ArchiveArt market
The art market in Moscow is sustained by the new breed of super-rich businessmen—while their wives have opened a string of commercial galleries
“Most contemporary art collectors today are intellectuals who own their own company”
ArchiveChristie's
Christie’s sued by private Russian art collection over “fake” painting sale
Aurora Fine Art Fund claims it has conclusive evidence that £1.69m work is not by Boris Kustodiev
ArchiveVictor Pinchuk
Pinchuk to build new arts centre in Ukraine
The space will display Pinchuk's own collection as well as loaned exhibitions
ArchiveKazimir Malevich
'Malevich and Kandinsky in 3D' comes to Moscow Airport
Irina Lebedeva talks on getting locals interested in art
ArchiveRussia
Russian contemporary market squeezed as collectors turn to tried and tested work
Collectors look for safe options in a turbulent market
ArchiveArt market
Russian art at auction: Buyers wary of unpredictable prices
Mixed results as contemporary art nosedives while earlier works avoid the worst
ArchiveNews
Ukraine suffered “colossal” looting during World War II
New research challenges Russians’ claim that they own many cultural valuables from the independent state
ArchiveVictor Pinchuk
Pinchuk stages Hirst show in Kiev
His Pinchuk Art Centre will play host to over 100 works
ArchiveArt fairs
Financial crisis scuppers Moscow World Fine Art Fair
Exhibitors fear that collectors will no longer make high-price purchases
ArchiveCollectors
Collector Stella Kesaeva’s plans for a new gallery in her garage
The Moscow-based collector has amassed a hoard of Russian contemporary art
ArchiveNews
Georgia and Russia rattle their sabres over war damage
Both sides claim the other damaged historic buildings
ArchiveLeonardo da Vinci
Hermitage Leonardo bust taken hostage in restorer's cash dispute
The kidnapped statue has now been returned to the museum
ArchiveForgeries
Can past nuclear explosions help detect forgeries?
The inventors of a new technique for dating paintings say it can prove whether a work was made before or after 1945
ArchiveFabergé
Russian collector’s in negotiations to open Fabergé museum
The proposed museum will open at Baden-Baden in the autumn
ArchiveCollectors
Russian art collector could face seven years in prison
Vladimir Nekrasov has been charged with corporate tax evasion
ArchiveArt market
Ukrainian artists lead the day at Kiev auction
Yet secrecy over values remained a priority at the Art Kapital auction
ArchiveRussian art
Russian art collective AES+F celebrates 20th anniversary with retrospective
Tate acquires edition of video shown at this year’s Venice Biennale
ArchiveRussia
Russian government publishes first volume cataloguing fakes in the market
Russia’s Federal Cultural Heritage Protection Agency is set to publish the first volume of a catalogue of Russian paintings known to be fake
ArchiveTehran
Iran's Saba Cultural Institute announces Russian Orthodox icons show
The news comes as unexpected due to suppression of religion freedom in the nation
ArchiveCollectors
In a new private museum in Kiev billionaire collector unveils Hirst, Koons and Gursky
The Pinchuk Art Center was opened 16 September 2006
ArchiveSt Petersburg
Hermitage nears conclusion of deal with Iran securing multiple joint exhibitions
The museum's director maintains that the agreement is no major coup
ArchiveArt market
Dealer and critic head to head over Chubarov painting
Was the price forced up at Sotheby's sale?
ArchiveArt market
Swedish and German auction houses take advantage of the rising Russian Market
A growing number of mid-size European auction houses are trying to cash in on the Russian boom
ArchiveArt market
Eighth year of strong Russian art sales in New York
This sales report demonstrates the intense interest in Russian late 19th-century classical paintings, early 20th-century modernist paintings, and Fabergé works
ArchiveCollectors
Forbes Russia focuses on top collectors
Including banking billionaire Pyotr Aven
ArchiveAuthentication
The Russian Culture Ministry has ruled that museums can no longer authenticate works of art for dealers and commercial galleries.
