Art Through the Ages: Masterpieces of Painting from Titian to Picasso

On 30 August, 2002, the second exhibition from the State Hermitage Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, and Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, opened at The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, Las Vegas. It shows 40 masterpieces of painting which emphasize both originality and complementary nature of these three world-famous collections.

The new exhibition introduces canvases created from the 15th to the 20th centuries including works by Titian, Lorenzo Lotto, Nicolas Poussin, Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and Willem de Kooning. The show follows the chronological principle, spanning six centuries.

The exhibition is an example of the three museums' partnership pursuant to the cooperation agreement signed in Vienna in January 2001 between Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, Director State Hermitage Museum, Thomas Krens, Director Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and Wilfried Seipel, Director Kunsthistorisches Museum. The first palpable result of the partnership was the opening of The Hermitage Guggenheim Museum in Las Vegas in October 2001 which has already hosted the exhibition Masterpieces and Master Collectors: European Painting of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the State Hermitage Museum and Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

The cooperation between the Hermitage, Guggenheim Museum and Kunsthistorisches Museum creates unique conditions for research and exhibitions amply showing the history of the world’s fine arts.
An illustrated catalogue of the exhibition with articles of the three partner museums' curators of this unique project has been published.

The Victory of Joshua Over the Amelekites
(Battle of Israelites with Amelekites)
Nicolas Poussin
Larger view

Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus
Joshua Reynolds
Larger view

Childhood of the Virgin
Francisco de Zurbaran
Larger view