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Although the authors of the present article are S.N. Gorshin's wife and daughter, this work took great pains. We drew on the family archives, notes of S.N. Gorshin's mother, the manuscript of his book "My Pathways", his memoirs and the experience of our life together. It was not easy to pick out the essential that would in a nutshell give the portrayal of the gallery founder.
It
should be noted from the very start that S.N. Gorshin is a rather distinctive
personality. Many of his typical features are traceable throughout his life from
school years to professorship.
As a matter of fact, he is a villager who has become an intellectual with highly developed moral qualities, love for the chosen profession and passionate desire to work. The steadiness of his pursuits over the period of not less than seventy-five years attests him as something more than simply an enthusiast.
Sergei Nikolayevich was born in 1908 in the village of Bulgakovo, Bulgakovo Volost, Saransk Uyezd, Penza Gubernia. He was the first son in a teachers' family. His parents came from the peasantry of the same gubernia.
According to his mother, the boy developed uncommonly rapidly. It was difficult to check his curiosity. At the age of eight he already finished the rural three-year school, read a lot, collected match boxes and ruled the roost among street urchins. At the age of nine and ten he attended the last class of the same school, finding something new there. The parents encouraged his desire to study. In those years he coped with the collected works of Mayne Reid and Jules Verne. In his mother's notes we find a supposition that reading those books later turned him into a naturalist. Abandoning his match boxes, he now began collecting field flowers, dragonflies and beetles. At the young age he took a fancy to rare butterflies and particularly birds' eggs difficult of access which he believed no one had ever seen. He wrote down in his notebook how to find the nests of field and swamp birds.
Finding verses in her son's notebook, indeed a rather plump one, the mother wondered where he had got them from. The boy said that he versified himself just for fun. As the mother said later, she also encouraged this inclination of her son, which bore fruit.
The boy also showed a desire to collect picture reproductions and to draw himself. The family subscribed to the magazines "Awakening" and "The Sun of Russia" which often carried reproductions of pictures by prominent artists. The parents noticed that the boy spent hours looking at those reproductions, put the magazine copies in accurate piles and rebuked his brother when he turned over the pages carelessly.
At the age of twelve the boy was sent to town to attend the fifth class of a secondary school. Here his naturalist proclivities brought him to a natural science circle of which he eventually became the leader.
Then something else took place. His mother told the art teacher about the boy's interest in painting. The teacher said the boy showed an interest in drawing and agreed to recommend him for training at the graphic arts school. At the school the boy drew plaster casts and later, replicated paintings. His best achievements were replicas of Lermontov's portrait by P.E. Zaboloisky and I.I. Snishkin's "In the Wild North..." But despite such successes, the boy's interests of that period were not concentrated on art alone. He wrote poems, went in for sports and photography, played chess, sang in a choir and played in a string orchestra. The parents feared such diversification and kept telling the boy about upcoming entrance examinations at a higher education establishment. They contented themselves with the fact that the boy sat over textbooks till midnight at the light of a kerosene lamp, although they feared that he might spoil his eyes. And it happened that way.
In 1926, he finished secondary but had not yet turned eighteen to qualify for entrance exams at a higher education establishment. The Chief Educational Board announced the first entrance examinations, with a 10 per cent quota for children of intellectuals to be admitted to higher education establishments. Nevertheless the young man insisted on going and taking exams. Fearing that he would not be accepted due to his young age and the low quota, he sent applications and copies of the school graduation certificate to three higher education establishments (such practice was permitted in those years) - the Forestry Institute in Kazan, the Teachers' Training Institute in Nizhni Novgorod and the Medical Institute in Saratov. The parents disapproved of such practice but had to surrender, and their seventeen-year-old son went to Kazan with books, shins and a loaf of bread in his wickerwork basket and three roubles in his pocket. After fetting four 'fives' but still despairing of success, he took up the job of a stevedore on board steamer going to Nizhni Novgorod. He passed his exams there with the same result - four 'fives'. Further, in the same manner he got to Saratov. Later he confessed of a terrible 'sin' in his notebook, writing that, as there were no photos on the examination cards, he took exams for his comrades never mind that those boys of working class and peasant origin would be his main rivals. A month later he received three letters saying that he was accepted.
