Screening of the film The Gospel Circle of Vassily Polenov followed by the round-table discussion with the film producer, Elena Yakovich, the writer Alexander Ilichevsky and grand-daughter of the artist Vassily Polenov, Natalia Polenova. This is a screening of the new film about one of the most important Russian artists of the 19th century, Vassily Polenov and his trips to the Middle East.
Professor John E. Bowlt of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. After two years of postgraduate study at Moscow State University he completed his doctorate, on Russian Symbolism, at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and from 1971 onwards has been teaching in the USA. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including American Council of Learned Societies, The British Council, Fulbright-Hayes and National Endowment for the Humanities, and in Los Angeles also directs the Institute of Modern Russian Culture. John E. Bowlt has written extensively on Russian visual culture, especially on the art of Symbolism and the avant-garde, and has curated or co-curated exhibitions of Russian art, including “A Feast of Wonders. Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes” at the Nouveau Musée de Monte Carlo, Monaco, and the State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow; “El Cosmos de la vanguardia rusa” at the Fundacion Marcelino Botin, Santander, and the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; “L’avanguardia russa, Siberia e l’Oriente” at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; and “Russian Avant-Garde Theatre: War, Revolution and Design, 1913-1933” at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; he is now preparing a retrospective of the work of Léon Bakst for the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, in 2016. In addition to the catalogues for these exhibitions, his books include The Russian Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism, 1902-1934; The Salon Album of Vera Sudeikin-Stravinsky; and Moscow, St. Petersburg. Art and Culture during the Russian Silver Age. In 2010, he received the Order of Friendship from the Russian Federation for his promotion of Russian culture in the USA.