Rare showing of Russian paintings

Art buffs in Moscow get a brief chance this weekend to view some significant Russian paintings that have long been hidden in American private collections and may disappear from public view again in April.

The three-day exhibition at the State Tretyakov Gallery’s modern art wing is sponsored by Sotheby’s auction house, which will put the paintings up for sale in New York in mid-April.

Some have not been seen in public for decades, including a series by Boris Grigoriev illustrating scenes from “The Brothers Karamazov.” The works haven’t been on display since the completion of the series in 1932.

Also of note is a version of mystical painter Mikhail Nesterov’s “Vision of St. Sergius, When a Child.” The 1890 original of the painting hangs in the Tretyakov’s main Moscow building; the one on brief display was painted 32 years later when Nesterov, whose religious themes clashed with Bolshevik atheism, was in need of money.