Ticket Prices:
Full-price ticket: 120 RMB per person
Concession ticket: 60 RMB per person
Kindly Reminder:
The galleries are kept cool. A light jacket is recommended for your comfort.
As part of the China-Russia Year of Culture, the National Museum of China, in collaboration with the State Tretyakov Gallery and with the support of the State Russian Museum, proudly presents the Ilya Repin: Encyclopedia of Russian Life exhibition, which opened to the public on July 23, 2025, at the National Museum of China. This is the first large-scale presentation of Repin’s works in China, offering a comprehensive view of his artistic legacy.
Ilya Repin was a “visual poet” of Russian art, a radiant star that never fades in the long river of realist art, and the leading representative of Russian Critical Realist painting.With profound insight, he looked at the vast land and its people in reality: from the interweaving of faith and secular life in Religious Procession in Kursk Province and the suffocating moment when an exile opens the door in They Didn’t Expect Him, to the romantic translation of folk legends in Sadko... Repin, with highly democratic critical eyes and a compassionate heart, calmly and truthfully depicted the destiny and spirit of the Russian nation in the 19th century.
A flagship program of the China-Russia Year of Culture, the exhibition unfolds in four thematic sections: “Songs Around the Riverbank: The Beginning of an Artistic Journey”, “Vast Land: Quests for Realism”, “Epic of the Era: Souls Dear to the Nation”, and “Contemplations in the Twilight: Free Pursuits in Later Years”. Featuring 92 oil paintings and drawings, it systematically traces the artistic career of this master of the Peredvizhniki (the Wanderers) , and reveals his unique aesthetic of “coexistence of reason and passion". Repin’s brush unveils the awakening of a nation and the warmth of an era and offers glimpses of Russian culture and art.
China and Russia are both great nations with splendid civilizations, with cultures and arts filled with sincere love of life and caring for the people. The wrinkles of laborers, the intellectual’s’ contemplations, and the many faces amid historical upheavals depicted by Repin resonate with the traditional Chinese pursuit of “conveying truth through literature”. The influence of Repin and his art on Chinese realist art and art education speaks of the exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and Russian civilizations. Let us enter this dialogue across time and space, encounter art, reunite with history, and resonate with the immortal soul of a nation.