And so he found himself in the old city of Kazan. The young man who had become a student could not hide his feelings. He wrote in his notebook:
Autumnal tinkle, autumnal mist, I walk Kazan streets where dust flies, Today I'm happy - I am on the list, Accepted by this house with great big eyes.
It did not bother the lad that he was granted neither hostel accommodation nor scholarship. Never mind all that. He could work as a stevedore, he could chop and saw wood for one rouble per cubic metre, but then there were nights and books for him. His eyesight was poor enough and he tried to occupy the front desk during the lecture. His intent gaze at the blackboard, the instruments and illustrations caught the lecturers' attention. He attended lectures in general disciplines at Kazan University and those in special disciplines, at the forestry department of the Institute of Agriculture and Forest Economy. Considering his activity at the chair of forest topathology and his poverty (lean and poorly clad) they gave him the job of a laboratory assistant at the forestry experiment station. His chief was Professor A.A. Yunitsky. To give the young man a chance to make his living, he sent the second-year student to work as a surveyor of felling areas or a photographer to take pictures of construction sites in forest tracks. During summer vacations he took the young man with expeditions across Tataria, Udmurtia and forested mountainous regions. On graduation Prof. A.A. Yunitsky suggested sending him to the Yoshkar-Ola combined research institute as head of an expedition exploring fire-killed tracts in the Marl pine forests. At the age of twenty-two, now referred to not simply as young man, but as Sergei Nikolayevich, he wrote his first research work on forest diseases which was published in booklet form.
His early successes in research work and communications at conferences conduced to the rapid progress of the young scientist. In 1932 he was invited to the Institute of Forest Crops in Moscow to explore Kazakhstan's pine forest strips stretching along the Irtysh banks. The situation demanded his urgent departure in order to join the expedition. Meanwhile he had not yet moved into his Moscow flat. As he recalls it himself, he gave preference to science. His work at the institute was marked with success. He published many studies on forest and wood diseases for which the degree of Master of Science (Agriculture) was conferred on him.
He wrote such verses in those years:
Science - my life, my breath, my eyes, Though yoy're steel shackles on me. I want no other paradise, I seek no other destiny.
In 1934, Sergei Nikolayevich, now a research staff member, was invited to the newly founded institute of mechanical wood working to take the post of deputy chief of the wood conservation laboratory. He decided this question in his characteristic style, leaving without hesitation both Moscow and his comfortable flat and moving to Khimki where he was given lodging in a hostel without any conveniences. Now he was immediately to go on a long business trip. The trouble was that his hand was badly injured. Yet he refused to go on a sick list and left Khimki in due time.
The research work in Khimki was in a different line and demanded a new orientation. Sergei Nikolayevich got down to work energetically, developing the theory of storage climate and proposing an original method of preventing log rotting by sprinkling which became known abroad as the Russian method. His book "Sprinkling Timber" retains its relevance today. It would seem that was enough to satisfy a researcher's ambition. In 1938, however, he came up with the idea of opening post-graduate courses at the institute and became their first director, refusing to receive extra pay for extra work.
In 1941, S.N. Gorshin was already known as a competent wood expert. When the war broke out, he was mobilized by the State Defence Committee and sent to Novosibirsk to work at the aircraft plant putting out Yakovlev airplanes in which wood was extensively employed. The Novosibirsk plant now accommodated three similar plants, including Plant No 301 evacuated from Khimki, and it happened so that each of the strictly specialized shops had four superintendanis. Before long, however, S.N. Gorshin was promoted from the post of leading engineer of the woodworking plant to that of superiniendant of the main woodworking shop. In that capacity he introduced quite a few organizational and technological innovations and eventually made friends with O.K. Antonov, head of the plant's design office. For his excellent showings S.N. Gorshin was awarded the Badge of Honour order.
