This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: 40 paintings from Leningrad and Moscow were included in the first large art exchange to result from the cultural agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, signed in Geneva in November 1985. Among them were 8 paintings by Paul Cézanne, 3 by Claude Monet, 3 by Auguste Renoir, 9 by Paul Gauguin, 3 by Vincent van Gogh, 6 by Henri Matisse, and 8 by Pablo Picasso. Most of these works were originally from the Shchukin and Morosov collections. An additional painting by Matisse, Harmony in Red, was seen only in Washington. In exchange, the Russians received 40 impressionist and post-impressionist paintings from the National Gallery and 127 paintings and drawings from the Armand Hammer collection for exhibition in the Soviet Union.

Organization: Gaillard Ravenel and Mark Leithauser designed the exhibition, and Gordon Anson designed the lighting for the National Gallery.

Sponsor: Funding was provided by Occidental Petroleum Corporation. The exchange of exhibitions between the Soviet Union and the United States was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Attendance: 197,555

Catalog: Impressionist to Early Modern Paintings from the USSR. Occidental Petroleum Corporation; Los Angeles: Armand Hammer Foundation, 1986.

Brochure: Henri Matisse, Harmony in Red, by Lawrence Gowing. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1986.

Other Venues: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 26–August 12, 1986
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, August 23–October 5, 1986