The collection of Abramtsevo ceramics is the third published collection of Pyotr Avena. Catalogues of the collection of paintings from "The World of Art" to the avant-garde (compiled by Natalia Avtonomova and Alla Lukanova) and Soviet porcelain (compiled by Elvira Sametskaya) (by the way, each time in the catalog the owner of the collection is encrypted under the mysterious designation D2/D2). In the opening speech to the catalogue of the collection of majolica Petr Aven, a man with a mathematical mind, very clearly "dissects" his hobby and names the reasons for choosing this very object of collecting. The first - what he calls a "purely aesthetic" consideration - is to collect what he likes. The second aspect is culturological: he notes that his decision to collect painting and ceramics at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries was influenced by the passion of his generation for the Silver Age, the idealization of culture at the time. Finally, the third principle is to collect and then popularize those phenomena of Russian art that are completely undeservedly unknown in the West. Here arises another important factor for the Avena - the primacy. He often says that in many ways Russian art at all times has been and remains secondary, but the object of collecting always chooses unique phenomena. Further in the same article the author notes that he did not claim to be "museum-like and academic", but here, it seems to us, he is a little deceiving. Everything that the Aven collector does can be characterized by these two words: he consciously chooses things at the museum level, makes collections that can compete with the museum level, exhibits his works in museums and initiates academic research of this material.
In his commentary, Pyotr Aven confessed that he considers the collections of Russian painting, Soviet porcelain and Abramtsevo pottery to be valid and complete. "If there are quite outstanding items, of course, I continue to buy, but in general, these are collections that I have already collected," he said. However, the work with these collections continues - soon a new edition on painting will be released, an exhibition of Soviet porcelain is being prepared at the Design Museum in London. When asked what he would collect (and is already collecting) now, Pyotr Aven, who had previously confessed in an interview with our publication that he was not interested in contemporary art, said: "I am buying Western contemporary art now, which I have never done before. I tried to collect Russian contemporary art, but it was not interesting for me. But I started to buy the Western art, and here I feel more free: I still feel very restrained by the fact that the collection should be systematically built, and now I just buy what I like, the works of various artists, different countries, and this is a collection that reflects my inner ego. Pyotr Aven did not reveal the details of the new collection, noting that he is only at the beginning of the journey, but from the interesting for him modern artists noted Grayson Perry, known for his ceramic works and extravagant clothes.