Towards the end of the war the friendship between S.N. Gorshin and O.K. Antonov grew ever stronger on the basis of the community of certain interests, for instance, their attitude to painting and sport, notably tennis. O.K. Antonov was a passionate amateur artist. At the plant there was also a professional artist, designer A.I. Brait. Sergei Nikolayevich often recalled that both were eager to know what he thought about painting and the artistic profession. They benevolently accepted his criticism of his works and even tried to take him with them to paint sketches. When a sale-exhibition of pictures from the USSR Art Foundation, evacuated to Novosibirsk in 1941, was opened in the city, they persuaded their critic to go with them to the exhibition. Each bought a picture at the exhibition. For Sergei Nikolayevich, as he said himself, this acquisition became a rapidly germinating grain which had got into the soil fertilized back in childhood and student years. Then he bought several pictures at Novosibirsk shops.
In 1947, the Novosibirsk epopee was over and he returned to his institute in Khimki. Having gained vast organizational experience, he successfully reorganized the old laboratory and advanced a new programme on the application of wood preservation chemicals. It was a novel trend in science at that time. A wide-spectrum wood preservative was formulated, its code beginning with the initial letter of his family name. In 1950, S.N. Gorshin was awarded a prize of the Academy of Sciences, and a short film, 'Reliable Protection', was devoted to the prizewinner. Simultaneously he designed a pilot plant producing the said preservative and supervised its construction on the institute grounds. In recognition of his efforts to introduce the preservative into wide practice, the inventor was decorated with another Badge of Honour order. In those years he completed his research on the air-drying of timber. He defended his Doctor's thesis on the subject and published a monograph.
Although buried to his neck in science, Sergei Nikolayevich, nevertheless, found time to visit art exhibitions, as well as second-hand booksellers and antiquaries in Moscow. He complained of money shortages, but continued to buy pictures.
We had no idea where collectors got pictures. Sergei Nikolayevich said each did it in his own way. He also had his own method, one determined by his preoccupation with the main work and certain features of his character. As a rule, he did not communicate much with other collectors. He practically never called at the addresses where pictures were likely to be offered for sale. On Saturday mornings he would go to second-hand shops to buy something and quickly return home. It was not easy to do, since there were two second-hand shops in Moscow lying at a considerable distance from each other which he was eager to visit. When there were traffic jams, he covered long distance on foot at a quick pace.
On returning home, the picture-hunter tried to dispose of his dinner as quickly as possible in order to plunge into science again. He sat down at his writing desk on which lay sheets of paper and a note jotted by him on the previous night, saying at what point he had stopped and what else he was to do. Under the plate of glass covering his desk one could see a directive message to himself not to go to bed earlier than one o'clock. If he returned home with a picture, which was a rare occurrence, he unpacked it immediately and usually talked only about its merits. He was anxious to uncover the picture and give it a close look, yet he refrained from doing that for fear of upsetting the established rhythm of research work. After some time his interest for the picture took the upper hand and he said, 'Well, let's call it a day.' So he unwrapped the picture and thoroughly studied it. In many cases he decided on the replacement or repair of the frame or some kind of restoration of the painting.
We helped him set pictures in frames. He was very pedantic in this respect. He believed the frames were to be of the same period as the pictures and that they were to meet the tastes and requirements of the artists themselves. Attaching so much importance to frames, he bought them in quantities, separately from pictures. They stood in big piles, placed in paper bags for security's sake. Restoration could not be done on the spot: it required all kinds of putty, cement, bronze, varnish, dyestuffs and, naturally, appropriate tools. Sergei Nikolayevich ordered two special devices - one for cutting and the other for knocking frames together. We also took pan in procuring and cutting glass and packaging pictures.
