National Museum of Arts at 70 years

The National Museum of Arts of Moldova celebrates 70 years of the foundation on November 26. During these years, the museum gathered a large collection of about 40,000 units that includes representative works by national and foreign artists. The museum is the only institution of the kind in Moldova, Info-prim Neo reports. The museum was founded on the basis of the collection of Chisinau's Picture Gallery set up in 1939. The idea of creating a Picture Gallery belonged to sculptor Alexandru Plamadeala, who was the first director of the institution, said Svetlana Pociumban, the museum's deputy director. According to Svetlana Pociumban, the museum has an extraordinary collection that includes pieces of religious, national, universal art - paintings, graphic works, decorative works by Mihai Grecu, Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu, Alexandru Plamadeala, Glebus Sainciuc and many other great artists. “The 70 years weren't easy as the museum had several head offices and encountered many problems,” said Tudor Zbarnea, director general of the museum. Tudor Zbarnea said the National Museum of Arts cannot boast of accomplishments made during the last few years. “The available resource did not allow us to make considerable progress. We wish we could come closer to the society by more activities, exhibitions, actions.” Attending the celebration, Deputy Minister of Culture Gheorghe Postica promised that the Ministry of Culture will take into account the wishes of the museum's administration and will help the institutions of culture, especially the museums. In the immediate future, the administration of the museum plans to finish the restoration works that lasted for several years and display a much larger number of works of art as today the museum exhibits only 10% of its collection.