The Myth of Palekh – Icons and Lacquer Miniatures - Kunsthalle ...

The Myth of Palekh – Icons and Lacquer
Miniatures
Exhibition at the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen
December 12 th 2010 – February 6 th 2011
The Recklinghausen Icon Museum, opened in 1956, is the
most important museum of Eastern church art outside the
Orthodox countries. Well over a thousand icons, gold
embroideries, miniatures and works in wood and metal
from Russia, Greece and the Balkan countries give a
comprehensive survey of the manifold subjects and the
stylistic development of icon painting and applied art in
the Christian East.
The town of Recklinghausen lies in the Ruhr District and
is therefore part of the ‘European Capital of Culture
Ruhr.2010’. As a special project of the town on this
occasion, the Icon Museum is planning an exhibition. The
painters’ village of Palekh, situated three hundred kilometres
to the north-east of Moscow, is the centre of the
exhibition. Art lovers associate two special types of
Russian art with the name of Palekh: exclusive, exquisitely
detailed painted icons and the equally delicately executed
lacquer miniatures on papier-mâché.
The village of Palekh has been a centre of icon painting
since the 17 th century. Influenced by the tradition of the
Stroganov Style and the fresco and icon painting in the
towns of the upper Volga area, the best artists of Palekh
developed the style known today as the ‘Palekh Style’.
Typical attributes of the Palekh Style: In addition to the
saints depicted on them, these Palekh icons also feature
miniature architectural backdrops, delicately painted in
pastel colours and richly decorated with white ornaments,
as well as lush landscapes, as equally important elements

of the composition. The painted area is often subdivided
into a multitude of single little pictures where e.g the
Feasts of the Christian Orthodox Liturgical Year or saints
with their hagiographical scenes are shown in filigreed
painting.
The 1917 October Revolution resulted in a massive
decline in demand for icons, and the Palekh painters
found their livelihoods threatened. In the early 1920s,
some Palekh icon painters began to try their hands at
lacquer painting. In 1924, they founded the ‘Palekh Artel
of Ancient Painting’ and began commercial production of
small objets d’art on papier-mâché, painted and lacquered
using the egg tempera technique and gold. The artists,
with their roots firmly anchored in the old tradition of
icon painting, had thus found a way to go on putting their
artistic skills in fine art painting to good use under
changed social conditions. Everyday rural scenes and
scenes from Russian fairy tales, from old Russian heroic
epics and from Russian history were the principal
subjects depicted on the lacquer works. In the 1930s, the
artists also began to paint themes based on political
ideology. These depictions glamorised the social changes
attributed to the October Revolution, and the glory of the
Red Army in the civil war and later in the Second World
War. The result was a symbiosis between the socialist
realism promoted by the political system and stylistic
elements from icon painting.
Since the 1990s, icon painting has started up again in
Palekh. Thus the circle is completed: from icon to lacquer
miniature and back to the icon.
The exhibition tries to duplicate this change. It will
present icons, many of them from the rich collection of
the Recklinghausen Icon Museum, from the ‘Collezione
Intesa Sanpaolo, Vicenza, Gallerie di Palazzo Leoni
Montanari’, but also from private collections.
Furthermore there will be shown magnificent examples of
lacquer miniatures from large collections in Switzerland
and The Netherlands; and last but not least icons painted
in the last two decades.

The exhibition is meant for both specialists and a wider
public, as the delicately painted icons and lacquer
miniatures are a delight for the eye of every art lover!
A detailed catalogue with scientific contributions will be
published to accompany the exhibition.
A meeting dedicated to the same topic will take place on
January 22 nd at the Festspielhaus in Recklinghausen. In
autumn a detailed program will be placed on the
Museum’s homepage. Upon request, it can also be
mailed.
The curators of the exhibition:
Dr. Eva Haustein-Bartsch, director of the
Recklinghausen Icon Museum
Dr. Felix Waechter, Switzerland
The exhibition is staged in cooperation with
the Münster Museum for Lacquer Art, which
will present an exhibition ‘The School of
Palekh (1924 – 1950)’ from October 17 th 2010
– February 13 th 2011.
Address:
Kunsthalle Recklinghausen
Große-Perdekamp-Straße 25–27 (opposite the
Central Station)
D-45657 Recklinghausen
Opening hours: Monday – Sunday 11–18 h,
Wednesday 11–20 h
Informations:
Ikonen-Museum
Tel. 0049-2361-501041
Fax 0049-2361-501942
E-mail: ikonen@kunst-re.de