ARKA Gallery (Russian: Галерея АРКА,
romanized: Galereja ARKA) is an art gallery located at 6 Bolshaya Morskaya Street in the historical center of
Saint Petersburg City, Russia. ARKA Gallery specialized in contemporary and modern Russian and foreign painting and fine art legacy of the
Leningrad School artists of 1930–1980s.
Location
ARKA Gallery is located between
Nevsky Prospekt, the
Palace Square and the
Hermitage Museum, in the historical building in
Eclectic style belonged to banker K. Feleigsen. It was rebuilt by architect Ferdinand Miller in 1879-1880. Many years there was a Hotel d`France, some famous persons lived in it like Russian writers
Ivan Turgenev and
Alexey Tolstoy. Now has a display area of more than 2,100 square feet (200 m2).
History
A view through the Arch on Bolshaya Morskaya St. and the building with an ARKA gallery
ARKA Gallery was established in June 2004 by director and owner Eugenia Logvinova (Russian: Евге′ния Ло′гвинова), art historian and curator, a member of International Federation of Artists (IFA), and Art Critics and Art Historians Associations (AIS).[4]
The name of the ARKA was initiated by the nearest neighbourhood with
Arch of
General Staff Building commemorating the Russian Victory over Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812, and also as a sign of special attention to the high traditions of Russian Art. The building was designed by
Carlo Rossi in the Empire style and built in 1819-1829.
Since 2005 ARKA Gallery realized more than 100 exhibit projects mostly in Saint Petersburg, but also in Moscow,[5] Tomsk, Novosybirsk,[6] Barnaul.[7] ARKA Gallery carries out joint projects with the major private collections and state museums of Russia. Also gallery hold some international art projects in Saint Petersburg and showed contemporary art from Italy,[8] China,[9] Japan, Ethiopia,[10] Lithuania,[11] and other countries.
Although the ARKA Gallery emphasized the work of living artists, exhibits were not limited to such works - as evidenced by its showing of Paintings of 1940-1980 by the Artists of the
Leningrad School of Painting (February – May, 2013),[12] solo exhibitions by artist
Vladimir Sakson (2007),[13] as well as the art of such oldest living masters as theatre artist and painter Muza Oleneva-Degtjareva (2007, 2010, 2011) and graphic artist Valentin Blinov.