Repin centenary exhibition in Perm in 1944 from the evacuated works of the Russian Museum

The centenary of Ilya Repin's birth in 1944 was marked by a large exhibition at the Perm Regional Museum, assembled from the holdings of the Russian Museum, evacuated to the city in 1941. In all, some 200 works by Repin found themselves in evacuation: watercolours, paintings, drawings. The jubilee exhibition presented 51 pictures, among them the artist's self-portrait, the sketches for “The Sitting of the State Council”, portraits of Repina, Stasov and Pirogov, and the celebrated “Barge Haulers on the Volga”. A rather droll story attached itself to the haulers: many visitors stubbornly refused to believe that originals of such famous canvases could be exhibited in Perm, and even concluded that the local “haulers” were quite different from the “genuine” ones, which are in Leningrad.