Sergei Nikolayevich paid special attention to picture restoration. He did not do that himself, nor did he allow us to do it. He said that it was blasphemy for a collector to restore pictures, since restoration was also an art. In the beginning our pictures were restored by A.B. Dantsiger, then by V.N. Zinovieva, N.E. Knorre and A.P. Kovalev. The last three were known as the best restorers of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the Tretyakov Art Gallery. They became his great friends.
Hanging pictures up was also a family concern. The usual wallpapers had to be replaced by single-coloured ones made to order at the wallpaper factory. Every time we had to move furniture, put up a step-ladder, etc. Schemes of the picture arrangement were drawn up on square paper. Some individual sectors were modelled on the floor. Sergei Nikolayevich hung up the biggest pictures in the upper row on two rings and with an inclination, the other pictures were hung on a single ring, each on its own nail. Should he buy another two or three pictures, everything had to be rearranged. Hanging pictures on nails was considered more convenient in view of frequent rearrangements. True, all the walls were pitted with holes left by the nails, but they were not conspicuous as the pictures hung close to each other. The most difficult operations were carried out by Sergei Nikolayevich himself who thus filled in intervals in his scientific and literary activity, especially if some particular stage of his work was completed. He called that recreation.
To achieve uniform illumination, day-light luminescent lamp were mounted over the windows in the cornice zone. Another rule was to maintain the required temperature and moisture.level in the flat. For this purpose we put cottonwool covers on radiators, and used electric stoves and large water containers. At the end of the 1950s, pictures hung rather closely on the wall of the rooms, and friends already called our collection a gallery. At first the collector remained indifferent to it, then he grew nervous and finally began to describe picture collecting as something immoral. When asked why he was indulging in it, he said: 'Oh, I don't know. I just can't do it otherwise.' Sometimes he added something to the effect that the city had no picture gallery. At home he did not say anything about founding a picture gallery in the city. We noticed, however, that the range of the pictures acquired had somewhat widened, especially 'leftwise', and he now began to express the opinion that there should be a system in any collection.
In those years complications arose in connection with Sergei Nikolayevich's research work. His institute was to move to Arkhangelsk, while the testing ground and the pilot plant were turned over to Plant No 301. Yet the character of this man again determined the course of events. Although the Institute of Microbiology and the Institute of Forestry and Wood under the USSR Academy of Sciences were offering him jobs, he launched a campaign to preserve the laboratory and his work team. He want to A.N. Bulganin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers at the time, appealed to the Party's Central Committee, although he was not a Party member, and also to the architect of Moscow and Moscow Region, to Forest Industry Minister G.M. Orlov, and to the Ministry of the Aircraft Industry under whose jurisdiction Plant No 301 was. He brought it home to them that there were neither wood treatment factories nor chemical industry in Arkhangelsk and requested the Ministry of Aircraft Industry to put off if only for a while the demolition of the testing ground and the preservative-manufacturing pilot plant.
The authorities treated his arguments with understanding. As a result relevant instructions were sent to Khimki. The City Soviet, the Head Architect of the city and district and the Head Land Surveyor alloted a new site for building the laboratory outside the town of Solnechnogorsk near Lake Senezh (then belonging to Khimki district). The RSFSR Council of Ministers established the size of the staff for the laboratory. Sergei Nikolayevich personally designed and supervised the construction of the laboratory, known as the Senezh Wood Preservation Laboratory which later became the head enterprise of this kind in the country. Simultaneously he was shifting the testing ground to a new place, translating fundamental American manual on wood preservation and writing a monograph on pentachlorphenol.. He established contacts with the British Wood Preservation Association and with researchers in Sweden and other countries. Before long new preservations of the Senezh family obtained at the laboratory began to find extensive application and win gold medals at exhibitions.
In 1977, Sergei Nikolayevich published his fundamental work "Wood Preservation". The Government of the Russian Federation conferred on him the honorary title of Merited Worker in Science and Technology.
