In 1918, the Gallery was declared as property of the Russian state and received the title State Tretyakov Gallery.
Colossal changes and transformations which took place during the 1920s and 1930s had an impact on the Tretyakov Gallery’s process of acquisition – the Gallery’s collections were deliberately replenished with works by masters of painting, sculpture and graphics that depicted the specificities of ethnic art culture.
Thus, for instance, the exhibitionion of modern paintings of Uzbekistan, which opened in September of 1934 in Moscow in the State Museum of Oriental Art, was talked about as a unique ethnic phenomenon. It was during this time that the Tretyakov Gallery purchased the painting “Devushka-Khivinka – A Young Woman from Khiva” (1931) from the famous Uzbek painter Pavel Benkov.
You can learn more about this topic in the book-album "The Collection of Art in the State Tretyakov Gallery" (Volume III) (Moscow, Russia) from the series "The Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan".
The general sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.