The exhibition «Triumph of Glass» opened at the Tver Art Gallery

Since last week, works by artists from the creative laboratory of the Vyshnevolotsk glass factory “Red May” have been on display in the greenhouse of the Tver Imperial Palace. The presented compositions were created in the 1960s–1990s at the largest enterprise in Russia for the production of colored, zinc sulfide and colorless glass.

This plant was founded in 1859 in Vyshnevolotsk district by the Bolotin merchants. Craftsmen welded colored glass of the rarest, brightest, richest shades, made kerosene lamps, vases, sculptures, as well as church items - Easter eggs and lamps. The products were distributed throughout Russia and other countries in huge quantities. Bolotino glass could be seen in a peasant hut, in a noble estate, and in the imperial palace.

A century later, the products of the successor to the famous enterprise, the Vyshnevolotsk glass factory "Red May", - sugar bowls and vases - were on the table in every Soviet family, lamps made at the factory still decorate the Moscow metro, ruby stars burn on the towers of the Moscow Kremlin.

With the collapse of the country, the enterprise also closed, but the unique works that were created there have been preserved, they can be seen in permanent exhibitions in the largest Russian and foreign museum collections, as well as in the Glass Museum in Vyshny Volochyok, in the regional art gallery, and in private collections. This exhibition is intended to remind of the great cultural heritage of the Tver region.

One of the few living glass masters, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Mikhail Marshumov, took part in its opening ceremony. In 1965, he and his wife arrived at the plant after graduating from the Leningrad Higher Art and Industrial School named after Mukhina and immediately plunged into active work. The artist calls this time blessed, and glass - a fabulous material. But then, he says, functionalism flourished and decorative glassware was not encouraged. The composition “Boyars” created in 1966 by Mikhail Marshumov, like a number of works by other artists, marked a turn in decorative and applied art towards a gradual move away from the primacy of utilitarianism.

At the artistic council, where representatives of the USSR Ministry of Culture were present, there were heated debates: is it appropriate to make such works or to focus on exclusively functional ones, intended for everyday use? After “The Boyars” visited the international exhibition in Montreal, the answer to this question became completely obvious - craftsmen began to have more and more opportunities to create decorative works, which invariably took first place at various exhibitions and biennales. Thus, several copies of the famous composition by Mikhail Mikhailovich entered various museums, including the Historical Museum in Moscow, the Russian Museum and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

When the plant thundered throughout Russia

Before the opening of the exhibition, senior researcher at the gallery Olga Piotrovskaya, art historian, curator of the exhibition “Triumph of Glass” (6+), answered our questions.

– Olga Vyacheslavovna, why are works from the 60-90s presented?

– This is the heyday of the plant, when it was famous throughout Russia. People stood in lines for things made of bright, clear glass. And even then, there was a breakdown in Soviet art; the utilitarian nature of the object was replaced by a decorative form, and the thing itself began to be valued as a work of art: the same jug or vase carried an artistic image. And, which is significant, in the early 60s, “Red May” was the only plant in the world where sulfide glass was made.

– What is its peculiarity?

– The name is not very euphonious, but nevertheless there is such a term. This is when metal oxides - sulfur, uranium, iron - are added to the hot glass mass and the glass, depending on these fillers and the heating temperature, changes its color. A very complex process; an artist, when experimenting, must foresee the result and be prepared for the fact that it does not always turn out the way he intended. The art laboratory was especially strong back then; the gallery’s collection includes many works from this period. The recipe was developed by Leningrad technologists and offered to many factories, but only Krasny May responded. Others, for example, Dyatkovsky, tried it, but did not introduce it into the main range: it was too complicated and required a lot of modifications.

– How many works are there at the exhibition and how did they usually end up in the art gallery’s collections?

– There are a little more than a hundred works here, this is approximately a tenth of those in our collection. The artists were people of our circle, we went to their workshops, bought something, they gave us something. We weren’t the only ones – we were happy to acquire large museums in Russia. The masters of the art laboratory were regular participants in exhibitions, regional, republican, international, and traveled abroad, where they enjoyed great success: sulfide glass, as I already said, was not made anywhere else.

– Is it sulfide glass that is being exhibited now?

– Not only, there is also colored, that is, without the addition of sulfide and a different coloristic sound, and crystal. The founders of work with zinc sulfide glass were Svetlana Mikhailovna Beskinskaya and Anatoly Maksimovich Silko, who devoted his entire life to the plant and was the main artist of the laboratory. Over time, young professional artists began to come here to work. They had their own workshops and apartments; in the village of Krasnomaysky there was everything necessary for life - a school, a hospital, a library, a store, a cinema. They loved the plant very much; for them it was a place of power, a place of creativity. Glaziers made both mass production and, at the same time, decorative compositions for exhibitions, in one or three copies.

– What guided you when selecting works for the exhibition?

– The selection was quite strict. The halls of the Orangery are intimate, I wanted to present each master in two or three of his works and show his capabilities and technique. In addition, we placed paintings by Tver artists, painted in the vicinity of Vyshny Volochok, in the Academic Dacha named after Repin: this was the environment of the Krasnomaysk residents. The paintings, in their figurative content, echo compositions made of glass.

Destroyed furnaces of a giant factory

– How did it happen that this enterprise closed?

– You need to ask the perestroika time about this. The plant was privatized. A very sad topic not only for him, but also for many other enterprises in the country. For some time he survived by making window glass and three-liter jars. Work for world-famous artists! There's nothing there now. The fates of both artists and other local residents who worked there as blowers, diamond cutters, craftsmen, and loaders were ruined. With the closure of the laboratory, the creative life of very talented people ceased. Many could not find themselves, some left, some left the profession - everyone lived hard. Great sadness. The plant was the pride of Russia, this was noted by everyone at exhibitions, in publications, and in films dedicated to it.

– Is there such a force that can bring him back to life?

– This is not a question for me... Do you know what it means to revive a giant plant? To make glass, the Bolotin merchants built furnaces. Now it is ruins. It is surprising that during the war, when the plant was not working, the furnaces were kept hot - they were not allowed to cool down. And the local population, women and children, collected branches and brushwood in winter and lit the stoves. They were waiting for men from the front; they knew that the tradition should not be interrupted. But she was interrupted in an instant.

– But the almost lost traditional crafts – blacksmithing, lace-making – have been revived.

– These are artels, and here is an enterprise, although also based on folk crafts. We have to restore everything anew, learn the technology directly from the master, but there are no teachers. Of the artists, only two remained - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Kuchinskaya and Lyubov Germanovna Groshkova; they left the village a long time ago. Their emotional state was influenced by the story, which then seemed not so catastrophic: people hoped that some time would pass and everything would return. It is extremely difficult to make glass at home: you need a special place for a workshop and a stove, which is expensive. At the ceramic factory in Konakovo, also closed, some workshops are now working, making replicas of old Kuznetsov items.

– These objects do not lose their attractiveness. What do you think explains the interest in the art of yesteryear?

– There are things outside of time. Yes, they carried out ideological orders (you can’t isolate yourself from historical reality) - compositions for various congresses and anniversaries, souvenirs, but there were real works of art. Even before the revolution, the glassmakers of this enterprise had their own distinctive trademarks, including frills with which they decorated vases and kerosene lamps, and then painted them with gold and white paints. These things could be distinguished from those made at other factories: they carried the highest artistic charge.

Source: https://vedtver.ru/