Rosamund Bartlett is a biographer and translator of Chekhov and Tolstoy, and lectures regularly on Russian art

‘Sydney Modern must be given time to evolve’

The Art Gallery of New South Wales’s extension is too populist and commercially minded for some – but it is full of possibilities

27 Apr 2023

Ukrainian modernism deserves to be understood on its own terms

The artists of Ukrainian modernism have often been miscategorised as Russian, but an exhibition of avant-garde art seeks to redress the balance

27 Feb 2023

The Russian modernist who made the European avant-garde feel at home

Marianne Werefkin has long been overshadowed by her male peers, but the Royal Academy’s show devoted to modernist women may restore her to her rightful place

24 Sep 2022
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1872), Vasily Perov. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Dostoevsky’s distrust of the West ran deep – but so did his love of the Old Masters

The novelist revered Raphael’s Sistine Madonna – and Holbein’s Dead Christ almost induced an epileptic fit

3 Nov 2021
Portrait of the Collector of Modern Russian and French Paintings, Ivan Abramovich Morozov (detail; 1910), Valentin Serov. Courtesy Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The merchant from Moscow who fell for the Parisian avant-garde

Ivan Morozov built one of the greatest modern art collections in the world – but only a century after his death is his legacy being recognised

24 Feb 2021
The Yusupov Palace theatre, designed by Andrey Mikhailov in the 1830s,

Russian spark – the palace builders of St Petersburg 

A ritzy new book brings to life the eclectic tastes and unbridled opulence of aristocratic families in late imperial Russia

27 Mar 2020
Pink Drawing Room (known as the Matisse Room), in Sergei Shchukin’s house, the Trubetskoy Palace, Moscow.

The revolutionary collector who changed the course of Russian art

How Sergei Shchukin brought paintings by the most trailblazing members of the French avant-garde to Russia

17 Oct 2016
Pavel Tretyakov (1901), Ilia Repin. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The Russian portraits at the NPG are a revelation

Russia’s 19th-century portraitists were more than a match for the exceptional writers and composers they painted. So why is their work so neglected?

13 May 2016