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Sergei Pronin had only just started work as an
administrator at the Pushkin Gallery when the lockdown was
imposed.
He was granted permission to stay and now paints, sleeps, cooks
and exercises in the company of a sole companion - a canary
named Hertz.
"I had an idea that it was interesting to work on a series of
paintings about the Pushkin Gallery itself," said Pronin, 31,
who, since March 28, has spent his days creating art in the
venue in Zheleznovodsk, in the Stavropol region.
He has finished painting a view of the gallery and is now
working on a piece dedicated to poet Alexander Pushkin, after
whom the gallery is named and whose sculpture features as a
centrepiece of its main exhibition.
"In the near future I want to paint Isadora Duncan dancing on
the stage in the Pushkin Gallery," Pronin said, referring to the
time the American dancer performed there in the early 1920s.
Pronin, who does daily aerobics and stretching in one of the
gallery's several rooms, said he planned to stay there for the
duration of the lockdown, which is currently in place in Russia
until April 30.
Museums and galleries have been among the many venues and
businesses to close in an effort to contain the coronavirus,
with 47,121 cases and 405 deaths reported in the country.
The domed gallery, which opened in 1902, operated as a military
hospital for a brief period during World War Two and now houses
paintings by local artists and has a stage for concerts and
theatre performances.
(Reporting by Eduard Korniyenko; Additional reporting and
writing by Maria Vasilyeva in Moscow; Editing by Alexander
Marrow and Alison Williams)
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