists, but only works by Futurists, whose “futurę
is still very controversial.”12 In the first issue of Art ofthe Commune, the official organ of
IZO, Lunacharsky and Shterenberg defended the Purchasing Commission’s actions:
IZO hereby announces that purchases will be madę from all deserving artists
regardless of school, but in the first place the works of those artists who, having
been persecuted during the era of the dominance of bourgeois taste, were not
8 M. HELLER, “Lenin and the Chekha: The Real Lenin,” Survey vol. 24, no. 2, Spring 1979: pp. 175-192. For additional
Information see George Legget, CHEKA: Lenin’s Political Police, Oxford, 1986.
9 State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) f. A-2306, op. 23, d. 7,1. 35.
10 GARF f. A-2306, op. 23, d. 90,1. 123.
11 GARF f. A-2306, op. 23, d. 5,1. 353.
12 D. SHTERENBERG, A. V. LUNACHARSKY, “Ot otdela IZO NKP,” Iskusstvo kommuny, no. 1,7 December 1918, p. 3.
171
Heller argues, the highest intensity of terror was targeted at the intelligentsia. He States
that from the first days of the Revolution, Lenin saw the intelligentsia as the chief enemy.
Lenin wrote about the intelligentsia: “one cannot do otherwise than arrest them, for they
are ‘capable’ of aiding conspirators [...] and are potentially dangerous.”8 It is important to
keep the Cheka’s threatening presence in mind when discussing artists’ decisions
to cooperate with the Bolsheviks. The combination of the proverbial carrot - private
studios and extra food rations - and the proverbial stick - the Cheka - impelled many
Futurist artists to work within Soviet institutional structures.
The Purchasing Commission operated under the auspices of the Museum Bureau, one
of several sub-departments within IZO. Alexander Rodchenko, as head of the Museum
Bureau, was also the head of the Purchasing Commission. Membership of the Moscow
branch of the Purchasing Commission was in constant flux, but at its inception
the commission was madę up of Rodchenko and Alexander Drevin. Its original task was
the purchase of works of contemporary art from living artists to fili the planned Museum
of Contemporary Art. Vladimir Tatlin, the head of the Moscow Collegium of IZO, and
artist Sophia Dymshits-Tolstaya envisioned this museum as a showcase in the Capital for
the “best works of living art.” Tatlin and Dymshits-Tolstaya specified in their description
of the projected museum that acąuisitions could be approved only by the artistic Collegium
within IZO, and that artists themselves would choose which works they would sell to the
Commission.9 The Collegium of IZO, which included Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandin-
sky, Pavel Kuznetsov, Sergei Konenkov and Boris Korolev, immediately approved the
plan for the museum, and began to purchase paintings from living active artists: each
other. Artists who could barely survive the year before were in a position to sell their
work to a generous patron, the State. In taking fuli advantage of this new-found position,
nepotism was unavoidable.
The first purchase, madę in September 1918, was of five paintings by Malevich, for
20,000 roubles, the equivalent of his salary within IZO for ten months.10 A few days later,
three Tatlin paintings were bought for 21,000 roubles, and by 17 October 1918 a total of
61 works had been purchased for 215,000 roubles - all for the so-far non-existent Museum
of Contemporary Art.11 The majority of works were by Futurist artists such as Nadezhda
Udaltsova, Rodchenko, Kandinsky, Olga Rozanova, and Anton Pevsner, all working
within IZO. In November 1918, an unnamed Pravda author took notę of the activity of the
Purchasing Commission, criticizing the IZO Museum Bureau and the Purchasing Fund for
not acquiring works from all deserving artists, but only works by Futurists, whose “futurę
is still very controversial.”12 In the first issue of Art ofthe Commune, the official organ of
IZO, Lunacharsky and Shterenberg defended the Purchasing Commission’s actions:
IZO hereby announces that purchases will be madę from all deserving artists
regardless of school, but in the first place the works of those artists who, having
been persecuted during the era of the dominance of bourgeois taste, were not
8 M. HELLER, “Lenin and the Chekha: The Real Lenin,” Survey vol. 24, no. 2, Spring 1979: pp. 175-192. For additional
Information see George Legget, CHEKA: Lenin’s Political Police, Oxford, 1986.
9 State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) f. A-2306, op. 23, d. 7,1. 35.
10 GARF f. A-2306, op. 23, d. 90,1. 123.
11 GARF f. A-2306, op. 23, d. 5,1. 353.
12 D. SHTERENBERG, A. V. LUNACHARSKY, “Ot otdela IZO NKP,” Iskusstvo kommuny, no. 1,7 December 1918, p. 3.