Russia's MAIN art exhibitions in 2025 (PHOTOS + PICS)

State Historical Museum, Moscow

• ‘Jewels! The splendor of the Russian court’

This exhibition includes diamonds of Russian empresses, jewelry masterpieces and luxurious dresses, decorative and applied arts and exquisite portraits reflecting the luxury of the tsar's court. All items are from the Hermitage Museum collection in St. Petersburg.

The exhibition runs until May 12, 2025.

• ‘Lenin’

The Browning pistol with which Lenin was shot, posters, photos and personal belongings of the legendary “leader of the world proletariat” have been collected from almost all museums of the country. The exhibition not only demonstrates the scale of his personality, but also invites guests to rethink his role in world history.

The exhibition runs until August 18, 2025.

• ‘Treasures of imperial residences: Tsarskoye Selo’

Alexander II's smoking pipes, decorative masterpieces made of amber, imperial sleighs, weapons and furniture. More than 400 items from St. Petersburg's Tsarskoye Selo Museum-Reserve that belonged to the royal family will be brought to the exhibition in Moscow. Some of them will be displayed for the first time.

The exhibition runs from October 2025 to March 2026.

A.S. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

• ‘The Baryatinsky Museum. European art of the 17th-19th centuries’

After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, one of the world's largest collections of Old Masters, belonging to the Bariatinsky noble family, was nationalized. Many masterpieces ended up in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, while others went to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and to other museums in Russia. For the first time, the collection’s Western European masterpieces will be brought together again.

The exhibition will run from October 28, 2025 to February 15, 2026.

• Exhibition in honor of Dmitry Krasnopevtsev's 100th anniversary

Dmitry Krasnopevtsev. Sea pebbles. 1970

Among the main exhibits are the famous metaphysical still lifes by the artist, a true master of Soviet unofficial art. Most of the works for the exhibition will be provided by private institutions – the AZ Museum and Prometheus Art Foundation. 

The exhibition will open in Fall 2025. 

Tretyakov Gallery, Kaliningrad

• ‘Tretyakov Gallery. Five Centuries of Russian Art’

Portraits by Ilya Repin and Valentin Serov, landscapes by Isaac Levitan and Arkhip Kuindzhi, suprematist works by Kazimir Malevich and major works of the avant-garde. About 300 major masterpieces from the Tretyakov Gallery's permanent exposition will be presented at the opening of the branch in Kaliningrad. 

The exhibition will open in Spring 2025. 

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

• ‘Karl Bryullov. Rome. Moscow. Petersburg’

Karl Bryullov. The Last Day of Pompeii. 1833

Considered to be one of the most European Russian artists, Karl Brullov was called a genius even in his lifetime. He lived and worked for a long time in Italy and created the legendary canvas ‘The Last Day of Pompeii’, so the influence of Renaissance artists is clearly traceable in all his work. In the year of Brullov’s 225th birthday anniversary, the gallery will collect almost all his famous works, in which the backgrounds became the main cities of his life: Rome, Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

The exhibition will open in June 2025.

• ‘Ilya Mashkov. Avant-garde. Kitsch. Classic’

Ilya Mashkov. Portrait of E.I. Kirkaldi. 1910

Stunning works with color by one of the main masters of the Russian avant-garde and co-founder of the ‘Jack of Diamonds’ art association are the focus of this retrospective show of Ilya Mashkov. The exhibition will be held in the new building of the gallery on Kadashevskaya Embankment and will include a large photo archive of the artist, who rarely appears in public.

The exhibition will open in June 2025.

Moscow Kremlin Museums

• ‘Fine Dining: Stories of Food in Ancient China’

Tableware of the Chinese emperor, everyday and ceremonial kitchen items, pictorial scrolls and costumes, as well as musical instruments and table games. All this will come to the Moscow Kremlin directly from the National Museum of China. Previously, the objects have never traveled outside the country.

The exhibition will run from April 11 to August 17, 2025. 

GES-2 House of Culture, Moscow

• ‘Lina Bo Bardi’

Lina Bo Bardi. SESC Pompéia in Sao Paulo

Lina Bo Bardi is one of Brazil's most renowned modernist architects and designers. In 2021, she was awarded an honorary ‘Golden Lion’ by the Venice Architecture Biennale. In Russia, her work will be exhibited for the first time in the walls of the modern GES-2 House of Culture, which was designed by Renzo Piano. The installation will be presented in an unusual way, as the works will seem to float in the air. 

The exhibition will open in Summer 2025.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art: MMOMA

• Boris Messerer's retrospective exhibition

Sketches of theatrical scenography, early graphics and the latest abstract compositions. The exhibition will trace the creative path of a living classic and theater artist, who worked with almost every major Moscow theater, from the Bolshoi to the ‘Sovremennik’.

The exhibition will open in June 2025.

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

• ‘Viktor Vasnetsov. On the 175th anniversary of the birth’

Viktor Vasnetsov. 'The Fron Princess'. 1918

‘Ivan-Tsarevich on the Gray Wolf’, ‘Alyonushka’, ‘The Carpet-Summon’, ‘The Frog Princess’ – these and other masterpieces of Russia’s main fairy-tale artist from the collections of various museums of Russia will converge at the retrospective at the Russian Museum. 

The exhibition runs until June 23, 2025. 

• ‘Our Avant-Garde’

Marc Chagall. 'Promenade'. 1917

The ‘Black Square’ by Kazimir Malevich, legendary abstract compositions by Wassily Kandinsky, melancholy painting by Marc Chagall, Cubo Futurism by Lyubov Popova and more than 400 more masterpieces of the Russian avant-garde will be exhibited at a new large exhibition in St. Petersburg. 

The exhibition will open in December 2025.

State Hermitage, St. Petersburg

• ‘The Art of Portraiture. Personality and era’

Peter Paul Rubens. 'Head of a Franciscan Monk'. 1615-1617

Ancient Altai masks, ancient Egyptian statues, portraits by Rubens, Bronzino and other Renaissance and Baroque masters, as well as works by contemporary artists will give an opportunity to trace the evolution of the portrait genre through the centuries. 

The exhibition will run from December 8, 2025 to March 29, 2026.

• ‘Divine Michelagnolo’ and his contemporaries. To the 550th anniversary of the master's birth

Michelangelo. 'Crouching Boy'. 1530-1534

The only work by Michelangelo Buonarroti in Russia is kept in the Hermitage. The exhibition dedicated to the anniversary of the Renaissance titan will be organized around the sculpture ‘Crouching Boy’, which was once acquired by Catherine the Great.

The exhibition will run from April 26 to August 24, 2025. 

• ‘Art Deco fashion’

Beaded dresses, geometric accessories, drawings by designers and artists and a true symbol of French Art Deco in fashion – shoes with celluloid heels – will be the main “characters” of a new exhibition at the Hermitage. It is based on items from Nazim Mustafayev's collection surrounded by works from the Hermitage collection, such as paintings by Henri Matisse.

The exhibition will run from April 30 to September 7, 2025.