Views from the Eastern Front: Russian Modernism and the Great War

World War I—from the declaration of war on July 28, 1914, to the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918—was an unprecedented global catastrophe. Russia’s participation in the war, with some victories and many failures, had a particularly cataclysmic impact on its history, including the collapse of the monarchy and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the following bloody disintegration of the Russian Empire with consequences that reverberated across the world for the next century.

This exhibition considers the role of World War I in Russia through the arts. Presenting works by Russian avant-garde artists and symbolist poets, the exhibition explores the ways in which Russian modernists engaged with and reflected on themes of war, violence and destruction during this fateful period.

Drawn from the permanent collections of the Mead Art Museum and the Amherst Center for Russian Culture, the exhibition features works by Mikhail Larionov, Aristarkh Lentulov, Natalia Goncharova, Zinaida Gippius, Olga Rozanova and Aleksei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovksy, Aleksandr Blok and Pavel Filonov.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.