The article discusses exhibition activities in the halls of the Imperial Academy of Arts during the first third of the 20th century. After the events of 1917, the Academy was transformed several times, from the Petrograd State Free Artistic and Educational Workshops to the Petrograd Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops, and then to the Petrogradsky - Leningrad Higher Art and Technical Institute (VHUTEIN, 1921-1930). At the beginning of the 20th century, the Imperial Academy of Arts (IAH) was one of the leading centers of Russian artistic life. Exhibitions were regularly held in its halls, which, as a rule, caused a wide public response. The unique thirty-year anniversary, which came at the crossroads of sociopolitical and artistic epochs, had internal binding threads also in the sphere of exhibition and educational activities. In 1922, V. L. Simonov, the rector of the Higher Art and Technical Institute, applied for preserving the name “Academy of Arts” for the school. The request was not satisfied, however, throughout its existence, in the documents of external and internal treatment, the former name was used - the Academy of Arts. This fact also confirms the inner spiritual continuity of many of the phenomena of the artistic life of the Academy in the first third of the 20th century, despite the fateful and sometimes tragic nature of the events of the era. The article deals with the “times of the connecting thread” of exhibitions of this period, which are united primarily by the venue, the “genius of the place” - the majestic halls of the Academy of Arts, artists, critics, and teachers whose lives have been associated with the Academy of these years. Catalogs, photographs, and reviews allow us to supplement the overall picture of the interaction, continuity of traditions and development of national art throughout the period under review. The direct participants in these events, who were first students and then professors of the Academy and prominent representatives of the Russian artistic life of the first third of the 20th century, also brought a certain integrity to this period.