Christmas Gift
New Century's Porcelain

On 24 December, 2003, in the Winter Palace’s Arab Hall (room No. 155) was opened the second Christmas Gift exhibition, which revived the historical tradition of annual displays showing the best creations of St. Petersburg masters of porcelain.

Last year’s retrospective of Imperial porcelain from the 18th - early 20th centuries was showed by the Museum of Porcelain, a new division of the State Hermitage Museum situated on the premises of the Lomonosov Porcelain Works.

Most of some 100 creations by contemporary masters showed in this year’s exhibition are also loaned by Lomonosov.

The exhibition is opened by Vladimir Semenov’s vase Crystal (Grand Prix of the 1958 Brussels exhibition) and Nina Slavina’s set of tableware White Nights.

During the 1990s, masters of the Lomonosov Porcelain Works readopted the avant-garde traditions of the 1920s and the experiments made in porcelain by Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky and Nikolay Suyetin. Inna Olevskaya proposed three versions of painting for Malevich’s famous teapot. In the forms and colors of her Magic Philter avant-garde forms blend with historical reminiscences. The sculptural composition Hangout is inspired by the Star Wars fantastic blockbusters and street and club subculture.

Mikhail Sorokin carries on the analytical study of form and color begun by suprematists. His set of tableware Mechanical Voyage embodies the idea of unending movement, while the chess set Another Choice depicts a fight between the good and the evil, and the ensemble Metamorphoses, vicissitudes of human destiny.

Tatiana Afanasyeva displays the series Knot continuing her six porcelain tableaux under the title Atlantis. The set of tableware Palm of the Neva, brought to the exhibition directly from the kiln, and the dish Roofs of St. Petersburg are inspired by the artist’s native town.

Yuliya Zhukova is a recognized master of popular print style (Darling set) and stylized motifs of Italian Renaissance (Italian Portrait dish of 1993, and Domino set of 1994).

Works by Tatiana Charina are executed in her favorite genre of still-life.

Kirill Kopylkov’s creations are remarkable for their laconism, including the set of vases 3-logic and figurines of Zodiac symbols.

The artists represented in the exhibition have showed another aspect of Lomonosov porcelain, which provided to them an ample opportunity for unfettered expression.

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