The State Hermitage Museum: Hermitage News

Eternity. Nina Verzhbinskaya-Rabinovich watercolours in the Hermitage Youth Centre

"While there are eyes that read my name and lips that say it, I'm alive"
Ancient Egyptian saying

From April 16 to April 24, 2009, an Austrian artist Nina Verzhbinskaya-Rabinovich's Eternity project is opened in the State Hermitage Youth Educational Centre. The author of the project was born in Leningrad and today lives and works in Vienna. She has participated in numerous exhibitions in museums of Austria, Germany and Russia. Her works are presented in the collections of such museums as Albertina Museum (Vienna), Zimmerli Museum (Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA) and Anna Akhmatova's Museum (St. Petersburg).

Nina Verzhbinskaya-Rabinovich's Eternity is a series of watercolour paintings where the artist has managed to capture with all due solemnity comic sides of the transit from this life to the next bringing into her compositions an unusual handling of this topic.

The cycle includes ten sheets done in the pigment printing technique on watercolour paper and three watercolour paintings. The graphic sheets are accompanied with historical references concerning the topic of the image and the quotations from the Ancient Egyptian sayings, the Old Testament and the German poets Helderlin, Rilke, Heine...

The author also remembers the quotation from Seneca the Younger stating that "you have to learn how to live for your whole life. You will be probably particularly surprised by that but you also have to learn how to die for your whole life" and the Ancient Egyptian saying "Follow your fathers and forefathers. You can work succesfully only within the tradition".

The artist says that of particular interest for her is the opposition of the lightest of all technicques, watercolour painting, and images of heavy ancient monuments, granite colossuses or medieval solid gravestones.

On April 19, 12 a.m., the artist will conduct an About Variety of the Watercolour Techniques Master Class in the Youth Centre.

The Hermitage Youth Educational Centre
The General Staff Building
6-8 Dvortsovaya Square, 4th floor
Phone (812) 710-95-30
The exhibition hall is opened from 12 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.
On Sunday from 12 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.
Monday - day off

At the opening of the artist Nina Verzhbinskaya-Rabinovich's Eternity project

Nina Verzhbinskaya-Rabinovich

Nina Verzhbinskaya-Rabinovich's watercolours

At the opening of the project