[LCR]

I have an interesting book - memoirs of a MartinFabiani«When I was an art dealer». Sam Fabiani - the figure is rather complex. During the occupation of his behavior was far from perfect - in one of the reports of the American intelligence service, he is described as "arch-collaborator in the medium of French Marchand, who gave the Nazis access to works confiscated from people of Jewish origin." After his release he was arrested for "illegal trade in works of art and, in particular, export from France of the collection of Ambroise Vollara" and fined 146000000 francs.
But he really knew virtually all artists, all major Marchand and collectors from 1910 to 1970. (the book was written in 1973, shortly after its release, he died) - suffice to say that he was a partner and executor Vollara (after death /Vollara in 1936 and he bought the majority of his collection) and was involved in matters of inheritance Matisse .

In general, it seemed to me that someone will be interested to read some chapters of this book.
I started with pages dedicated to Kisling and Sutin, then, perhaps, moving chapter about the famous Marshania, and then take a look.

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Kisling

Once I was sitting on the terrace "Fuket's" on the Champs Elysees and drank coffee. In my pocket I was just enough to pay for it.
The next table sat a man of thirty, who, like me, life certainly seemed to be fine - he was obviously in good spirits. We exchanged a few phrases. I myself quite talkative and love meeting new people. We introduce themselves to each other:

- My name is Kisling, I'm an artist.
- And my name is Fabian and I still do not know what I will do in life!

We continued the conversation in the same spirit, and to think that I showed him likable, as he invited me to go to his studio.

This proposal was a sign of confidence, because usually artists do not like to invite the "bourgeoisie" in the studio. At best, their presence is tolerated - provided that they sit quietly in a corner. This is absolutely ponyayatno - the artist's creative work requires great concentration, and the artist must be alone with his work. In addition, often the "bourgeois" visitors are hostile to the artist or mocking, and their behavior hurts the artist. They often feel obliged to give the artist tips aesthetic persuasion, Forest addition, they allow themselves to compare him with other painters, and the rare artist responds to such comparisons without irritation.

I do not think that when you visit the artist's studio to observe a certain code. Suffice lstavatsya himself - but perhaps it is not easy for many people ...

We Kisling quickly became friends. It was a very charming man, cheerful and sociable. His life was intense and interesting.

His name was Moise (Moses), he was born in Cracow in 1891, then he studied at the Warsaw Academy of Art, and later, in 1910, arrived in Paris. In those years, Paris irresistibly attracted to her all the artists of the universe. It is natural that soon after his arrival Kisling was a regular customer at "La Cupola" and "Le Home", where he met Modigliani and befriended him. In 1920, when Modigliani died in hospital Charite, Kisling obbezhal all Paris to raise money and to avoid the common grave of his friend. This he took from Modigliani's death mask in the hospital ...

The words "friendship" and "honor" for Kisling were not empty words. He repeatedly fought a duel with sabers, and traces of these duels emblazoned on his face. At the beginning of the First World War, he volunteered in the Foreign Legion, from which he was discharged from the army, were wounded.

When I met him, Montparnasse began his long agony: the artists traveled from this quarter, "cursed artists" are slowly gaining acceptance of society. Picasso moved to the street. Boesi, Utrillo - on Montmartre, Fujita - in a fashionable quarter of Paris. Kisling is also interested in a secular society, movie stars, he became famous.

I'll describe another meeting with Kisling. This was in 1940
During the German offensive, I fled to Portugal, the trunk of my car was filled with paintings. One day, walking in Lisbon on the "Golden Street" (she got this name because of her raspolozhennyyh shops changed and numismatists), I saw a man sitting on the sidewalk and writhed in pain. I learned Kisling.

We helped him up, and I took him to the nearest hospital. Poor "Moishe" terrible suffering renal colic, and the money he did not have a dime, so to see a doctor he could not - he fled France, leaving behind all he had to escape the Nazis.

When he was cured, thanks to their friends I was able to obtain for him a visa in the United States. Kisling left.
After the Liberation, arriving in Paris, he immediately came to me. He wrote to me the portrait, which he gave to me, writing on it: "My benefactor, my savior, my friend Martin Fabiani.

Then we lost sight of each other ...

When Kisling died in 1953, his paintings sold poorly. Then the Americans come in large numbers, in the wake of them - the Japanese. These people liked the "tender, bright painting» (sweet painting), and they pounced on canvas Kisling. Generally, they bought Kisling, Marie Laurence and racing horses. Fortunately, I was able to offer them, and then, and the other three.


After we met, we were seeing. Once I began to examine his work, and he said:
- You know, if you need money, you can try to sell my work. You can pay me after the sale.

