Greatest Art Collectors
Series:
Savva Mamontov
Biography of Russian Patron of the Arts:
Founder of Abramtsevo Artist Colony.
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Greatest Art Collectors
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Savva Mamontov (1841-1918)Contents • Biography |
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Along with Sergei Shchukin (1854-1936) and Ivan Morozov (1871-1921), the railway magnate and industrialist Savva Mamontov was one of the top patrons of Russian art and culture, and a great source of support for Russian artists involved in all types of art. One of the country's wealthiest art collectors, as well as a canny art critic, he was also a talented composer, and singer, and excelled at sculpture. He founded five commercial and industrial colleges across the Russian Empire, launched the Russian Opera Theatre - spending lavishly on scenery, costumes and other decorative art for his productions, from the leading theatrical painters of his day including Viktor Vasnetsov (1848–1926), Konstantin Korovin (1861–1932), and Alexander Golovin (1863-1930) - and went to enormous efforts to boost Russian culture in the area of music and ballet. In addition, he was a generous sponsor of applied art, Russian crafts and various forms of traditional folk art. In the area of fine art, one of Mamontov's major contributions concerned the facilities that he made available to artists at his country estate at Abramtsevo, which were used by almost every important Russian painter, sculptor and architect. Abramtsevo became a calm, creative environment for them to work in, and included a number of craft workshops, as well as studios for panel painting and sculpture. In 1898 he sponsored a periodical called "The World of Art" (Mir Iskusstva), written by a group of Russian artists of the same name. It was edited by Sergei Diaghilev, assisted by Leon Bakst (1866-1924) and Alexander Benois (1870-1960) - all of whom were later closely involved in the foundation of the Ballets Russes (c.1909-29). Mamontov's artistic ventures almost ruined him, and he was forced to close his theatre. In 1899, he became embroiled in a major scandal based on groundless accusations which cost him five months detention. Born Savva Ivanovich Mamontov in the town of Yalutorovsk, in western Siberia, he was a son of the wealthy merchant and tax collector Ivan Feodorovich Mamontov and Maria Tikhonovna (Lakhitina). Eight years later the family moved to Moscow, where Ivan Feodorovich established himself as a leading figure in mercantile circles. In 1855, at the age of 14, Savva Mamontov was enrolled at the Institute of Civil Engineer Corps in St. Petersburg, after which he studied law at Moscow University. He was then introduced into the family business, which led to him spending time in Baku where he absorbed the basic skills of oil trading. In 1864, following an illness, he went to Italy to recuperate and learn about the Italian silk trade. During his visit he fell in love with Italian opera and took singing lessons. He was also introduced to 17-year-old Elizaveta Sapozhnikov, the daughter of Moscow merchant and silk trader Grigory Sapozhnikov, whom he married the following year at Kireevo estate, near Moscow. During the remainder of his 20s, Mamontov devoted himself to business - acquiring the skills and contact which would help him become one of the most successful businessmen in Russia. Indeed, for the remainder of the century he rarely stopped. However, his love of sculpture and music, as well as his appreciation of Russian visual art in general - and, it must be said, his position as a dynamic entrepreneur and wealthy heir to a major business, with social and business contacts across Moscow and St Petersburg - all this encouraged him to broaden his outlook to include the arts as well as business. In 1870, Mamontov bought the Abramtsevo estate, just north of Moscow, where he founded an artist colony or club, patronized by talented artists from all over Russia, including several members of the "Itinerants Society of Travelling Exhibitions", known also as the Wanderers (peredvizhniki). They included: the historical painters Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and Vasily Surikov (1848-1916), the landscape painters Vasily Polenov (1844-1927), Ivan Shishkin (1832-98) and Isaac Levitan (1860-1900), the portraitists Valentin Serov (1865-1911) and Ivan Kramskoy (1837–1887), the genre-painter Vasily Perov (1833-82), the symbolist painter Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), sculptors Viktor Hartmann (1834–1873) and Mark Antokolski (1843-1902), as well as many others. The colony of artists who worked at Abramtsevo during the 1870s and 1880s sought to recapture the era of Russian Medieval Painting, which embraced the murals and icon painting of the Novgorod School (c.1100-1500) and the Moscow School (c.1500-1700). Workshops were set up at Abramtsevo to support these activities and to produce jewellery, furniture, ceramics, and textiles imbued with traditional Russian imagery. A lover of music, Mamontov also founded the Russian Opera Theatre which was designed to offer an alternative to the Italian operas staged by the Russian Imperial theatres. This was a highly audacious undertaking, but Mamontov was not put off. According to the renowned composer Rachmaninov, who worked with the latter for over a year, Mamontov's influence on Russian opera theatre was similar to the impact that Stanislavsky had on world art. Mamontov's theatre gave a huge boost to the advancement of Russian music. It led to the discovery of new talent, like the bass singer Fyodor Chaliapin, and to increased support for Russian opera composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Modest Musorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Borodin, and many others. Despite his huge success, Mamontov's reputation collapsed in 1899 following a series of contrived and unfounded charges that he embezzled funds from one of his railway companies. Although eventually freed some months later, he retired from business and settled quietly on his Abramtsevo estate. He died in 1918. For more about arts and crafts in Russia, please see these articles: - Petrine
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