The purpose of this trip was
to accompany my sister to a worrisome medical
appointment
which, thankfully, turned out not to be as worrisome
as expected.
She went back to Rome the next day and I decided to
stay on for a few days. Unfortunately, some time
between
arrival and departure I was caught by one of those
bugs (not les
moustiques:
in addition to les
moustiques) which gets you by the throat, nose,
lungs,
limbs, intestines and joie de vivre. What with the
heat-wave
and intense pollution, joie was
drastically reduced and vivre consisted in
shuffling
very very slowly between cafés and
any place with conditioned air, a modern convenience
which
in normal times I shun, but these are not normal
times.
I had made an appointment to visit
Andrei
Korliakov as I was eager to meet the Russian
historian
who had found a long-lost painting of mine (see January
20, 2010 ) and I
brought my camera but, engrossed in conversation,
stupidly
forgot to record this encounter. Never mind, I'll do
it next
time I'm in Paris. Seeing again my bold,
enthusiastic painting
of cypress trees in Florence after all these years
was a
big thrill and I happily complied with Andrei's
request that
I write on the back to confirm it really was painted
by me.
It is now part of his very interesting collection of
works
by Russian (or Russian-connected) artists, most of
which
he discovered by chance during forays in the marché
aux puces.
Korliakov is a genial
and dedicated researcher who has made it
his life's work to build a record in photographs and
documents
of a fascinating slice of human history: the exodus
of thousands
of Russians from the cataclysmic revolution in their
homeland
to the many other countries where they started new
lives.
Working alone in his well-equipped Paris studio
(state of
the art scanner and computers) with the dogged
patience
and astute persistence of a detective, Andrei
assembles the
information which he finds or is sent to him by
exiled
Russians and their descendants, into impressive
albums that
are produced, published and distributed by himself.
His next
volume will be about Russians who went to South
America and
I promised to send him all material I have about my
father's experiences in Paraguay and Brazil. If
anyone reading
this has Russian relatives or friends with
connections
to South America, or anywhere else in the world, do
get in
touch with Andrei (email and postal address are on
his website).
Such fortuitous links are the raw material his
research
depends on.
I mentioned a painting I did
long ago
of an old man, Colonel Kermanoff, who lived near
my father's property outside Asunciòn and to my
astonishment,
Andrei instantly located a photo of Kermanoff as a
young
man: it seems he was an important person in the
pre-Soviet
army and the records show he eventually ended up in
Paraguay.
Who knew? Another serendipitous happening!
Colonel Kermanoff by NdA. Oil on canvas.
MORE
I painted the above landscape in Florence
a long long time ago, still a student, searching
for my own 'voice' in art (I'm still searching). With
all the moving from one country to another
this painting, which I loved, was lost.
Andrei Korliakov leaves a comment on my Blaugustine blog
in French below my Beautiful
Blank Slate post
of January 9th.
I get in touch with Monsieur Korliakov,
a Russian historian living in Paris.
I am
amazed, dazed, enchanted and enthused when he writes
back, attaching the above photo, saying he found the painting
a few years ago in a Paris flea market.
It was signed so
he looked my name up on the internet.
The coincidence -
if it's still possible to call such entrancing synchronicities
coincidence - doesn't stop there: the most traumatic and
significant period of my father's life was his emigration
from Russia to Paris during the chaotic events of the 1920s.
Andrei Korliakov's research (and his interesting website)
is concerned with Russian emigration from 1917
to 1947.
How do these threads in the vast
tangled web of human history end up linking
together?
My Russian émigré
father.
My
father rents the Villa Ulivi in Florence for a project
he's working on.
I
paint the cypress trees in the Villa's fabulous garden,
excited by everything I see.
Time goes by. The painting is
lost.
Much much much more time goes by.
A Russian
historian is browsing the marché au puces at
the Porte de Vanves in Paris.
He picks up a painting
he likes and notices the signature, a Russian name.
He buys the painting. Time
goes by.
He looks up my
website, contacts me on my blog, Blaugustine.
The lost painting
is found.
Andrei invites me to visit him the
next time I am in Paris. You can be sure that I will do so
at the earliest possible opportunity!
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