In commemoration of the 200th birthday of world-renowned romantic period painter Ivan Aivazovsky, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russia - one of the world's foremost museums - held a blockbuster exhibition featuring 150 of the artist's paintings and 55 of the artist's drawings and etchings.

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky [1817-1900] was born to an Armenian family in Crimea, Russian Empire, and his talent was recognized at an early age. Aivazovsky was admitted to St. Petersburg's Imperial Academy of Arts (Russian Academy of Arts) as a teen, and appointed main painter of the Russian Navy, after returning from a stay in Italy. Aivazovsky's life long career as an artist included a close relationship to the Tsar's,  travels through his native Russian Empire, Europe, Egypt, a visit to America in his later life, and a remarkable number of solo exhibitions.  Ivan Aivazovsky is a defining painter of the Romantic art period and is considered by many to be the most important marine painter in the history of art.

The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery, a museum that is home to a treasury of fine art, ran from July 29, 2016 through November 20, 2016. In less than four months, the 600,000 visitors to the exhibit broke all previous museum attendance records. Gallery hours were even extended to accommodate the crowds.

On November 12, 2016, during the closing weeks of the exhibition, prominent Aivazovsky experts gathered at the Tretyakov Gallery to discuss various aspects of the artist's oeuvre. Prominent museum directors, authors, and curators, were all in attendance. Avid collector and Aivazovsky expert, Andreas Roubian, residing in the greater NY Metro region, was the only American invited to speak at the conference. He spoke about the evolving eye and art of Aivazovsky, from the painter's teen-aged years through his death in 1900. 

While Aivazovsky is famous for his romantic period marine paintings, Mr. Roubian put the artist in the larger context of the art world, and that world's influence on him. Mr. Roubian's presentation demonstrated the evolution of Aivazovsky's painting techniques and styles throughout the artist's career. In a subsequent interview with Dalma News in Moscow, Mr. Roubian stated that this exhibition and experts symposium was organized and presented in the highest quality fashion. (Full Russian text of the interview is available here: http://dlmn.info/ru/kollekcioner-erdogan-nesprosta-okruzhil-sebya-ayvazovskim/)

The symposium closed with performances of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov , and others by the Rimsky-Korsakov Central Concert Orchestra of the Russian Navy.