The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the world’s largest at museum, is famous for its massive collection of three million works including some of the greatest art treasures in history.
Throughout centuries of history the Hermitage had never devoted an exhibit to any artist from the western hemisphere when Tim Holmes was invited to be the first in 1993-4. Holmes was not a big name in the American art world, but the curators of the Hermitage were so impressed with the depth and passion of his work that his work was chosen to mark the opening of The Hermitage to art of the west. The exhibit proved to be very popular among Russians and was held over for a private viewing by Vice President and Mrs. Gore on a state visit in 1994.
The Hermitage was begun in the 1700s, with 350 rooms spread throughout five former palaces, housing the world’s greatest art collection, the place itself is a cultural mecca. Three of Tim’s sculptures remain on display at the Hermitage where he shares the honor with Rockwell Kent of being the only Americans represented among the works in the permanent collection.
It took me months of disbelief that my invitation was real and not a scam. Only when an American musician returning from a Russian tour delivered a letter from the museum did I believe it was true! I asked him to FAX the letter to me and out of the machine came the official logo of The Hermitage! The first line was “We have invited you through your representative to exhibit here but we have not heard from you.” Yikes. My scheduled exhibit was four months away!
In an exhibit I called An Emergency of Joy, 30 of my sculptures and four Metaphysical Maps, including pieces created for the exhibit. They were exhibited in the gorgeous entrance hall to Katherine the Great’s famous theater, spanning a canal.
This is a 19th century engraving of this part of the Hermitage with my exhibit hall on the right. It looks the same today! Only the costumes have changed.
The exhibit expresses the fine edge between the sublime and the unfathomable, between beauty and terror, between what is precious and what is too big to comprehend. Human struggle is the theme: the struggle for survival, for fulfillment, for meaning. “Sculptures by Tim Holmes deserve being displayed in the best museums of the world,” commented the Hermitage Director, Mikhail Piotrovsky.
An Emergency of Joy was installed in the canal-spanning entryway to the court of Catherine the Great in Nov. 1993 and held over into 1994 to allow Vice President and Mrs. Gore to have a private tour.
“Of Course the artist had Rodin as a starting point, but he interpreted the form in a more elegant and refined way.”
“Sculptures by Tim Holmes deserve being displayed in the best museums of the world.” -Hermitage Director, Mikhail Piotrovsky.
“There are several artists who in my opinion are not the best. It is better to find other artists, masters like Tim Holmes who are perhaps not that well known but whose work is interesting and groundbreaking.”