During the Senezh period, the busiest for him, Sergei Nikolayevich opened a new page in his activity, one of the protection of monuments of wooden architecture. The method of monument protection developed at the laboratory is being effectively applied at Kizhi, Gorki Leninskiye, Torz-hok, Kem and other places. The investigation of the wooden foundation of the Ivan the Great Bell-Tower in the Moscow Kremlin which is in a hazardous condition is being conducted up to this day under his guidance. He also paid attention to other architectural monuments in Moscow and Khimki, notably the house boult by Academician F.O. Shekhtel, and delivered lectures at the Poly-technical Museum.
Despite the great amount of work on his hands, his picture collecting enthusiasm never abated but rather grew. It was in the early 1960s that the idea of a picture gallery in Khimki took its ultimate shape. At first he spoke about it only at home and with his friends, but later came up with it at public gatherings. The collection was evaluated from the angle of scientific systematization, considering the possibility of demonstrating the dynamics of the development of Russian painting over the period of its upsurge. In this connection he acquired pictures of new authors 'to cover the white spots in the system', as he put it. In particular, he bought large pictures which he had formerly avoided. He believed it was exactly the type of pictures suitable for the gallery. Bringing home a large picture in a heavy frame, he would say, 'A good thing, but only too heavy'. It was the case with Dosekin's "In the Sea", Perepletchikov's "Road in the Forest", Volkov's "In the Birch Wood" and Shegal's "Southern Landscape". It was strange, and we told him so, that he carried pictures by underground and bus, while taxi drivers charged 10 copecks per kilometer. Ã don't care about the money,' he grumbled, 'I simply don't care for taxi - it's kind of snobbish.'
In those years a fundamental, more systematic rearrangement of pictures became necessary, involving the filling of the corridor and kitchen walls. It was not so easy to do. But then we got used to such things, taking them as a matter of course. Today as the collection has gone to the gallery, we even miss the pictures that once covered the walls from ceiling to floor or stood in the corners, and all that which required so much attention and care.
Our collector did not advertise his collection of pictures which was of such quality and size that information about it reached the Tretyakov Art Gallery. In 1986, its management examined the collection and proposed arranging its exhibition. Sergei Nikolayevich gave his consent, telling about his intention to open a picture gallery in Khimki and offering the Tretyakov An Gallery several pictures as a gift at its choice.
During the exhibition at the Tretyakov Art Gallery he addressed the gathering, expounding the methods, tendency and purpose of collecting. He said his objective was to show Russian realistic painting of the late 19th - early 20th centuries while his ultimate goal was to present his collection to the city. In his poems of the period one finds the following lines:
To you, my town, so dear to me, I give my love, my picture gallery, To which I traveled half a centur And which I'll open soon for all to see.
In his speech the director of the Tretyakov Art Gallery described S.N. Gorshin's deed as an act of nationwide importance.
This was followed by the collector's official declaration to the Soviet Cultural Foundation of the USSR (currently known as the Russian International Cultural Foundation) and the authorities to the city of Khimki that he donated his picture collection to the city via the Cultural Foundation with a view to founding a picture gallery in Khimki and accommodating it in the Shekhtel House, an architectural monument. His only two requirements were that a colored catalogue be published and that the gallery be accommodated in the Shekhtel House, an architectural monument. One of the paragraphs of the declaration worth noting said that the donator intended to patronize the gallery and increase its stocks.
The city favorably treated this decision, and an exhibition of the donated pictures was arranged, arousing lively interest. The event was widely covered in the press, and also on the radio and TV. At the same time certain problems arose. There was a hospital in the Shekhtel House and it was to be moved to another building. For the time being Sergei Nikolayevich agreed to station the gallery for a couple of years on the third floor of the building once belonging to the CPSU city committee, and continued to increase its stocks. Everybody saw that the greatest disappointment to him was the postponement of the opening of the gallery in the earmarked building. But he agreed to wait, although some regional cities which had no picture galleries offered him large old mansions which met the gallery requirements. As could be expected, he declined all proposals, believing that concern about picture galleries for their own cities should be uppermost in the minds of an collectors.