I followed his advice, took his picture and went to look for a buyer. Frankly, I knew where I go: I have a lot of contact with the gallery Bernzayma and know where I'll find lovers of painting Kisling.
So I started to sell paintings. At that time I did this hoping to earn some pocket money, I do not think that this activity will be my profession.

When I was without a penny, then went to Kisling and "borrowed" from his canvas. Sometimes nn warned him:
- You know, I'm not sure that I can repay you at once ...
He laughed.
- Go, go, do not worry, do not worry.

Little by little I became something of a specialist Kisling, then - for several artists of his friends, who were my friends ...


Sutin

- Want me to show you a great eccentric? - Once said to me Kisling. Please take into consideration is a huge artist!

He took me by Soutine at Prospect Park Monsuri.

Kisling at that time already had some kind of quotation, but Soutine was completely unknown.
I was in the studio, which I was struck by his disorder and reigning in her mud. It reigned very strange, peculiar smell, I later learned that the smell of mineral oil. Soutine suffered from chronic disease - cramps, kidney and intestine. I think that a good psychologist would recognize the symptoms of deep anxiety, in which he lived Soutine, and would have cured him. But at this time such specialists have been very few, and still Soutine could not pay for their services. Therefore, all the time he took a mineral oil - the only tool that helped him and it was affordable.

It was a thin, dark-haired, stooping low. It was ugly, his deformity was expressive and exciting. Always badly dressed, he walked bent over and Pull his shoulders, as if he is crushed by the weight of rock. He seemed to be no one to trust nothing, see enemies everywhere and went in himself, to escape from the surrounding aggressiveness. Of all the artists that I knew him the definition of "accursed painter" was drawing the most. His friend Modigliani wrote with him a few portraits that demonstrate his good character.
/... /

In 1919, he became acquainted with a completely unknown artist of Italian origin, as he, a Jew, as he passionately love painting - Amedeo Modigliani. They became friends, despite the fact that they were the complete opposite of each other, alike in their alcohol and art. Their friendship was like a crossroads of two solitudes: the regal Modigliani - and hunted Soutine ...

The most important meeting for Soutine was meeting with Zborovsky, poet, and Marchand, who fell in love Soutine canvases and decided to do it. He gave him 5 francs a day, he sent his work to the south of France-in Kang and sulfur.
As for Van Gogh, the southern light and color were to Soutine revelation. He worked feverishly. Returning to Paris in 1922, he brought with him more than a hundred new works.
At this point, Paul Guillaume, a young trader in painting, met with the famous Dr. Barnes, an American billionaire. He managed to convince him of the talent Soutine. And because Barnes did not like things small, he immediately bought the work Soutine seventy thousand francs! So when Soutine Zvorovskogo came to the store, he told him that his pension is increased to 20 francs a day.
Soutine not believe the news: Sun is the story of the American billionaire, it was not serious ... probably friends decided to play!

But "Zbo" swore to him that all this is true:

- By the way, Barnes wants to see you, you yourself will see that a real billionaire.

After some time, Soutine really called to Barnes. He came washed, combed and trembling. It was a meeting of two worlds, and Sutin felt at first glance a strong antipathy to his "benefactor", which was quite predictable.
Money him drunk. He povilas car with driver, costumes from the English cloth ... Fortunately, all this did not prevent him to continue working.
He worked with rabies.
He destroyed his work with equal fury.

He had a tragic feature - he was never satisfied with the results of their work. Often, he kept around his canvas, gazed at him and suddenly he grabbed it and tossed in the trash. Sometimes, not content with this, he broke a stretcher ... and then "Zbo" or I came and picked up a torn canvas, we gave it restorer, which duplicated it and tinted ... In the end, this restorer was a real expert on Soutine. I think that not less than eighty per cent of known this day canvases Soutine had them mutilated, torn, and then restored. And if the audience can admire them at exhibitions, so it is only thanks to Marchand, who were rummaging in the garbage.

I remember once I went to his studio. I looked:
- And where the big tree? Where a large tree?

I talked about the film, he wrote in Provence, which I liked very much. Tree occupies the center of the picture, it seemed that it completely fills the small area on which it is located, this tree was so heavy, threatening ...

Soutine looked at me, hesitated, and then pointed somewhere to the side: "There."

I looked. The picture was really there.
In the dustbin.
I picked her up and restored, I even made Soutine sign it, and it was a real feat, because he could not stand podpisyvta their canvases.

We Soutine had the reputation unsociable. However, we became friends. What brings us together? In truth, almost nothing: we were very different backgrounds, we also live in very ruznomu. But we enjoyed fellowship with one another. When I managed to sell well now, invited him to a restaurant. He loved luxury - not because he needed a luxury, but because he liked to look at this performance. He liked to suddenly be in a world of starched tablecloths, sparkling crystal and silver, he admired confident gestures waiters ...

