On 12 May 2003, at 12:00 p.m., in the framework of the festivities dedicated to the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, an opening ceremony of the exhibition of Nicolas de Stal, one of the famous European artists of the 20th century, will be held. This joint Russian-French project was implemented by the Hermitage and the Pompidou Center (Paris, France) with the support of Gazprom and its partner, Gaz de France.
Claude Blanchmeson, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Russia, Robert Lion, President of the French Association for Developing Cultural Relations at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Alexander Bespalov, Gazprom’s Information Policy Department Head and Pierre Clauvel, Gaz de France’s Director of the Gas Purchase and Sales Department, will attend the opening ceremony. Vladimir Yakovlev, Mayor of St. Petersburg, and Bertran Delanoe, Mayor of Paris, are also expected to attend the event.
Before the opening of the exhibition, at 11:00 a.m., a press conference of Mikhail Piatrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage, will be held.
The retrospect of Nicolas de Stal’s works will be showed in Russia for the fist time. The artist was born in 1914 in St. Petersburg in the family of the baron de Stal-Goldstein, a general of the Russian Army, the last commander of the Peter and Paul Fortress. After the Great October Revolution, his family left Russia. In 1934, Nicolas de Stal graduated from the Brussels Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Until 1940, he served in the French foreign legion and than continued artist’s career in France. He painted still life pictures and portraits, and in 1942 he turned his attention to the abstract arts. The first private exhibition of the artist was held in Paris in 1944. In 1951, he created woodcuts – illustrations to Rene Chara’s poems. Later on, the abstract drawing manner of Nicolas de Stal reached the superiority level. Then, the artist returned to the figurative arts in his landscapes, portraits and still life pictures which were drawn in flashy colors. Nicolas de Stal tragically died in 1955. This exhibition is a new move in developing bilateral Russian-French relations and the continuation of the cultural exchange between Gazprom and Gaz de France, the long-standing partners involved in the gas business.
The retrospect of Nicolas de Stal’s paintings will last at the State Hermitage by 17 August 2003.
Background
The cooperation between Gazprom and Gaz de France, one of the biggest gas companies in Europe, has been established since 1975. Over this timeframe, Gazprom has delivered over 225 bcm of natural gas to Gaz de France. Under long-term agreements concluded, Russia annually supplies 12 bcm of natural gas to Gaz de France.
Cooperation between the two companies is not limited to gas supply: a number of energy saving and gas pipeline maintenance and modernization projects has successfully been implemented in recent years; besides, the companies have carried out studies in the field of underground gas storage.
Gazprom and Gaz de France actively participate in developing cultural links between Russia and France. The unique exhibition, the Great Imperators of Russia: Napoleon I and Alexander I, held in 2000 at the State Historical Museum with the support of the both companies, was an integrated part of the festivities dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Russian gas deliveries to France.
Information Directorate, OAO Gazprom