ANTIGUE DEALER, KIEV, 5\2009
Download The original interview in Russian as a PDF file
Arthur Rudzitsky ANTIGUE DEALER, Kiev, 5\2009
The famous art expert Nadine Nieszawer granted the magazine “Antique” an interview about Eastern European painters of the School of Paris.
Nadine Nieszawer is a member of the Council of French Experts, specialist in Jewish painters (including Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Jules Pascin) and she is the author of the book Jewish painters of the School of Paris 1905-1939 published in France in 2000.
She organizes auctions of works made by Jewish painters of the School of Paris, mainly coming from Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland.
Nadine Niezsawer works with the auction house “Artcurial”.
- Madam Nieszawer, when did your interest for the works of the interwar period painters appear?
- This interest is long-standing. Jacques Nieszawer, my father, worked in the art trade. He mainly purchased works of Jewish painters of the School of Paris. He was close to these paintings related to the destiny of his people and to his own destiny. And I was also close to them.
- What differentiates the painters of the School of Paris from other European masters working during the same period?
- It is important to note that all these artists were in France at the same time. As an old German proverb says: “We lived like gods in France”. In the Yiddish tradition, this proverb has been transformed to: “Happy as a Jew in Paris”. Running away from anti-Semitism in their countries, these painters found a land that welcomed them and where their artistic research could freely be expressed.
The painters who arrived in Paris between 1905 and 1939, during the development of the Avant-Garde, settled in Montparnasse which became the new “shtetl” of artists.
Working side by side at “Montparnasse and meeting in cafes, they could form what is now famous under the name of School of Paris.
Some of them were closely linked to writers and poets whose works were published in Jewish newspapers and magazines. Thus they formed groups of friends close by the soul and by their perception of the world.
In my book, I deal only with 151 artists. But during the interwar period more than 500 Jewish artists worked in Paris. There is no doubt that these masters launched an unprecedented movement in the Jewish world: rejecting the weight of tradition, they consciously violated the second of Ten Commandments, ie the prohibition of mankind representation. The spacing out from religion permitted to the expressionist movement to take form and to replace the melancholy previously emphasized. This brought a new vision and a new breathe that were not present in the realistic movement.
Moïse Kisling was friend with the disciples of Ingres, through its moving images Amedeo Modigliani reopened the way for tenderness that was part of the works of Botticelli, however all this was already different, in accordance with the tastes of the post-war Europe.
They appeared at the same time as fauvism and cubism. Chagall from Belarus, Mane-Katz, Isaachar Ryback, Jésékiel Kirszenbaum and Arthur Kolnik from Ukraine brought again the Jewish tradition in art and mixed Parisian style to Judaism, thus creating a new period in art history.
We can say objectively that some artists have consciously or unconsciously stopped linking their works to any influence of the Jewish tradition whatever. Lazare Volovick, Ossip Lubitch, Marc Sterling, Isaac Dobrinsky from Ukraine, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani, Nathalie Kraemer, Max Band, Eugene Ebiche and others renewed the French tradition of landscape, still life and portraits.
Some masters remained in the cubist or expressionist inspiration in their research for simplification, although half of them had not been able to adapt to the style of the Avant-Garde movement; others, like Abraham Mintchine, Samuel Granowsky, Pinchus Krémègne, Aizik Feder, Henri Epstein and Mela Muter, created their own style indirectly linked to abstract or formalistic art. But some were in the vanguard of the art of that time.
For example Otto Freundlich who was one of the theoreticians of abstractionism. There was also Grégoire Michonze who had a passion for surrealist works.
Particular attention should be paid to Alexandre Fasini who was born in Ukraine and whose work is characterized by a constant search for novelty. The painter, who can not be included in any artistic movement, is unfortunately poorly known in his homeland.
Henryk Berlewi, who has too often been forgotten, was a forerunner of the cinematic art, the work of Louis Marcoussis, as Henri Hayden’s one, is related to the history of cubism. Philippe Hosiasson, Léon Zack, Isaac Païles (all coming from Ukraine) moved away from figurative art and their works have become radically abstract. Nowadays, all these painters born in Eastern Europe are coming back to their home country through their art.
- I know how difficult it is to give preference to one of these exceptionally talented masters. However, which one do you especially love?
- Among all the talented Ukrainian artists, I feel close to Mania Mavro because of hep deep understanding of the world surrounding her; I also feel close to Alexandre Fasini, a painter with a penetrating glance and an extremely elegant style of painting.
Mania Mavro was born in 1889 in Odessa. She was famous for her portraits, nudes and landscapes. Her works have been exhibited at the “Salon des Tuileries” and the “salon d'Automne”. Major exhibitions of her works were held successfully in 1919 (“Feuillets d’Art”), in 1929 (“Bernheim”) and in 1930. Mavro was a daring expressionist painter who produced actively during the interwar period. Her works were comparable to those of another Russian artist, Vera Rojlina, who also lived a few time in Paris.
One of my favorite artists is Alexandre (Sandro) Fasini (his real name was Saul Finesilber), born in 1892 in Kiev. His father worked in the grain trading and his mother died when he was very young. Two of the three children became artists, the third brother was a writer, known through the pseudonym of Ilya Ilf. Fasini spent his childhood in Odessa. There, he attended the Fine Arts Academy where he was taught by Kiriak Kostandi, an impressionist painter of Greek origin. His closest friends were the painter Philippe Hosiasson and the writer Isaac Babel. Fasini drew illustrations for Odessa newspapers among which “Bomba” and “Iablotchka”. In 1922 he travelled to France as a tourist on a soviet ship and established there his residence.
Fasini's painting is situated on the edges of abstraction and surrealism. His works are marked with a desire for new experiences that positioned him uniquely within the School of Paris. He acquired a certain fame during the period 1920-1925 and for two years his works were exhibited at the gallery “d’Art Vavin” alongside Picasso and Klee. Fasini collected tribal art and also showed interest in photography and designing furniture. During the Occupation, he did not stop his artistic activity and, despite his closest relatives urging him to leave for the Free Zone in South of France, he did not do so. On 16 June 1942, Fasini and his wife were arrested by French police and his works were destroyed. The two spouses were interned at Drancy and, a week later, they were sent to Auschwitz.
The Mecca for artists, as Paris was considered, became for many of them an ordeal.
I would advise all readers of the magazine “Antique” to often open their mind to new artist names since the list of Ukrainian painters is incredibly long and since their contribution to the cultural world is tremendous. And I also invite all of them to discover in Paris the auctions of the School of Paris painters’ works.
Arthur Rudzitsky ANTIGUE DEALER, Kiev, 5\2009
Traduction : Benjamin Lewin b00030878@essec.fr