Do not think that I was friends with all the artists of the world! For example, Dufy, Leger, Dunoyer de Segonzak, the relationship I have always been strained. But Soutine we immediately found common language.

I came to his studio after dinner (it was impossible to think about how to disturb him in the morning, when he was working), watching the canvases on which he worked, sat in a corner. Soutine hours an absentminded stood before his easel, something thought. Impression that he cherishes something, as if before writing his work on canvas, he created it within themselves ... And suddenly he began to write. He wrote very quickly, without preliminary sketches, without podmalevka. Then, as suddenly, he turned away from the canvas, and we chatted about this and that. Sometimes he fell back into his prostration, and sometimes begin to doze off ... This was, of course, not laziness, but need to temporarily escape from anxiety, in which he lived - as if he was returning to the womb ...

He blew into his workshop by no means all, and even Paul Guillaume, the great Paul Guillaume aristkraticheskim with their appearance and manners of a powerful, Guillaume, whom Soutine owed his success, had no access there. Sometimes, coming, I saw that the door is locked at the lock, then I banged in a certain way, and the door opened ...

I must say, it is virtually no contact with their counterparts, except Kisling. He never talked about the work of other artists, and I never managed to find out what he thought about them. He adored Rembrendta and old masters, but wary of contemporary artists. I think he decided not to be interested in them, so as not to undermine its credibility.

It has been firmly established views on his art.

, Talent, - he said to me - what a strange word! It is a vessel into which everyone puts what he wants. For me the talent - it is individuality. If seeing canvas from a distance, you can just say: "It is Cezanne or Renoir is, therefore, this canvas has a personality. He did not like the others. The question, of course, not in the plot, and style, only in style. Someday I'll write bovine carcass like Rembrandt, but I klnus you, it does not have anything to do with Rembrendtom!

And he wrote his bull's carcass, he even wrote a whole series. He tushgi hung from the ceiling in the studio and from time to time and watered them with fresh blood to revitalize the color. Neighbors began to complain of the smell ... call the police ... this story could end badly.

As you can see, the aesthetic position Soutine was quite simple - like most other artists. They were not "theorists of art." They are just looking for a way to resolve their personal problems in the art. Their main goal was to find the best way to express yourself. Since then everything has changed ...

Nowadays artists seem obsessed with the desire not to find themselves and establish their place - their place in relation to any direction or aesthetic platform. They are looking for even the smallest place in the history of art in order to sneak into it, pushing the elbows others.
/... /

When asked to talk about their art, they use complex, incomprehensible expressions, but give a lesson in philosophy worldwide.

Soutine not know self-confidence while working, he was tormented by doubts. He was willing to take advice if this advice seemed useful to him. Sometimes I shared with him his impressions of his canvases. He never answered, but sometimes I saw that he had taken my comments. Sometimes, I suggested to him the plot, for example, he wrote gladioli at my suggestion.
At another time, looking at the wonderful, shining white on his work, I said to him:
- You should write a little girl dressed for First Communion, because nothing is more dazzlingly white.

He thought, and replied:
- Maybe it's a good idea, but where can I find such a model?

I brushed aside his objection:
- Do not worry, I'll find you everything you need!

It's like Soutine could not worry ...

I went to the store, bought a dress for first communion. Then we were asked to pose for her daughter concierge. She went to the studio, we dressed her like a princess, and Sutin wrote it.

The result was fantastic. A few years later I sold the job to one American - in that time the French wanted to spit on Soutine.

When Zborowski died in 1932, the economic crisis was in full swing. Financial position of Soutine had suffered greatly. And then we parted war.
Late, I learned that in June 1941, at the last moment he was able to escape from the Gestapo, and then went to the south of France.
In 1943, I have not had any news from him, I do not know where he is. Once in my gallery came a woman, she asked me to give her some time. It was a bad one, ismozhdennoe creation.
- I was sent to you, Haim, - she said quietly to me. He is very ill and needs your help.

We crossed the occupied Paris by car, arrived at the left bank of the Seine and walk up to the fifth floor of a dilapidated house.
The apartment in which he lived Soutine was a tiny, poor, with almost no furniture.
Haim patient waiting for me. Seeing me, he wept.

- You came! You know, I will die soon. This woman helped me. I want to leave her money, as much as possible. Give her two million and take all the canvases of his choice.

I chose to work and gave the woman many times more than he requested.

Soutine died Aug. 8, 1943 from peritonitis.
I sold these canvases.
I never saw this woman.