Collection of the Chelyabinsk Regional Art Gallery of the 1930s–1940s: Documentary evidence about the fate of the first collection

The article examines the history of the collection of the Chelyabinsk Regional Art Gallery in the period from 1938 to 1947. The collection was formed in the late 1930s and early 1940s in three ways: through the acquisition of works of art from private individuals, through the city’s existing collection of paintings from traveling exhibitions, and through transfers from major art museums (in particular, from the State Russian Museum). Thus, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the fund of the Chelyabinsk Art Gallery consisted of works of domestic and Western European painting and graphics, objects of decorative and applied art. However, with the closure of the gallery in the summer of 1941, the collection was distributed among city institutions and by the time the museum was restored after the war, a significant part of it had been lost. The research is based on data from archival materials stored in the United State Archive of the Chelyabinsk Region (Chelyabinsk), and also proceeds from the current state of the collection of the Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts, the successor of the gallery. We analyze archival documents in order to restore the chronicle of losses and acquisitions of gallery exhibits in the 1940s. Based on the lists attached to the acts of transfer and inspection of exhibits from the 1940s, the most complete list of works of art that were owned by the Chelyabinsk Regional Art Gallery before its liquidation in the summer of 1941 was compiled. The article is accompanied by a table indicating the names of the works, their authorship and source of origin, known pre-war registration numbers of the works, and also, if available, the registration numbers of the Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts.