The Hermitage acquired the paintings by Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Bonnard, Matisse and Picasso.
Henri Matisse
Dance
France. 1909 – 1910
Oil on canvas
In 1948 a collection of 316 paintings was transferred to the Hermitage from the State Museum of New Western Art in Moscow, which was shut down just before the War. In this important event, the collections of the Museum of New Western Art were divided between the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. For the most part, the Museum of New Western Art was made up of items from the collections of two famous Moscow collectors, Sergey Shchukin and Ivan Morozov.
The Hermitage acquired notable paintings by such celebrated late 19th- and early 20th-century artists as Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, Marquet, Bonnard, Matisse and Picasso. On the advice of the Curator of French painting, Antonina Izergina, the Director of the Hermitage Iosif Orbeli chose The Red Room, Dance and The Painter's Family by Matisse; Two Sisters (The Visit), Dance of the Veils and Three Women by Picasso; a triptych, The Mediterranean, by Pierre Bonnard.
In April 1956 nearly all the Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings that had once belonged to the Museum of New Western Art were exhibited in a show entitled Works of French Art from the 12th to 20th centuries in USSR Museums that was jointly organized by the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum.
