Occupation Art collector | Died 1983 | |
Native name Яков Евсéевич (Шиевич) Рубинштéйн Born 1900 Warsaw | ||
Yakov Evseevich (Shievich) Rubinstein (Рубинштéйн, Яков Евсéевич (Шиевич)) (1900 Warsaw – 1983 Moscow) was a Russian and Soviet art collector with main focus on the collection of Russian art of the first third of the 20th century.
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Biography
R. was born eight of nine children to a family of a merchant. When his father became merchant of the 2nd guild, he was granted the right to live in Saint Petersburg. One of the R.’s brothers emigrated to Switzerland still before the revolution of 1917, after the revolution one part of the family returned to Poland and later moved to France. The father and one of the older brothers of R., Kelman, were deported from the occupied France and died in Auschwitz. R. remained in Petrograd, which name was changed to Leningrad later, where he earned his degree in Economics.
Art collection
The foundation for the collection, which R. collected together with his second wife T. S. Zhegalova, was laid during the years after the Stalin’s death. His attention for old European masters was quickly replaced by an interest in Russian painters of the first third of the 20th century. The means for the extension of the collection were provided significantly by his salary as a doctor of economics and his countrywide lectures.
The main principle of the collecting activity of R., who was on friendly terms with many painters (G. Vereyskiy, P. Kuznetsov, V. Lebedev were among R.’s friensds) was the orientation on the artistic quality instead of famous names, which brought not only the works of B. Grigoriev, B. Kustodiev, M. Larionov, I. Mashkov, Z. Serebryakova, R. Falk to the collection, but also the works of painters that were lesser known in the 1960s and 1970s – A. Bogomazov, S. Nikritin, N, Sinezubov, L. Chupyatov, V. Yustitskiy and others. A great merit of the collector was the rescuing of many of art works from destruction.
The Rubinstein’s collection held in his apartment in Maliy Levshinskiy alley in Moscow, included the sections Russian paintings, drawings and theatrical scenic paintings of the first third of 20th century, posters of the first years after the revolution, Soviet agitation china, Russian icons, and works of Soviet underground artists of 1960s and 1970s and graphic portraits of people of art. While the collector still was alive, his collection was almost the largest private art collection in Moscow. After the death of R. his collection became dispersed, only one forth of it exists today as a homogenous collection.