Talk. Interview with George Costakis, a 69-year-old Greek, whose collection of Russian art is being exhibited at the Guggenehim Museum. The show is called "Art of the Avant-Garde in Russia" & is an extraordinary group of 268 twentieth-century paintings, drawings, and constructions that were produced before, during, and after the Russian Revolution. The collection, which was assembled in Moscow during the thirty years that Mr. Costakis worked there as an administrative assistant in the Canadian Embassy, has proved something of an embarrassment to the Soviet Union, because it demonstrates that such Russian innovations as Constructivism and Suprematism, which Stalin banned in 1934 in favor of Socialist Realism, have been received in the West as major contributions to art. Thirty-five years ago Costakis began to look for artists working from about 1900 to 1930. Tells how he assembled his collection. In 1977 he was permitted to emigrate to Greece with his family (his wife & children were Russian citizens) and take one-fifth of his collection. The rest of itNseveral thousand paintings & sketchesNwas donated to the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow, where it is now stored in a basement He thinks maybe his pictures will be shown in public in a year or two because the climate for abstract art in Russia has suddenly become more comfortable.
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