Pavel
Davydovich Oettinger

Russia • 1866−1948

Biography and information

Born in Poland, educated in Germany and Latvia, and in Moscow, entered the service of the Bank. That did not stop him to write in the newspaper reviews of art exhibitions, signing them with the pseudonym "Amateur". The number of publications, which published the mediocre, from the point of view of experienced accountants, Bank clerk, who knew, among other things, a dozen languages, grew rapidly. In addition to the Moscow press, his articles have been in the St. Petersburg "World of art", and in a London Studio and Munich "Di Kunst"... In 1911, the 45-year-old Ettinger retired. Here then began his real life as a collector and critic, who had, according to one of contemporaries, "a delicate taste, a brilliant knowledge of the material and natural sanity."

As a collector Oettinger started with invitations, reproductions, posters. Then, without the influence of Leonid Pasternak, with whom he was associated for more than forty-year friendship, interested in graphics, drawings and engravings. Most of the works in his collection - gifts of artists with whom he was familiar and whose work is supported. Among them Dobuzhinsky, Somov, Lansere, Korovin, Vatagin, Bakst, Bogaevsky, Nivinsky, Mitrokhin, Kupreyanov, Semashkevich... He generously shared with the artists information on the artistic life of the West, which received from his numerous correspondents, among them, in particular, was Rilke and Chagall. Member of various art societies and unions, he constantly was engaged in the device of exhibitions, publishing albums and books.

Oettinger did not seem to notice the arrival of a new regime. Is that mentioned in one of his letters that "getting hot". In 30 years it could destroy: Director of the Literary Museum Bonch-signaled the NKVD that Oettinger not only that, voluntarily showed up at the Museum, when there were writers from Latvia, and spoke to them in their native language! Probably in the sinister Agency they took him for one of the "gods" and the accusation did not pay attention.

The Paul Davidovich considered himself a man of the eighteenth century, for in his life wrote a million letters, "And if they select a dozen or two, then it would be best that it was written by me at all." By the way, in one of his letters he formulated his credo: "...I'm always thinking about not to blush before himself, and the rest will follow".

Collection of Pavel Ettinger arrived in the Pushkin Museum in 1949 and consists of over 12 thousand works, which are in almost all departments of the Museum, mostly in the graphics Department. Besides, 1934, Ettinger has transferred in gift to the State Museum of new Western art to his collection of Polish posters of the late XIX – first decades of XX centuries, some of which are also presented at the exhibition.

"On taste and erudition Oettinger, brought up a generation," wrote Moscow artist N. I. Simonovich-Efimova in 1947 in his "literary portrait" Pavel Ettinger. For many years the artistic life of Moscow was closely linked with the name Pavel Ettinger. He has appeared on all the vernissages of exhibitions from 1916 to 1948 – friendly, sociable, accurately assessing what he saw.

Oettinger was friends with many Moscow collectors, exchanging works and A. Sidorov, and I. Silberstein. His collection (consisting mostly of gifts from artists, collectors, art historians, although there are data on purchases Oettinger) was collected in a lifetime. A feature of the collection Oettinger is its diversity – Russian, Soviet, European, and Eastern art is represented in her prints, drawings, applied graphics, bookplates, invitation cards, greetings, publishing brands, paintings, miniatures, medals, glassware and porcelain. The important part was the library, collected over many years (from the late NINETEENTH century); its materials were widely used by artists. Oettinger regularly hosted lectures, screenings (Nivinsky Studio, lithographic workshop), have been doing shows in "his" material, showing engravings of Leningrad at the Moscow exhibition, or in publishing houses (at the request of the artists). P. D. Ettinger was a permanent employee of the world famous dictionary and Tim Becker, where it was placed more than 500 of his articles, and in our country are constantly published its surveys of the European innovations in the field of fine arts and literature, where they often met extensive notes with the initials R. E.; for many years Ettinger has collaborated with the Great Soviet encyclopedia.

The collection of prints and drawings Oettinger consisted of works by Russian and Western European artists. A significant part of the leaves – the works of Russian artists-emigrants, who went abroad: M. Larionov, V. Masyutin, I. Lebedeva, V. Falaleeva, M. Chagall and others. In the meeting of the Soviet of prints are 180 artists from and about 4 thousand of their works. The level of artistic quality prints in the collection determined the name of the greatest Soviet artists of easel painters and illustrators – V. Favorsky, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Dmitry Mitrokhin, Vladimir Konashevich, N. Stipa, And V. Lebedev. Studying the collection of Oettinger, it is possible to trace the development of Russian prints in almost 50 years: works from the beginning of the century – M. yakunchikovoy, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, L. Bakst, M. Dobuzhinsky, V. Kandinsky to the engravings of artists of the 1940-ies. There are such rare works as woodcuts by A. Deineka, performed in student years, lithography Sergei Gerasimov 1920-ies, A. Bakushinskii linocut, lithograph by A. Rylova.

The collection of Russian drawings is numerically less than the collection of engravings of 115 artists, and over 1000 of their jobs, but it reflects the artistic sympathies of the collector. This drawings of artists Association "World of art" (A. Benois, E. Lansere, Sergei Chekhonin, S. Noakowski, etc.), "Blue rose" (V. Borisov-Musatov), "13" (T. Mavrina, N. Kuzmin, A. Daran), "the EAST" (A. Goncharov, A. Deyneka, N. The kupreyanov), "4 art" (V. Favorsky, I. Nivinsky, V. Kravchenko, etc.), avant-garde (M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, K. Malevich, M. Shagal.

Among the engravings of the European schools with the most diverse and high-quality sheets of French artists of the NINETEENTH and twentieth centuries by G. doré, Daumier, Maillol, P. Bonnard, M. Denis, A. Toulouse-Lautrec, A. Derain, Puvis de Chavannes. The English school is represented by such artists as John. Whistler, F. Brangwyn, E. Craig, W. Nicholson, T. Rowlandson, M. Parrish. Of German graphic art in the collection Oettinger attended one or two sheets of K. Kollwitz, Grosz, M. Lieberman, J. Torop, etc., which, of course, does not represent the creative range of these artists and especially the development of engraving in Germany. The remaining schools – Czech – M. švabinský, Spanish – F. Goya, Japanese – Hiroshige – a very small minority (one or two prints). Only foreign woodcuts in the collection of Oettinger was over 1400; together they present a diverse picture of development of the art of engraving in Europe in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Collection of bookplates Ettinger has more than 3000 characters and includes a beautiful separate instances and provides insight into the development of this art in Russia from the first years of the twentieth century until 1948. Here are some rare copies of works by V. Masyutin, S. Yudovina, is the first ex-libris A. Goncharov, a lot of works by V. Favorsky, N. Piskareva, M. Polyakova. Among the many book marks in the meeting, Oettinger got about 30 done for him personally (L. Pasternak, Pavel Pavlinov, N. The kupreyanov, M. Poles, etc.). The collection also contains bookplates of Western European countries and America.

Individual works from the collection Oettinger has repeatedly participated in the exhibitions of the Museum, including foreign. The proposed exhibition not only presents the viewer a number of important works of foreign and domestic charts, but shows for the first time a unique collection as a holistic cultural phenomenon.

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