The graphic heritage of Julia Reitlinger (Sister Joanna)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the graphic heritage of the icon painter J. Reitlinger (1898–1988) — Sister Joanna, which is a part of the collection of the Central Andrey Rublev Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art and the Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad. The aim of the study is to generalise and systematise information on the artist's graphic works during the emigration period from 1921 to 1946, as well as introducing into scientific discourse practically unknown graphic works done after her return to the homeland in the period from 1959 to the early 1980s.

The study is based on the extensive collection of archival materials of J.N. Reitlinger: her notebooks, spiritual diary, letters, commented autobiography, memoirs of the artist and her friends. These sources have become a considerable addition to the already published documents and information on the work of J.N. Reitlinger, which has been studied since 2000 by well-known researchers (G.V. Popov, B.B. Popova, N.P. Belevtseva, L.A. Mnukhin, E.L. Laevskaya, L. Lerner, and others). The systematisation of the artist's graphic heritage has added significantly supplemented the existing corpus of scientific research, which is largely devoted to J.N. Reitlinger's work as an icon painter. While not focusing on the iconographic works of Sister Joanna, the author still draws attention to the change in the perspective of studying her iconographic heritage, which is associated with the revival of the tradition of church art in Russia over the last 30 years. The thesis of the “creative icon” put forward by the artist in the 1920s found its continuation almost a hundred years later in the modern Russian “auteur icon”.