Foundation Louis Vuitton, which was inaugurated two years ago in Paris, is an art centre very different from the conventional French museums such as the Louvre or the Grand Palace. It is because it is not based in an ancient chateau or historical royal residence but built specifically as a museum.

The two men behind the astronomical project were the French multibillionaire Bernard Arnault with his drive and resources and the New York-based architect Frank Gehry with his futuristic creative vision. The leafy, verdant area of Bois de Boulogne was chosen as a site which is technically part of the French capital but it is actually slightly beyond the north-western limit of the city. Soon enough an unusual structure emerged from behind the trees, looking more like an ancient ship rather than a modern building. It throws the reflection of its tall masts and cloudy, white sails onto the surface of the adjacent lake. When finished, the project cost an incredible 500 million euros that Arnault was only too glad to pay.

To make sure that its exhibitions would remain as unusual as its architecture, the Foundation Louis Vuitton, has chosen as of October 20, a rich but also rare collection containing more than 250 masterpieces belonging to the Impressionist and post-Impressionist periods. The show exhibits works of the modernist art originally belonging to a Russian businessman named Sergei Shchukin. These paintings have their own history and have never been exhibited in their totality outside Russia for nearly a hundred years since after their acquisition by Shchukin, who obviously had an incredibly avant-garde artistic sight and taste.

A rare collection of 250 modernist artworks, including by masters such as Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir and Van Gogh, are being exhibited in a spectacular show in Paris by the Foundation Louis Vuitton. Many paintings are being shown outside Russia for the first time in nearly 100 years

During a brief stay in Paris in 1897, in order to buy material for his textile manufacturing factories, he became interested in a painting by Claude Monet. The Russian businessman had absolutely no experience in the domain of visiting art galleries, not to talk of buying artworks. The other conspicuous feature of his acquisitions is the fact that the Impressionist and post-Impressionist painters were ignored by art critics during their own lifetime in Paris as well as by galleries and museums in the rest of Europe. Nobody can explain the secret of Shchukin’s fascination for this particular style of art, but he nevertheless ended up buying dozens of works by Monet and other painters that he enthusiastically brought back to Moscow and placed on the walls of his newly built palatial residence.

From then on, he would make incessant trips to Paris for the next two decades, buying Gauguins, Van Goghs, Renoirs and, of course, masterpieces by Henri Matisse. The latter also became a close friend and would paint several works, including many versions of ‘The Dance’, as personal homage to the artistic enthusiasm of Shchukin. By and by, his acquisitions would rise to nearly 300 paintings.

And here comes the mystery of the Shchukin fable. Gradually, as the Gauguin-Van Gogh-Monet style would finally be recognised for its due in the Western art world, hundreds of paintings belonging to the Impressionist / post-Impressionist movements as well as modern works by Matisse and Picasso would remain in Shchukin’s home in Moscow, out of sight for European art critics and enthusiasts.

The Shchukin collection was eventually seized by the Soviet government following the 1917 Communist revolution. Vladimir Lenin took personal interest in the intervention and transferring of the entire lot to a number of State museums in Moscow, St Petersburg and other Russian cities. Joseph Stalin later described the pieces as ‘bourgeois nonsense’ and ordered them to be dumped in the underground storage rooms of a building in the Siberian town of Novosibirsk. Sergei Shchukin managed to escape to Paris — where he lived for the next 19 years — dying in 1936 at the age of 82.

The collection again faced near destruction when the Nazi forces attacked Novosibirsk during World War II. The Germans had no knowledge of the artistic treasure that lay quietly in the underground shelters. The collection then had its own bad moments, probably even worse than its seizure by the Soviets, when a number of paintings started showing signs of deterioration for having been locked up in airless and humid stores for years and years. They were carried back to Moscow after the end of the war.

The first peep by international art enthusiasts into the Shchukin treasure would have to wait another quarter century. The Museum of Modern Art in Paris, while celebrating the centenary of Henri Matisse in 1970, negotiated a deal with the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg to temporarily borrow a few of the artist’s paintings for a brief period of three months.

Such rare appearances of these mysterious chef d’oeuvres on the international scene kept on adding to the Shchukin myth and at each occasion critics as well as art lovers continued reacting enthusiastically. They almost behaved as if they were fortunate enough to view visiting objects from outer space, soon to disappear from their sights and probably never to return to earth again.

The current exhibition in Paris includes not only works by Van Gogh, Cezanne and Monet but also many modernist masterpieces such as some nearly 100 works by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso combined, including pastels, collages, drawings, and gouaches.

A most amazing feature of the show is the paintings that Paul Gauguin had created during the final days of his life on the Tahiti Island. Only 16 of them could be saved as Gauguin had set afire a number of his works before dying. How they fell into Shchukin’s hands nobody seems to know, but this remains a veritable discovery for art enthusiasts who had only heard of the legend but had never seen these creations.

Jean-Paul Claverie, an official at the Foundation Louis Vuitton, describes the show as a rare event that is already attracting art lovers and professionals not only in France but from all over the world. “This is once-in-a-lifetime event that is not likely to repeat itself for a long time to come,” he says.

One man who has deliberately preferred to stay in the background but has been the driving force behind the organisation of this unusual show is Sergei Shchukin’s own grandson André-Marc Deloque Fourcaud. He was unquestionably valuable by providing many unknown details about his grandfather’s life and his artistic passion.

Another important part of the exhibition will be an international symposium of art experts in February next year when the current and upcoming influences in modern art will be discussed and ideas will be exchanged.

Though true for the Shchukin collection itself, this is not the first time that Foundation Louis Vuitton has made a deal with Moscow. For its inauguration ceremony it had already borrowed many paintings and sculptures from a number of State museums in Russia. n

“Icons of Modern Art. TheShchukin Collection” is on view at the Foundation Louis Vuitton from October 20, 2016 to February 20, 2017. 

The writer is an art critic based in Paris. ZafMasud@gmail.com

Images courtesy: Foundation Louis Vuitton in collaboration with Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the Hermitage State Museum.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 30th, 2016