The New Magazine Hermitage Presented

The first issue of the Hermitage Magazine, a new initiative from The State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, is published today. The Magazine will come out twice a year in English and Russian and offers a lively insight into the cultural life of Russia, seen through the eyes of the country’s greatest museum.

Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of The State Hermitage Museum, comments: ’The unusual range of the Hermitage’s activities gives it a many sided interest. There are, of course, the traditional museum activities: exhibitions, work with the collections, lectures and scholarly conferences. In addition the Hermitage has its own orchestra and programme of musical events run by the ’Hermitage Music Academy’. There is a Hermitage radio station and the ’Hermitage Bridge Studio’ which produces films and television programmes, among them Alexander Sokurov’s famous film, ’Russian Ark’. There are two regular television series, a publishing department, an outstanding Internet site and an e-shop. Hitherto there has not been a magazine. Now it makes its appearance.’

The launch of the Hermitage Magazine coincides with the 300th anniversary of the foundation of the city of St. Petersburg and anticipates the forthcoming celebration of the founder’s day, 27 May. President Putin is presiding over the celebrations and holding a Summit Conference of Heads of State in St. Petersburg on 31 May.

The Hermitage Magazine is edited by Geraldine Norman, formerly an art journalist with the London Times and Independent newspapers and founder Director of the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, London. It will be distributed to all international friends of the Museum, is available by subscription and can be obtained from leading museum shops in the UK and USA including the British Museum and National Gallery in London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The launch issue features a number of fascinating articles. Robert Massie, the Pulitzer Prize winning American historian, writes on the foundation of St. Petersburg while John Russell, Art Critic Emeritus of the New York Times, pays a very personal homage to the Hermitage Museum. Hermitage scholar Nina Tarasova reveals the strange story of the Peter the Great Memorial Collection, while textile curator, Elena Moiseyenko, writes about his clothes - 280 items remain in the Hermitage Collection. There is a challenge to the conventional view of contemporary art by the late Timur Novikov, a leader of the Russian avant-garde.

The sensational discovery of two albums of drawings of Hampton Court, the British royal palace, bought by Catherine the Great in 1780s is the subject of two articles. Hermitage curator, Mikhail Dedinkin, who made the discovery, sets the albums in the context of Catherine’s passion for English gardens and her admiration for ’Capability’ Brown, Britain’s most famous landscape gardener. Brown was head gardener at Hampton Court when the drawings were made by his assistant, John Spyers. In the second article the garden historian, David Jacques, explains their great significance for Britain.

The Hermitage Magazine will continue to keep readers informed about the life of The State Hermitage Museum for years to come….

The Hermitage Magazine is sponsored by Energy Standard Group of Switzerland, a conglomerate operating in Russia and the Ukraine. It is produced for The State Hermitage Museum by Cultureshock Media, London.

To subscribe to the Hermitage Magazine, please call +44 (0)1795 414878, or subscribe at www.subscribeonline.co.uk/hermitage.

The magazine Hermitage