Two Women Patrons of the Russian Avant-Garde. Nadezhda Dobychina and Klavdia Mikhailova; Unicorn, 2021

In early 1910s, two pioneering women entrepreneurs, Nadezhda Dobychina in St Petersburg and Klavdia Mikhailova in Moscow set up two of the first art galleries in Russia. Skilfully balancing current art market trends and daring avant-garde experimentations, Dobychina and Mikhailova soon transformed their establishments into vibrant centres of Russian artistic life.

Their exhibitions of well-established national and international artists attracted enthusiastic crowds and won acclaim from leading art critics. They did not hesitate to engage in more provocative ventures, including the controversial Goncharova retrospectives in 1914, which for the first time put on view over 500 cutting-edge avant-garde works, and the famous 0.10 exhibition of 1915 at Dobychina's Art Bureau in St. Petersburg, where Malevich's famous Black Square was displayed for the very first time.

Based on previously unpublished archival materials and illustrations, this book will tell the story of the lives and adventures of these two remarkable women. Operating in a predominantly man's world, they focussed on discovering and promoting those Russian artists who later went on to become major figures in the history of world modernism.

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