Donation to the State Hermitage of an edition of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita containing illustrations by the Traugot brothers on original pages of graphics

On 9 March 2006, there was a festive ceremony in which the museum received the donation of an edition of Bulgakov's novel Master and Margarita containing illustrations by the Traugot brothers on original pages of graphics.
The book was published in an edition of 1200 copies. Seventy copies were made in cloth binding and numbered. The first 25 copies were provided with a suite of 9 sheets of etchings hand colored by the artists, Alexander Georgievich and Valery Georgievich Traugot.
The book has been awarded the Prize of the St Petersburg Administration.
The State Hermitage has been given the first printed copy, ās well as a further copy in leather binding.

The brothers Alexander Georgievich Traugot and Valery Georgievich Traugot are painters, illustrators of books and sculptors. They were born in Leningrad in a family of artists. They consider their main teacher to have been their father, Georgy Nikolaevich Traugot.

Since 1956 they have been engaged in making graphics for books. They conceived and created their first books together with their father, hence the collective pseudonym "G.A.I. Traugot."

The artists have worked on more than 150 books, including:
Mother Goose Tales and The Magic Tales of Charles Perrault, Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, Cuba Tales, Tales of Cambodia, the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, The Science of Love, Ovid and The Golden Ass of Apulius.

Andersen's Fairy Tales, as illustrated by the Traugot brothers, have been republished 17 times in a total edition of 3 million copies.

Alexander and Valery Traugot have received more than 30 diplomas of recognition at All-Russian competitions, 14 of them - first degree.

The artists regularly participate in annual fairs of books and illustrations around Russia, as well as in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Japan and France. Works by the Traugot brothers are found in museums of Moscow (including the Tretyakov Gallery), St Petersburg, Tver, Arkhangelsk, Petrozavodsk, Vologda, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Ryazan, and Kaliningrad, as well as abroad: in the Andersen Museum in Odense, in Japan, Germany, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere. They are also in private collections in Europe, the USA and Israel.

At the present time, Valery Georgievich Traugot is the chairman of the graphics section of the Union of Artists of St Petersburg and the chief artist of the Tsarskoye Selo Publishing House.

At the festive ceremony

Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage and the brothers Alexander and Valery Traugot, artists

Edition of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita