Culture and sponsorship

UniCredit Bank takes special pride in its collection of works by Russian post-avant-garde artists. These are works of high ethical significance, born from of a dialogue with the avant-garde, dating from the 1920s and 1930s with the addition of several works created in later years by masters who were active in the 20s and 30s. The guiding principle in building the collection was to bring together works by talented post-avant-garde artists, reflecting the system of cultural, artistic and moral values, which took shape in the 1920s and lived on through subsequent decades.

The art collection of UniCredit Bank includes works of “independent” art, which met with official disapproval in the Soviet period, but the value of which has been recognized today. The most notable works adorn the Bank’s head office in Moscow.

The collection numbers several rare works by representatives of the Russian post-avant-garde, such as Daniil Cherkes, Leonid Zusman, Rostislav Barto, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Antonina Sofronova and others. Outstanding works in the collection include The Dream by Leonid Chupyatov, Woman for All Times by Daniil Cherkes, Landscape with a Railway Bridge and In the Mountains of Armenia by Alexander Drevin, as well as Nadezhda Udaltsova's rare Still Life with Hunting Bag and Rifle, another version of which is held by Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

UniCredit Bank is keen to support projects for the development of culture and the arts in Russia, and to nurture young talent. In 2016 the Bank provided assistance to the Music College of the Moscow Conservatory and the Art School of the Russian Academy of Arts. The Bank has also worked closely in recent years with leading Moscow museums, including the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM). Joint projects with museums have included:

• Sponsorship of the exhibition Great Renaissance Painters from the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo at the Pushkin Museum.
• Sponsorship of the exhibition Caravaggio and his Followers. Pictures from the Roberto Longhi Foundation in Florence and the Pushkin Museum.
• Sponsorship of the exhibition Piranesi. Before and After. Italy-Russia. 18^th-21^stcenturies at the Pushkin Museum.
• Sponsorship for a catalogue of masterpieces of medallion art from the Pushkin Museum collection.
• Sponsorship of the exhibition Grand Tour. RUSSIAN VERSION. Rome at the Multimedia Art Museum.
• Sponsorship of the exhibition Grand Tour. RUSSIAN VERSION. Naples at the Multimedia Art Museum.
• Sponsorship of the exhibition Pino Pinelli. Matter. Fragments. Shadow at the Multimedia Art Museum.

True to its Italian roots, the Bank has twice supported the Russian-Italian Film Festival (RIFF), which successfully expanded beyond Moscow in 2016-2017 to a number of other large Russian cities.

In addition to cultural projects, UniCredit Bank has provided sponsorship for economics education by supporting the initiative of Moscow’s Financial University for the creation of Museum of Finance.

Over already many years UniCredit Bank successfully cooperates with the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

Within this partnership a series of projects in the field of art and culture have been realized. One of them is UniCredit Bank calendar for 2019 that features a collection of original photographs of coins from different countries and epochs from the rich collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.