Gulag Collection Opens in Washington, D.C.

“The Gulag Collection,” 50 paintings on the subject, will be on view at The Heritage Foundation beginning this morning.

The exhibit opens as part of “The Year of Miracles: The Fall of the Berlin Wall,” a Heritage-sponsored event marking the approaching 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Gulag survivor Nikolai Getman,who died in 2004, created “The Gulag Collection,” as a visual record of the hundreds of penal camps that held more than 14 million political prisoners.

In 1997, Getman was able to enlist the support of the Jamestown Foundation in moving his paintings to a place of safety in the West, arranging their display then, and developing a plan for their preservation.

An electronic catalogue of the full collection can be viewed here.