Tsvetaeva's drawings

[trubikhina at AOL.COM]

 Dear Alexandra and seelangers,

Yulii Zislin is a good friend of mine; he's an amazing enthusiast who created a literary museum—in his apartment!—as well as memorial allies of Russian poets and composers, more or less single-handedly, in Washington's suburbia! I know that he will be very happy to answer any questions you might have. And if you are in D.C., visit his museum: you will be surprised. E-mail him at:
http://www.museum.zislin.com/
I really wish any of you or your institutions could establish long-standing contacts and in some way support Zislin's amazing collection. While most of the libraries would not be interested in more recent editions, as systematic as his collection might be, he also has a great number of first editions, some with autographs, as well as some personal items of the writers. Zislin is not young. His collection should not be lost.

Re the drawings:

The drawings in question are copies of the originals at RGB labeled "avtor—Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva, karandash, fond "Nikitinskie subbotniki," muzhskie i zhenskie golovy, 1910-e gody" (RGB—Rossiiskaia gos. biblioteka; Nikitina is Evdokiia Nikitina who orgaznized "Nikitinskie subbotniki," a literary "ob'edinenie," attended by Tsvetaeva in 1921-22, before emigration.) There is no information how the drawings ended up there and, as far as I know, there is also no proof or conclusive evidence that the drawings are by Tsvetaeva.
I saw  these drawings (or to be more precise, the Washington copies of the drawings). In my opinion, they are student  drawings of not very good quality, most likely copies, or "adaptations," of well-known Russian and European paintings. I remember that I could not figure out on the spot what the sources were, but I am positive that an art historian would identify them immediately. One was definitely a rather awful copy of Borovikovskii's "Portrait of Naryshkina."

Julia




 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Marder <asred at COX.NET>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Sent: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:07 am
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Tsvetaeva's drawings










> Dear colleagues,
> 
> I've just read a curious article penned by Yulii Zyslin. It  says that
> Yulii Zyslin has a copy of Tsvetaeva's drawings in his museum in
> Washington DC: http://www.kontinent.org/article_rus_4501ebae285f6.html
> 
> According to this article, Tsvetaeva drew various portraits in the 1910s....
> I'm just wondering whether anyone could recall any references to the
> fact that Tsvetaeva was an artist as well as poet? It's well known, of
> course, that her daughter and her son were excellent artists but I've
> never heard about Tsvetaeva's drawings before.
> It's curios, especially because there are so many notebooks and
> letters that are deposited in various archives but I don't remember
> any materials that feature Tsvetaeva's drawings alongside her poems or
> letters, for example.
> 
> I'll be very grateful for any information that could shed some light
> on this discovery!...

Don't know about shedding any light, but there's this:

http://www.museum.zislin.com/

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