All works on display come from the collection of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, presenting a diverse visual chronicle of the wartime and post-war era.
The project’s central idea is an artist’s individual perspective of the war years and the post-war period. Intertwining personal narratives of the Great Patriotic War and Victory are represented by visual eyewitness accounts of war artists (Fyodar Baranousky, Natan Voranau, Aliaksei Glebau, Viktar Gramyka, Mikalai Gutsieu, Pyotr Durchyn, Abram Zaborau, Yaugen Zaitsau, Mikalai Zalozny, Andrei Zaspitsky, Barys Ivontsieu, Abram Krol, Akim Kurachkin, Eduard Kufko, Sofya Li, Barys Malkin, Algerd Malisheusky, Aliaksandr Mazaliou, Siargei Ramanau, Siargei Selikhanau, Ivan Stasevich, Leanid Shchamialiou, Pyotr Yavich and others), artists who were children in the wartime years (Ludwig Asetsky, Gauryil Vashchanka, Viktar Gardzeenka, Leu Gumileusky, Leanid Davidzenka, Mai Dantsig, Leanid Dudarenka, Arlen Kashkurevich, Valiantsina Mikheyeva, Lyudmila Myagkova, Georgy Paplausky, etc.), as well as artists whose perception is far removed in time from the actual event (Aliaksandr Batsvinionak, Sviatlana Garbunova, Viktar Dubrova, Viktar Yauseyeu, Uladzimir Kozhukh, Nadzeya Liventseva, Viktar Markavets, Aliaksandr Miatlitsky, Barys Tsitovich, etc.).
The project features several rarely seen small-scale sketches and studies from 1941–1945: portraits of the artists’ fellow soldiers, scenes of modest living and infrequent entertainment, destroyed buildings and deserted towns and villages. A special section is devoted to portraits and self-portraits by artists who fought in the Great Patriotic War. A significant part of the exhibition consists of works created in peacetime by both artists who witnessed the war with their own eyes, and artists of the post-war period: large-scale and multi-figure compositions solemnly and dramatically reflecting images of heroes both famous and nameless, the severe everyday life of workers in the home front, and grief for the dead. Looking back on their homeland’s military past, the artists make piercing, heartfelt contemplations on the tragedy of war. Drawing from the spirit of the Victory, the artists celebrate the joy of life in the post-war period in all its diversity: from upbeat and sublimely romantic tales of the country’s resurrection to the landscapes of their native land, full of splendour and inner strength.
The display is supplemented by photographs of war artists from the archives of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus and further wartime photographs and newsreel footage provided by the Belarusian State Archive of Film, Photo, and Sound Documents.
Exhibition curators: Sviatlana Kot, head of the Department of Belarusian Art of the 20th–21st century, and Anastasia Karneika, senior researcher at the Department of Belarusian Art of the 20th–21st century.
