All-Russian Art Scientific Restoration Center named after I.E. Grabar

The Federal State Institution of Culture "All-Russian Art Research and Restoration Center named after Academician I.E. Grabar" (VHNRTS) - the oldest state restoration organization of Russia - was founded on June 10, 1918 at the initiative of the artist and art researcher Igor Grabar , under the Department for Museums and the protection of monuments of art and antiquities of the People's Commissariat of Education (32nd Division of the People's Commissariat of Education) of the RSFSR in the form of the All-Russian Commission for the Preservation and Disclosure of Old Russian Painting. The chairman of this commission was appointed I.E. Grabar . In 1924, the commission was transformed into the Central State Restoration Workshops (TsGRM). Through the efforts of I.E. Grabar , the color of the national scientific restoration of that time was collected in the TsGRM: both eminent art scientists and experienced restorers-practitioners.

In 1934, the Center was liquidated. Some of the leading employees of the Center were repressed, up to the “highest measure of social protection”. The accusations, of course, are false, but in the situation at that time they are almost “deserved”: “propaganda of religion” under the guise of preserving culture. Fortunately, I.E. Grabar was a figure of such magnitude that he was not touched. The return of restorers from the opals - the "merit" of the war. As the occupied part of the USSR was liberated, the scale of the damage caused by the war not only to the economy, but also to the culture — historical monuments and artistic values ​​became clearer. On September 1, 1944, the CPC issues Order No. 17765-p signed by the deputy. Chairman V. M. Molotov for permission to organize the Central Art and Restoration Workshop for the Committee on Arts of the USSR Council of People's Commissars. Naturally, for the organization, the most experienced I.E. Grabar was attracted, who, becoming the artistic director of the “new” workshop, actually recreated the old ones, drawing on the surviving restorers, even recalling them from the fronts. It is thanks to I. E. Grabar , the current Center is rightly considered the successor of those workshops that began in 1918.

For the nearly century-long history of the center, thousands of monuments of fine and decorative arts have been preserved by the works of its employees for national and world culture. Among these monuments are the frescoes of the Novgorod and Vladimir temples, the cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin, Old Russian icons, including such shrines as the “Mother of God of Vladimir” “The Trinity ” painted by Andrei Rublev; paintings from the collection of the Dresden Gallery, the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin; Panorama " Battle of Borodino " F.Rubo ; medieval manuscripts and antique ceramics.

From 1986 to 2010, the Center was led by artist and art historian Alexei Petrovich Vladimirov. In difficult conditions for all cultural institutions of the last decades, the All-Russian Conservancy Center managed to preserve the best traditions of the restoration school established by I.E. Grabar and his associates.

VHNRTS specializes in the conservation, restoration, examination of oil painting monuments, icon painting, graphics (including on parchment basis), books (including “incunabula”), wooden, stone, plaster and oriental lacquer sculpture monuments, applied art objects (metal , bone, sewing and fabrics, ceramics).

Today, the Center is one of the few restoration organizations that have a time-tested system for training new employees. As early as 1947, the “State Regulation on Artists-Restorers” was adopted at the Center for the Artists' Responsibility, which imputed to each master “continuous improvement: a) on the history and theory of art; b) by the method of restoration processes; c) according to the general artistic level (performing creative works in accordance with his specialty - according to drawing, painting, modeling, copying, etc.) ”.

Since 1955, the Center has been among the creators and regular participants of the State Attestation Commission of the RSFSR Ministry of Culture, which determined the skill level of restorers. The center was at the forefront of the creation of a state system for training new restoration personnel, and now it is one of the few cultural institutions that carefully preserve the order of consecutive professional development of young specialists that has developed over the decades. As a rule, new employees who come to the departments of the VHNRTS have a higher or secondary specialized art education. The basics of the profession they comprehend under the leadership of the restorers of the highest and first category. Gradually, as new knowledge and experience is gained, they are allowed to work with more and more complex exhibits.

The VHNRTS closely cooperates with the domestic and international museum community, its specialists have been actively involved in the work of the Russian branch of ICOM UNESCO since its inception. Now among the partners of the Center are more than 200 museums, restoration workshops and research organizations of Russia and countries of near and far abroad.

Employees of VHNRTs carry out inspection and restoration of museum expositions and funds in the field during business trips, accept museum restorers and curators for internships, exchange scientific information with Russian and foreign colleagues during numerous conferences and exhibitions.

VHNRTs today is not only a restoration and research organization, but also a scientific and methodological base of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, including the training of qualified personnel for restoration centers, workshops, restoration departments of Russian museums.

Before the Great Patriotic War and immediately after it ended, the training of restorers in special educational institutions was not practiced in the USSR, although the need for them was enormous, especially in the post-war years. First of all, it was not so much the high-class restoration artists who needed to restore the lost, but the conservators for the “first aid” to the damaged monuments - able to monitor the preservation of museum funds, prevent the final loss of historical and artistic values, carry out urgent conservation works, and opportunities, simple restoration work.

To solve this important task, the Central State Restoration Workshops, as it was then called the Grabar Center, in 1955 organized two-year training courses for restorers of easel painting, graphics, sculpture and objects of applied art. The students of the courses received the necessary training, not only practical, but also general cultural theoretical, and, having received qualification certificates indicating the list of works that they were allowed to perform, became a real salvation for thousands of exhibits in many museums of the Soviet Union. The best graduates were recruited at TsGRM, many of them are still the pride of the Center.

Currently, the preparation of restoration personnel in Russia usually consists of two steps: in a number of art schools in the country restoration faculties and departments have been opened, after which graduates are trained by experienced practitioners.

It is this kind of mentoring that has traditionally been for VHNRTs - a qualified and experienced restorer has been guiding for several years, teaching in practice the work of students, bringing them to a high professional level.

In order to train and retrain restorers for museums in the country, a system of internships has been developed in various departments with mandatory reading of theoretical courses on technology, restoration techniques and various types of pre-restoration and restoration studies of monuments (physical, chemical, x-ray, biological, etc.). Internships are conducted on the basis of contracts VHNRTs with interested organizations and individuals.

On July 15, 2010 a fire broke out in the building, it began in the afternoon from the rooftop. The fire was assigned the third category on a five-point scale of difficulty. 65 fire fighting vehicles and three fire helicopters took part in the fire fighting. Two firemen became victims of the fire - Alexander Vladimirovich Dymchikov (1969) and Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Shashin (1983) who died, probably, with a sudden release of flame due to a sharp inflow of air, possible during the collapse of a part of the roof, departure glass, etc. The glazed "balcony", which is about of the third floor of the building, has completely burnt out, the roof over the remaining part of the third floor and several rooms of the second floor have suffered from fire. All the rooms of the second and first floors are filled with foam and water. Only the storage on the ground floor settled against the water, where most of the exhibits were located.

As a result of the fire, the archive suffered, several pictures were damaged. Two exhibits are not subject to restoration: the Turkmen carpet, just renovated at the Center after a fire in the Muranovo manor, and the banner of the Petrine era from Pereslavl-Zalessky. The message that the work of George Dow “Alexander I on horseback” from the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin ^{[1] was} lost, was mistaken, the picture was found, although it suffered greatly. To restore the building will require major repairs.

Director of the Restoration Center Alexey Vladimirov criticized extinguishing a fire using water. He stated: “There are world examples: when Albertina was burning, she was extinguished with gas, because they knew that the schedule was kept inside” ^[2] . In the Moscow State Fire Service there is one gas extinguishing car ^[3] .

In early 2011, a staff member of the manuscripts restoration department, Evgeny Osipov , was awarded the prize " Own Track " for 2010 for rescuing ancient manuscripts from the fire, including the Spassky Gospel of the XIII century ^[4] .

• Official site
• Center on the site "Museums of Russia"