WASHINGTON, November 26 (RIA Novosti) – Classic examples of Soviet interior design are to go on display in the United States for the first time ever in December when a Russian gallery brings Stalin-era furniture and other rare items to the Design Miami international design show, an arts magazine has reported.
The “Interior Design for the Soviet Elite 1930-1940” exhibit will shine a spotlight on the two main styles of pre-war interior design in the USSR: Soviet Art Deco and the “Soviet Empire style” that was intended to glorify the Soviet government, Yareah.com reported.
Examples of furniture from government offices, theaters and other public buildings will demonstrate Stalinist tastes in decoration during a time of rapid social and technological change in the Soviet Union.
The exhibit will also feature other interior design items, including an “extremely rare” CSA-K radio once owned by Mikhail Kalinin, who was a Politburo member and the nominal head of state for much of Stalin’s reign.
Objects designed by the Russian architect Nikolai Lanceray will also be on display. Lanceray began his design career during the Tsarist period and continued it throughout his imprisonment in the Gulag in the 1930s, where he designed furniture, according to Yareah.com.
Moscow’s Heritage International Art Gallery is behind the exhibit, which runs in Miami Beach from December 4-8, marking the first time a Russian gallery has attended the Design Miami show.
“[W]e hope that American audiences will learn something new about interior design behind the Iron Curtain, and to see beyond the political confrontation of that period,’’ Heritage Gallery art director and owner Christina Krasnyanskaya told Yareah.com Friday.
