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A man of genius and a student of two eminent artists and one educator
I have heard of Edward Ziouzine more than once. He was an outstanding figure among Moscow artists of the 60-s.
One day a collector Anthony Broy came to the museum in Jersey-City and brought two pictures for an expertise. One was by a famous Russian painter Pimen Orlov, who used to be a serf, but later came to live in Italy. The other was a portrait in pen on paper. The author's signature was hardly legible, but it definitely belonged to a great master.
Anthony had bought that portrait from a Russian painter living in Jersey-City and forgot his name. Alexander Gleser gave it a brief look and said: "This is Ziouzine drawing." By chance Ziouzine came to the museum himself a few days later. He looked less than his age, which is often the case with creative people. His manners and looks gave away a typical Muscovite. He was short, athletically-built, with grey beard and moustache, and bright lively eyes - a man of about 70. Every man has but one destiny, Edward Ziouzine's lot was more than dramatic.
Edward was born in Moscow. His family lived in apartment 3, 6/8 Miusskaya street near Tverskaya-Yamskaya. They shared the apartment house with famous composers and artists. Among their neighbors there were Dmitry Shestakovich, Khachaturyan, composer Sveshnickov.
Edward knew many artists and was on friendly terms with Anatoly Zverev. Together they used to come to the Moscow Zoo to draw animals, or take part in informal displays in Malaya Gruzinskaya street. He was also a friend of Iosif Brodsky. Edward recalls: "My mother was a student of Meyerhold, and a friend of Zinaida Raih. Raih, my mother and her sister were killed, they died of tortures in a KGB prison. After that I came to hate everything in that country.
From early childhood I liked to draw, I learned to draw wherever I could."
In general there were three persons who helped to form him as an artist. Ziouzine calls them his educators.
The first one was Georgy Kuzmich Kravchenko, professor with Saint-Petersburg Academy of Arts and a student of Repin.
The second one was Vasiliy Sitnikov who taught him modern art. This was in the 60-s. By the way, Sitnikov spent 10 years in Soviet concentration camps, which shaped his attitude towards the Soviet system. It is from Sitnikov that Ziouzine learned about such masters as Falk, Malevich, Kandinsky, Picasso, Chagall.
Ziouzine's third educator was Chagall.
Edward first met Marc Chagall in 1973 in the Tretyakov Art Gallery
"Chagall was surrounded by his admirers. I was young and had the cheek to push my way through to him. I introduced myself and showed him my graphics. I was about 35, an already mature artist and very self-assured too. To everyone's displeasure, Chagall took interest in my works: "How did you do that?"
"With a ball-point pen". He was shocked: "I've never seen such skill, such a variety of styles".
"Chagall suggested we meet the next day. We talked most about technique.
I told him that his flaming color reminded me of medieval masters, Cranach, for instance. Chagall burst out laughing: "Do you know Cranach?" He said he used varnishing and glazing in his technique…
First of all Chagall appreciated my graphics. Once he said something that made me blush: "Edik, your drawings are better than mine. Your technique is incredible. You are a mad artist in the best sense of the word. Perhaps, you are a genius. I'd put you in a golden cage and give you everything so that you could work."
Soon I received a letter from Marc Zakharovich, in which he suggested my taking part in a big exhibition in Tokyo, where he would have a display himself. Six of my works were chosen for the exhibition." In 1980 Edward Ziouzine's work hang next to Mark Chagall's at the exhibition in Tokyo. I'm now looking through the aged pages of a catalogue that Edward has kept.
However Chagall's golden cage turned into a prison for Edward.
"Chagall sent me an invitation to Paris. After he suggested that I should move to Paris, living and working in Moscow became unbearable for me.
There were many provocations, I could see no end of them, they used to break into my apartment, destroy my pictures, my letters, and they even tried to kill me. Later on I was arrested. All in all I spent about 5 years in prison: Butyrskaya prison, Matrosskaya Tishina, Troitsko-Antropovo in the suburbs of Moscow, then I had to undergo a mandatory course of treatment, then Hospital 5 when you don't want it but they give you injections.
Keepers hold you and make injections. The only thing that made me live was art. I survived because I could draw.
A series of prison portraits in oil colors, drawings in pencil and in pen strike by their expressiveness. These are the portraits of jail mates - murderers, swindlers, robbers and simple thieves.
Edward has been living in Jersey-City for 16 years now.
We meet in the museum. Edward stops at a picture by Sergey Pchelintsev with a fantastic view: night, seashore, the storm has brought down a statue and has cast ashore a fantastic fish, a huge fairytale butterfly, a broken orchid, falling stars sparkle in the dark sky, the scale and even water are painted with great love.
