Nikolai Khardzhiev

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Nikolai Ivanovich Khardzhiev[1] (ru: Харджиев, Николай Иванович, 26 June 1903, Russia—(?) June 1996, Netherlands) was a Russian writer, literary and art collector. He became famous for his extensive archive and collection of Russian Avanguard art and literature.

Early life

Born in Ukraine in 1903, Khardzhiev (pronounced HARD-zee-ev)[2] studied law before moving to Leningrad in 1928, where he met many of the painters and writers who had ventured from European modernism into new realms of abstraction. Anna Akhmatova, the most famous Russian poet of the Soviet period, was a close friend during the war.[3]

Suprematist movement

When Kazimir Malevich returned to Stalinist Russia, his works were confiscated, and he was arrested and banned from making art in 1930.[4] Khardzhiev managed to preserve manuscripts and memoirs from the movement, along with about 1,350 artworks. These included rare oils, gouaches and drawings by Malevich; paintings by Pavel Filonov, Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova and Olga Rozanova; and important drawings by El Lissitzky.[5]

After a commission to edit and write commentaries for a complete edition of works by Vladimir Mayakovsky,[6] Stalin's favorite poet, Khardzhiev was admitted to the Soviet writers' union in 1941. This may have saved him from arrest.[7] In 1953 he married for the second time, to a sculptor, Lydia Chaga.[8]

Escape from the Soviet Union

Khardzhiev held onto his collection until 1993, when he and Chaga arranged to leave the Soviet Union.[9] They contracted with Cologne-based Galerie Gmurzynska for their collection to be transported after them. According to papers seized in Moscow, gallery owner Krystyna Gmurzynska and her business partner, Mathias Rastorfer,[10] were to give the Khardzhievs $2.5 million to resettle in Amsterdam. In return, the dealers would receive four paintings and two gouaches by Malevich[11] that art experts had valued at some $30 million.[12] The gallery organized the packing and removal of the collection from the Moscow flat.[13]

Khardzhiev and Chaga flew to Amsterdam in November 1993 and checked into the Hilton Hotel, where they were to stay for four months.[14] The artworks were sent successfully, but only 60 percent of the archive made it to Amsterdam. A large part of the archive was seized at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.

Russian cultural officials first threatened Khardzhiev for what they called the "illegal export" of his collection but later defended the dealers who helped with the move.[15] Negotiations between the governments of Russia and the Netherlands over the fate of the art and archive were started, and in an internal memorandum, Russia's security chief at the time, Vladimir V. Putin, suggested that he would continue to pursue a criminal inquiry into the alleged smuggling.[16]

On July 27, 1995, Khardzhiev made a will leaving everything to Chaga with the instruction that she choose what part of his collection was given to the Khardzhiev-Chaga Art Foundation in Amsterdam. In Khardzhiev's last interview, in December 1995, he said that Nicolas Iljine had approached him on behalf of the Russian authorities, trying to negotiate the return of some of his paintings or part of his archive.[17] When he died in 1996, he left his art collection to the foundation, and later the foundation and the State Archive of the Russian Federation agreed to administer Khardzhiev’s archive.[18] In 2013, many of the works from the Khardzhiev collection were included in a major retrospective on Malevich held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.[19]

References

  1. ↑ Kazimir Malevich - De Khardzhiev-Chaga Collection, November 13, 1997 - January 25, 1998 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
  2. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  3. ↑ Geraldine Norman (May 23, 1998), A tragic flight to freedom Daily Telegraph.
  4. ↑ Nina Siegal (November 5, 2013), Rare Glimpse of the Elusive Kazimir Malevich New York Times.
  5. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  6. ↑ Geraldine Norman (May 23, 1998), A tragic flight to freedom Daily Telegraph.
  7. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  8. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  9. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  10. ↑ Geraldine Norman (May 23, 1998), A tragic flight to freedom Daily Telegraph.
  11. ↑ Geraldine Norman (May 23, 1998), A tragic flight to freedom Daily Telegraph.
  12. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  13. ↑ Geraldine Norman (May 23, 1998), A tragic flight to freedom Daily Telegraph.
  14. ↑ Geraldine Norman (May 23, 1998), A tragic flight to freedom Daily Telegraph.
  15. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  16. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  17. ↑ Tim Golden (March 31, 2003), For Collector Of Russian Art, the End Of a Dream; A Murky Trail Behind Rediscovered Works by Malevich New York Times.
  18. ↑ Nina Siegal (November 5, 2013), Rare Glimpse of the Elusive Kazimir Malevich New York Times.
  19. ↑ Nina Siegal (November 5, 2013), Rare Glimpse of the Elusive Kazimir Malevich New York Times.

Further reading

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