The third floor of the CPSU city committee building needed some reconstruction. It was necessary to wall in the windows in the conference hall, to reconstruct the adjoining rooms and to meet safety requirements. Sergei Nikolayevich drew up the exhibition layout with the use of an original information podium. He continued to expand and complete the gallery's basic stocks. He also decided to turn over to the picture gallery his books on art and the card index of art reproductions to make things easier for it.
Sergei Nikolayevich has already developed the basic concept and plan of the restoration of the Shekhtel House, preserving the interior and exterior of the building, including the grating, the park and the promenade. Proceeding from his own experience he believes that the main achievement will be the protection of its wooden floor and roof beams against the ongoing rotting. This is also recognized by others. He hopes that the Khimki Picture Gallery will move into the Shekhtel House, which it fully deserves, and that it will continue to grow and develop into one of the main cultural centers of the budding city.
We have already spoken about the distinctive traits of our husband and father, describing his approaches to problems of science and picture collecting, and have probably given you a certain idea about him. There are several other facets, however, which will complete the picture. What we mean is his concept, evolved over decades, on the primacy of creation, active propagation of one's knowledge and experience, and resolute struggle against any waste of time.
In the 1960s-70s, he gave much attention to postgraduate training. Undertaking the mission of scientific adviser, he helped twelve postgraduates defend their Master's theses in biological, agricultural and engineering sciences, thus creating his wide-ranging school. In recognition of his services the Higher Certifying Commission conferred the title of Professor on him. Currently Sergei Nikolayevich is supervising the construction of buildings for the postgraduate courses at his laboratory.
Although very busy with work, he was always willing to engage in all kinds of social activity, especially in science, architecture and art. Strange as it might seem, he believes that social work is creative. When a schoolboy, he was chairman of the society of friends of aviation. At the research institute he headed a research society. In Khimki he was member of the architect's urban development group. During the Senezh period he was a member of the timber industry commission at the Higher Certifying Commission awarding Master and Doctor degrees, a bureau member of the scientific board on biological injuries under the USSR Academy of Sciences, and a member of the scientific technological board and of the Council of Elders at the Ministry of the Timber Industry, a member of numerous commissions under the USSR State Planning Committee and the USSR State Committee for Science and Technology and of the scientific methodological board of the USSR Ministry of Culture.
We have already noted that S.N. Gorshin's concept reflects his keen feeling about waste of time. He believes that all worldly pleasures and recreation should fit into creative processes. In 1964, for instance, when he was offered health resort treatment, he took with him folders of research papers and wrote his book "Testing Ground Trials of Preservatives". People are usually amazed when they learn that during the last 25 years he neither had his vacations nor went to health resorts. We tried to persuade him to take a rest but he always produced some weighty arguments and we had to go and have our vacation without him. During his official vacation he continued to go to the office as he thought that he was needed there exactly at that time. He visited many cities, including foreign cities, but he went there to attend scientific conference rather than to have a rest or visit friends. He never brought pictures from his trips, although there was something to buy in St. Petersburg, Kiev and Riga. From Czechoslovakia and Africa he brought suitcases full of termites instead of souvenirs that other people bring home from abroad. Another fact worth noting is that this man, who is 85 now, does not want to retire although the work he is doing is hard enough.
In conclusion we would like to touch upon a little yet probably vitally important question. In recent years people have been asking us again and again: 'Where did the head of your family get so much money to buy such expensive pictures? Aren't you sorry for this? Perhaps you lived in poverty? Perhaps you sacrificed too much?' Our answer is always the same: 'It was his cherished dream, and he was gradually materializing it, not without our help. We lived normally, and today we are happy that we have shared in his worthy undertaking.'
V. M. Gorshina
E. S. Gorshina
