Lifestyles Magazine Winter, 2008
Strokes of Freedom
If the walls could talk in Yuri Trisman's Greenwich, Connecticut manor, they would weep and scream, sing and laugh, pray and rebel. But they would also know when to stay silent—for that is what they have been taught best. When night falls and the safety of darkness enters through the massive windows of his home, one can imagine the “forbidden art” collection that bedecks his walls becoming animated and creating a surreal ruckus. Joined by the sculptures and figurines, they’d all raise a toast to the one cause that forged them into existence: the will to be free.
The Hillwood Post, 2008
Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda
The hand-painted porcelain in Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda was assembled over a thirty year period by the visionary collector Yuri A. Traisman and his family. The seventy-nine objects on view date from the time of the tsars to the present, chronicling the complex and turbulent history of Russia.
The Washington Post, Sunday, September 14, 2008
Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain And The Fine Art Of Propaganda
[EXIBIT] For nearly two centuries in Russia, porcelain was used as a medium for social commentary. The figurines, plates and vases in this collection, dating from the early 19th century, reflect troubling and fascinating events, among them the rise of alcoholism in the peasantry in the 1800s, the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Cold War.
Opens Tuesday. Through Dec. 31. Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, 4155 Linnean Ave. NW. 202-686-5807. FREE
Washingtonian 16.09.2008
Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda
While most of Hillwood’s porcelain, housed in the mansion once home to Marjorie Merriweather Post, was made for the czars and nobility of Russia, the 79 pieces in “Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda”—opening September 16 in the dacha on Hillwood’s grounds—were made after the Russian Revolution and the nationalization of factories...
Where Washington, October 2008
Art of propaganda
In Russian society, porcelain represented more than decorative art. The medium not only made a prestigious gift or marked political status but served as a vehicle for social commentary. Businessman Yuri Traisman collected Russian porcelain objects over a 30-year period, some manufactured by private factories in tsarist Russia before the revolution of 1917, others made after the government seized control of the factories and dedicated them to Soviet propaganda.
The Washington Post, Friday, December 19, 2008
Hillwood Museum examines political decorative artwork, including this plate with a portrait of Soviet ace Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub, in “Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda.”
The Magazine Antiques, 2009
Porcelain and propaganda
An exhibition opening this month at the Hillwood Museum in Washington explores the ways that Russian porcelain has been used for the purposes of political and social propaganda from the late nineteenth century to the present. Though many of the plates, vase and small figures included, all or loan from the Russian collector Yuri Traisman, appear innocuous enough ("in the vein," a curator at Hillwood notes, "of popular Hummels or Lladro figurines"), closer examination of the context in which they were made reveals them to be rich in meaning.
The Washington Diplomat 18.11.2010
Delicately Deceptive
They may be small and delicate, but the porcelain sculptures on display at the Hillwood Museum have heavy implications.
At first blush, the pieces that constitute “Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda” look like any lovely collectibles by fine porcelain makers such as Lladró or M.I. Hummel, for instance, but “closer examination will reveal them to be far more meaning-laden,” according to Scott Ruby, associate curator of Russian and Eastern European art at Hillwood...