Two Women Patrons of the Russian Avant-Garde

Dr. Natalia Murray grew up in St. Petersburg where she graduated from the Academy of Arts. She is now is an associate lecturer and senior curator at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her most recent book Art for the Worker; Proletarian Art and Festive Decorations of Petrograd. 1917-1920 was published by Brill in May 2018. In November 2018 the Russian translation of her 2012 book The Unsung Hero of the Russian Avant-Garde; The Life and Times of Nikolay Punin was published by Slovo in Moscow.In 2017 she curated a major exhibition Revolution. Russian Art. 1917-1932 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. She is currently working on several exhibition projects in Moscow and Paris.Her books and articles extend across the wide field of 19th-20th century Russian and European art, and she has featured in films about the Hermitage Museum and the Russian Revolution and in programmes for BBC Radio 4 and World Service. Dr Natalia Budanova is an independent art historian and a member of the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre (CCRAC) Advisory Board. After graduated from Cambridge, she completed her postgraduate studies at the Courtuald Institute of Art where she also received her PhD. Her research, lectures and publications engage in investigating the role of women in Russian art of the late Imperial and early Soviet periods, patterns of artistic exchange between Russia and the Western Europe, and the response of Russian visual art to the events of the Great War.