The State Museum Tsaritsyno, which includes a massive palace complex and a beautiful park, is now one of the largest museums in Moscow, Russia. The Tsaritsyno palace was granted the status of a historical monument in 1979 at the same time it was made into a museum, that now owns an extensive art and artifact collection. The permanent exhibits include Soviet decorative art of the 20th century, traditional arts and crafts of Slavic nations, Russian jewelry of the 16th – 20th centuries, archaeological finds, sculpture, and much more, additionally to the numerous temporary exhibitions that are held at the museum all year round.
The latest addition to the General Collection Catalog of the State Museum Tsaritsyno: Artistic ceramics of the 20th – early 21st century
To celebrate and highlight the incredible collection the State Museum Tsaritsyno owns, the museum publishes a General Collection Catalog that represents the wealth and uniqueness of the museum collection and the extensive scientific work of the museum’s researchers. The General Collection Catalog is a large-scale and long-term project and includes many volumes, including different sections of the museum’s funds. The latest addition; “Artistic ceramics of the 20th – early 21st century. Volume 1. ” presents one of the museum’s most valuable and largest collections, the arts and crafts collection. The publication of the title goes along with the current “Ceramics. Paraoxes” exhibition taking place at the museum (23.12-2020 – 27.27.6.2021).
The publication of the catalog was preceded by many years of research, scientific description, attribution of collection items, writing articles about the history of the collection, creative biographies of artists, and the artistic value of works. The physical title is an excellent result of the museums and its researcher’s hard work, as well as its successful experience of collaboration with the printing house ASTER.
Seamless collaboration between the museum’s designers and the printing house ASTER, and the choice of Arctic Volume White paper, gives excellent results
With over 20 years of experience and the motto “We print on everything”, ASTER printing house runs three full-fledged production sites – in Perm, Yekaterinburg, and Saint Petersburg. Producing a full range of printing products, the three manufacturing sites work with the most demanding clients on ambitious projects, now including the high expectations of the team at the Tsaritsyno State Museum.
The design of the catalog was created by the museum team: Zhanar Bereketova, Ksenia Kalchenko, and Alexander Kozhokin, whose most important printing requirement was accurate color reproduction. As museum exhibits are voluminous and textured, sometimes even professional photography does not convey the original color of these objects. So necessary color separation and color corrections were done by the museum’s designers while the prepress was done by the printing house specialists.
But one other detail was also of high importance: the choice of paper. Arctic Volume White 150 gsm – exclusively available at Europapier Group – coated bulk paper, made it possible to correctly convey the entire color palette of the art objects, contrast, and background. The absolute matt surface of the paper made it possible to avoid the appearance of glare, which is so undesirable in art publications. With not many additional finishings in the edition, the publication looks noble and self-sufficient due to the modern design and non-standard format of the book, the unique matt coated paper, as well as a bright accent on a cover, coated with UV varnish. Thus, the collaboration between the museum’s designers and the printing house gave an excellent result.
