State Hermitage Museum
ANNUAL GALA DINNER 2018!
HERMITAGE FOUNDATION GALA DINNER 2018
Wednesday 25 April 2018 at 7.15 pm
The Raphael Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
With guests of honour - Anish Kapoor, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov
This year’s Hermitage Foundation Gala Banquet takes place at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It opens with a Champagne reception in The Dome, under Dale Chihuly’s extraordinary central glass sculpture. You will then dine in The Raphael Gallery surrounded by seven of the large tapestry cartoons painted by Raphael, commissioned in 1515 by Pope Leo X.
The tapestries were to hang on the walls of the Sistine Chapel, below the ceiling by Raphael’s contemporary and rival Michelangelo. They are still hung on special occasions today. Acquired by Charles I, the cartoons are on loan to the museum from Her Majesty the Queen.
Hosted by Prof. Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum, and James Dawnay, Chairman of The Hermitage Foundation, this year’s Gala will concentrate on the contemporary. Three outstanding artists, Anish Kapoor, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, will be our guests of honour and young Russian artists will entertain us with their performance works. A lavish banquet will be followed by an auction of donated works of art, including works by Anselm Kiefer, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Robert Wilson, Steven McCurry and the Russian performance artists.
All proceeds from the evening go to The Hermitage 20/21 Project, which spearheads the museum’s attention to contemporary art while also seeking to build a representative holding of twentieth-century Western art, neglected during the Soviet period. Proceeds from previous Galas have supported important exhibitions at the Hermitage, including Antony Gormley, the Chapman Brothers, Henry Moore, Zaha Hadid, Tony Cragg and Francis Bacon.
You are invited to take part in this great evening celebration. Tables for ten cost £10,000 or individual tickets can be purchased at £1,000 per head.
For further information please apply to Janice Sacher, The Hermitage Foundation UK, 5a Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2TA, tel. +4420 7404 7780
rsvp@hermitagefoundation.co.uk