Russian treasures to N.Y., Vegas

A sweeping exhibit of Russian art, including pieces rarely seen outside Russia, opened Friday at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

A companion show, displaying czarist treasures from the 16th and 17th centuries, opened earlier this month at the Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas.

The New York exhibit, with about 275 works, does not set a record for size, said Valerie Hillings, one of its nine co-curators. But it may be the most comprehensive Russian art show to travel here, she said, encompassing painting and sculpture from the 13th century to the present. The show also presents Western European works collected by Russian czars and merchants.

Taking advantage of the N.Y. Guggenheim’s circular architecture, the collection spins out chronologically, from earliest to latest, bottom to top, along the spiral ramps. It spills over into several towers.

Among its highlights:

* Ilya Repin’s “Barge Haulers on the Volga” (1870-73), portraying workers harnessed to barges “because they were cheaper labor than animals,” Hillings said. “This is the painting every Russian schoolchild wrote an essay about,” she said. It’s a key work in the critical realism movement, a rebellion against academic art traditions that was colored with social consciousness.

* “Virgin of Vladimir” (1514), one of two copies of a revered icon that were officially sanctioned by Russian Orthodox Church leaders. Showing Mary holding Jesus against a background of church feasts, this copy traveled from the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral in Moscow.

* Ivan Aivazovsky’s “The Ninth Wave” (1850), an epic seascape larger than 7 by 10 feet, that depicts a wave about to engulf people on a small raft, with a celestial light emanating from the center.

* Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square” (circa 1930), by one of the best-known Russian avant-garde artists.

The artworks are on loan from several Russian museums, including the State Hermitage Museum and the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Among those who will speak at an exhibit-related lecture series is poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 25.

Admission to the “Russia!” exhibit, which runs through Jan. 11, is $18 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. The museum is closed Thursdays; hours vary on other days. For information: (212) 423-3500, www.guggenheim.org.

The Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas, which is at the Venetian resort at 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. S., is displaying about 140 objects from the Armory Chamber in Moscow’s Kremlin Museum. They include personal items and state regalia from czarist families; silver serving pieces they received as diplomatic gifts: decorative church objects and vestments; and war and hunting weaponry.

The Las Vegas show is called “Russia! The Majesty of the Tsars: Treasures From the Kremlin Museum.” It runs through Jan. 15. Admission is $19.50 for adults; $14.50 for students and children ages 6 to 12; free under 6. The museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily. For information: (702) 414-2440, www.guggenheim.org.