A.I. Kuindzhi Art Museum
The A.I. Kuindzhi Art Museum was an attractive art venue for fans of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, artists of the last century, and contemporary Ukrainian artists.
The history of its creation spanned a century. In 1962, a non-profit art gallery was opened at the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore. And soon the originals of the works of art of the outstanding landscape artist A.I. Kuindzhi arrived in Mariupol: the sketch “Red Sunset”, the sketches “Elbrus” and “Autumn. Crimea”. Several works by A.I. Kuindzhi’s contemporaries also returned to the city. In 1972, the art gallery was replaced by the A.I. Kuindzhi Exhibition Hall. And a year later, the first republican landscape exhibition was held in the artist’s homeland in his honor – “A.I. Kuindzhi Memorial”.
And only on October 29, 2010, the grand opening of a new branch of the Mariupol Local Lore Museum – the A.I. Kuindzhi Art Museum took place. On that day, the new institution welcomed its first visitors. It was a landmark event for the city. On the opening day alone, the museum was visited by more than 2,000 residents and guests of Mariupol.
The museum was located in the historical part of the city, on Georgievskaya Street, 58, in a building built at the beginning of the 20th century. The museum's exhibition halls were on two floors. On the first floor, visitors could get acquainted with the work of the brilliant landscape painter A.I. Kuindzhi, see his original works "Red Sunset", "Elbrus", "Autumn. Crimea" and copies of his most famous paintings, executed by modern masters of landscape painting in life size. Also in this part of the exhibition, visitors got acquainted with the original paintings of Arkhip Ivanovich's contemporaries - I. Aivazovsky, M. Dubovsky, G. Kalmykov, L. Lagorio, O. Bogolyubov, V. Vereshchagin.
The museum's exhibition halls were located on the second floor, where visitors could see one or two new exhibitions every month - stock, thematic, personal, inter-museum. The active work of the museum was facilitated by the presence of a remarkable collection in terms of quantity and value, which included more than 2,200 works of painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative and applied art. The collection quite interestingly presented all the most famous art schools of Ukraine - Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Lviv, Crimean, Transcarpathian. Among the authors were - M. Glushchenko, I. Marchuk, S. Shyshko, T. Yablonska, M. Deregus, E. Kontratovych, A. Kotska and other famous artists. In addition, the collection contained collections of works by Mariupol artists - M. Bendryk, V. Kofanov, M. Antipov, L. Bondarenko, V. Konstantinov, L. Kuzminkov and others.
 Художній музей ім. Куїнджі |  Художній музей ім. А. І. Куїнджі 23.03.2022 р. |  Посол Франції в Україні Марі Дюмон та міський голова Маріуполя Вадим Бойченко в Художньому музеї ім. Куїнджі |
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 Куїнджі А.І. Червоний захід |  Картини вивезені з Художного музея ім. А. І. Куїнджі |  Художній музей відкриття виставки |
 Г.О. Калмиков. А.І. Куїнджі (Куїнджі годує птахів). 1910р. |  Вивезення окупантами музейних експонатів у Донецьк |  Члени Маріупольської організації Національної спілки художників України в Художньому музеї ім. Куїнджі |
 Куїнджі А.І. Ельбрус папір на картоні, олія |
The museum became a city for holding all-Ukrainian and international exhibitions, festivals, and open-air exhibitions. Every five years, the museum hosted paintings by the best masters of landscape painting in Ukraine and around the world - participants in the "Memorials of A.I. Kuindzhi". Thanks to inter-museum exhibitions, Mariupol residents saw masterpieces of painting and graphics of the 16th - 20th centuries. The museum held creative meetings with famous artists and cultural figures, quests, and participated in educational programs.
Scientific, expositional, and exhibition work throughout the years of the museum's existence was carried out by the head of the branch, Tetyana Buli, and the head of the art funds, Nataliya Kuryonysheva.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine led to the destruction of the building of the Mariupol Art Museum named after A.I. Kuindzhi. Tragic for the culture of the Nadaz region and all of Ukraine was the destruction of almost the entire museum collection of paintings and graphics. The surviving exhibits, which are original works by A.I. Kuindzhi and his contemporaries, were stolen by the occupiers and taken to the territory of the so-called DPR. Therefore, now the most important task for museum workers is to create a concept for the revival of the museum after the deoccupation of Mariupol, the return of stolen art objects and the formation of a fund collection with an emphasis on the directions of development of contemporary art in the regions of Ukraine.
We are confident that the revived museum will become a center of spiritual and cultural development in Mariupol, one of the main brand museums of the region and the city.