Culture ministry responds to fakes certified by leading institutions
ArchiveMoscow
Russian art dealers released after a year in jail without trial
Couple claim that forgery accusations were the result of a property deal gone sour
ArchiveSalvador Dalí
Russian Oligarch Alexander Shadrin buys 40 Dalís
The works are on show in a local museum, and will travel the country next year
ArchiveJudaism
Niavaran Palace Museum mounts Chagall show in defiance of Iranian regime
Exhibition of Jewish artist’s work challenges official stance on Israel
ArchiveAuctions
“There is so much money in the market now that... price seems to be irrelevant”
Oil-rich private collectors are dominating the salerooms and pushing aside dealers and investment funds
ArchiveRestitution
Orthodox Church seeks control of Moscow icon museum
The fate of Ryazan's Art and History Museum could set a precedent for restitution
ArchiveMoscow
Moscow dealers to open art centre in former wine factory
Businessmen and collectors fund $4m complex
ArchiveFakes & copies
Fake art: “Criminality in the Russian art market has reached alarming levels”
Tretyakov curator speaks out and admits being taken in by forgers
ArchiveRussia
A pilot restoration project modelled on the National Trust is being launched later this year in Russia
Putin looks to UK to save listed buildings
ArchiveRussia
Billionaire to open first private museums in Russia
Viktor Vekselberg will establish galleries in St Petersburg and Moscow to display his own art as well as works belonging to other private collectors
ArchiveCommercial galleries
Russia’s largest private gallery opens
Collector and dealer Alexander Yakut's new enterprise is his most ambitious yet
ArchiveCollectors
Russian billionaires are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on art. None of them has spoken to the press about what drives their collecting—until now
Russian collector Pyotr Aven shows his hand
ArchiveNovember 2005
Siberian billionaire funds $3m Hermitage exhibition tour
Industrialist Oleg Deripaska has become the Russian museum’s most generous private donor—even if his support is part of a public relations initiative
ArchiveRestitution
Swedish museum faces Russian restitution claim
The Konstmuseum in Malmö allegedly kept works lent to the gallery before the outbreak of the First World War
ArchiveRussia
Russian Court sanctions Church censorship
Director and curator charged with “incitement of national, racial, or religious enmity”
ArchiveFabergé
Historian says Vekselberg Fabergé egg is fake
St Petersburg
ArchiveConservation & Preservation
Russia pledges 120 million rubles to restore warping wooden church
Built without a single nail, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour will have to be taken apart in order to save it
ArchiveNews
Putin’s unexpected support for archaeologists may be warning to construction industry
He ordered the governor of Novgorod to make builders wait until archaeologists had finished excavating
ArchiveRestitution
Incoming Russian minister dismisses German restitution claims
Alexander Sokolov does not seem interested in returning looted art
ArchiveKazimir Malevich
Malevich painting finally authenticated
Traces of Malevich's signature found on 1913 painting
ArchiveRestitution
Russian Minister on looted Baldin collection: “This collection should be returned and we will return it”
A legal loophole may enable the restitution to Germany of a collection taken to the USSR by a Soviet army officer in 1945
ArchiveRestitution
Recent developments in restitution claims in Russia prove that some art theft is 'legitimate'; when it is committed by a government that is recognised by nations around the world
Unlike the heirs of Nazi victims, the descendants of collectors whose art was appropriated by the Bolsheviks are unlikely to have it returned
ArchiveKazimir Malevich
Moscow property development threatens site of Malevich grave
Local authorities have not been sympathetic towards Malevich's estate where he was buried
ArchiveKazimir Malevich
A failing Russian bank exposes a climate of fear and suspicion over ownership of Malevich’s “Black Square”
The painting is currently with Russia's Culture Ministry, though Malevich's heirs dispute the bank's original ownership
ArchiveLooted art
Further cultural valuables to be returned to Germany
A medieval stained-glass window to return to Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, while Germany will pay for the rebuilding of a 14th-century church in the Pskov region
ArchiveExhibitions
Warhol tour begins in Russia
Russia’s first Andy Warhol exhibition has opened at the State Hermitage Museum
ArchiveLooted art
Art and archaeology falls casualty to the Chechen war
The collections of two museums in Grozny have disappeared and the region’s distinctive stone towers are caught in the crossfire
ArchiveRestitution
Malevich heirs gunning for Amsterdam’s Stedelijk
Museum bought works after artist abandoned them in Berlin
ArchiveLooting
The Museum of Religion in St Petersburg has admitted to having looted items in its possession and is involved in tangled negotiations with the Church
Former atheist goes to confession
ArchivePersian art
State Hermitage Museum's show of Iranian jewellery from Patti Birch's collection recalls an age where the export of archaeological finds was legal
The Shah's policy decreed that private individuals could sponsor excavations and keep a portion of the finds
ArchiveLooting
Russia rules on restitution: “Art taken from occupied Germany belongs to Russia”
Constitutional court decides in favour of nationalists’ bill
ArchiveMuseums
A room full of MoMA in St Petersburg's Hermitage Museum
This marks the first in a series of planned loans of modern and contemporary American works from MoMA to the Hermitage
ArchiveEnvironment
Environmental protection in Russia, aqua alta on the Neva
Unlike Venice, St Petersburg is building a flood barrier, but needs more money
ArchiveApril 1994
Dutch government cuts Mondrian Foundation's sponsorship budget
Holland will not be participating in the Biennales of Sidney and São Paolo as a result