Nadezhda Dobychina (1884–1950)

Abstract The opening of the first commercial art gallery in Russia by Nadezhda Dobychina (1884–1950) heralded surprising female dominance in the national art business sector, which appears even more remarkable considering that up until the early 1910s art dealers were virtually absent from the archaically pre-capitalistic Russian art market. On that account Dobychina’s Art Bureau, which opened in St. Petersburg in October 1911 was an entirely pioneering business project. Dobychina laid the groundwork for several innovative approaches which foreshadowed many aspects of modern gallery practice. Exhibitions in her Art Bureau were accompanied by talks, disputes, concerts and performances, bringing artists and public in a close contact with each other and thus providing a useful forum for the exchange of views and ideas. Dobychina’s Art Bureau aimed at showcasing the most original and distinctive artistic trends in Russia and abroad, ranging from realism, symbolism and post- impressionism to provocatively cutting-edge avant-garde. In a short span of less than a decade she organised the first exhibitions in Russia of Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall and famously exhibited Malevich’s Black Square in the ground-breaking 0.10 exhibition, which was held at the Bureau in 1915. Over the years Dobychina has also assembled an important collection which included works of the World of Art and Avant-garde artists. The Art Bureau emerged as the most influential and ideologically independent centre of the contemporary art in Russia, which in turn secured artistic dialogue between Russia and Western Europe.