The M.T. Abraham Foundation is pleased to announce a pledge two oil paintings by the Russian artist Vladimir Sterligov (1904–1973). This pledge is due to the long-lasting relations between the State Hermitage Museum and the M.T. Abraham Foundation, which emphasis the close ties between Russia and Israel, and part of the 70thanniversary of the State of Israel events.

The two oil on canvas painting which are part of the pledge outlines restoration at the Hermitage and are dated circa 1946. In 1946 Vladimir Sterligov, a Nonconformist artist, a pupil of Kazimir Malevich and a founder of his own art school, was commissioned by the Leningrad Council of Artists to paint the Restoration of the Hermitage to record the museum’s rebirth after the war and siege. Between 1946 and 1948 he was making sketches in the Ancient Sculpture Rooms which were then undergoing restoration. Sterligov’s drawings are a testimony to the process which was not recorded on film. In 1948 the so-called “Leningrad Case” was fabricated, and even mentioning the struggle of the Leningraders during the siege and after the liberation of the city was now dangerous, which affected the fate of the painting and prevented it from being completed. The two paintings were part of the exhibition The Unpainted Picture. Vladimir Sterligov, restoration of the Hermitage 1946–1948, which took place on May 2016 at the State Hermitage Museum.