The Belarusian State Academy of Arts has a rich history and many traditions, and is associated with well-established pedagogical methods. The history of the Academy began in the post-war period, when the Belarusian State Theatre Institute was founded in 1945 by order of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, the Council of People’s Commissars of the BSSR and the Committee of Arts. It was renamed the Belarusian State Theatre and Art Institute in 1953. The institute was reorganised into the Belarusian Academy of Arts in 1991, and it was given its current name in 2001. Today, the Belarusian State Academy of Arts is the largest and most authoritative institution of higher education in Belarus intended for training creative workers in the field of fine arts. The Academy has considerable influence over the developing trends for the Belarusian school of fine arts, and it ensures the preservation and continuity of national traditions. Among the teachers and graduates of the Academy are numerous artists renowned both in their native country and abroad. They have received the highest state awards of the Republic of Belarus and other countries, and they have proven themselves in prestigious international competitions and exhibition projects.
This retrospective exhibition presents the diploma works made over a period of more than 60 years of the academy’s existence: from 1959 to 2023. The project is an opportunity to get acquainted with the creative pursuits of the academy’s graduates of different years, to watch the development of stylistic features in national Belarusian art – from traditional forms, methods and concepts to modern ones. Of particular interest are the diploma works of those graduates who subsequently became known as outstanding and famous masters of the national fine arts not only in Belarus, but all over the world.
The visitors of the exhibition have the unique opportunity to get to know the achievements of academic art as well as the methods of modern art. Besides, each work presented is unique, as they all showcase not only mastery of art technique, but also the originality of the authors’ worldview, the ability to imaginatively realise their ideas.
The exhibition will run until December 17, 2023.
Exhibition curator: Aliaksei Matsyushonak, head of the Exhibition Department of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