"This is a real artist", Edward says examining the picture.
"his pictures dazzle like poems about faraway planets."
Edward expressively reads his poem about planet Kuno, we are listening spellbound, they are as genius as his pictures.
It is hand to imagine today how Russian art, and first of all the Russian avant-garde, which came info being in the early 1910s and influenced all world art of the twentieth century, would have developed if the existence of the new art had not been cut short by the totalitarian regime which had established strict control over everything in our country: politics, economics, philosophy, literature, art, morality and even the width of pants and the color of ties.
I also remember that when I was in Athens visiting Georgy Kostaki, I head him say that he was going to write a book about the Russian avant-garde. At that time Georgy Dionisovich developed the main idea of his future book: the Russian avant-garde had exhausted itself and died a natural death. It is good that Kostaki did not write his book after all, for what natural death can you talk about when it was suffocated by the political forces, of course with the help of their followers from among the critics and artists. Those times in our country were really cannibalistic.
After all, the avant-garde artists were the first to support the revolution. It seemed to the creators of new forms and new visions of the world that the new life called for a new art. It seemed to them that the revolution had opened up unlimited possibilities for experimenting in the arts.
In 1919 Kandinsky and Malevich become the leading artists in Petrograd. The avant-gardists, who were still called “the left”, do the decorations for all the revolutionary holidays, and they head the State Institute of Culture and the Department of Fine Arts of the People’s Commissariat of Education and its paper Iskusstvo Kommuny (The Art of the Commune).
In Vitebsk, the FNA (Founders of a New Art) was created in February 1920, in Leningrad the MAA (Masters of Avant-Garde Art) union was created in 1925 and that year in Moscow the PS (Painters` Society). At the beginning of the twenties the New Society of Painters (NSP) and the Society of Young Artists (SYA) appeared in Moscow. In other words, in the early twenties and throughout that decade art life in Moscow and Leningrad, and in many other cities of Russia for that matter, literally boiled. It is sufficient to name such now world famous artists as Malevich, Kandinsky, Tatlin, Filonov, Chagall, Rodchenko, L.Popova, Lisitsky, Klyun, Lentulov, Sherenberg, in order to understand what heights liberal Russian art had reached in those days.
But where were the academician-realists and dogmatic artists, those irreconcilable and, I’d even go so far as to say, deadly enemies of “left art”? They, not believing in the final victory of the Bolsheviks, were biding their time. And only when they were convinced thet the Soviet government would be in power for a long time, did they begin to make up for lost time. The AARR (Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia) founded in 1922 declared an all-out war on the avant-gardists.
And here it is necessary to mention that, of course, there were factions among avant-gardists. For example, there was a long-standing battle between Malevich, the father of suprematism, and the great constructionist Tatlin. This had always gone on between artists of different trends all over the world. However, such battles were usually a matter of discussions and disputes, and involved works of art and manifestoes of one or another group. The AARR members set into motion political accusations, practically daring to involve those in power.
One of the AARR leaders, Katzman, a future Soviet academician, wrote: “The teachers of the left” - Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse, Marinetti and others – are the ideologues of small groups of the bourgeois intelligentsia in a period of capitalistic flare-up of nervousness and contradiction”. AARR theoretician, Perelman, expressed a similar opinion: “For future historians the art of Picasso and our Kandinsky, Malevich and others of that ilk will be clear and undisputable proof of the insane horror which seized the world bourgeoisie as they reached a dead end. ” The AARRists not only made political accusations but tried to break up the exhibitions of the “left” painters. In the book Soviet Art of the Twenties and Thirties published in Leningrad in 1988, E. Kovtun writes in his article “The Path of the Russian Avant-Garde”: “In the summer of 1926 the scheduled exhibition opened at the SIC (The State Institute of Culture). By that time the antagonism which Malevich had written about [between the `lefts` and the AARR] had grown worse, the AARRists were gaining political clout. The 10th of June, 1926, article << Hiding behind the name of a state institution is a monastery with several nuts who are, possibly unconsciously, coming out with counter-revolutionary statements fooling our Soviet academic institutions>>.An investigation was begun and a commission made up of leading scholars testified about the research activity of the institute, but its fate was a forgone matter”. In his article E. Kovtun tells how in 1929 the Russian Museum was not allowed to open the advertised exhibition of Filonov`s works.
It is interesting that the fervent ardor of the battle and the passion for demagogy of the AARRists in the twenties has not settled to this day. In the beginning of the sixties I worked closely together with the department of literature and art of the paper Moskovsky Komsomolets which was then headed by the current president of the Literary Institute, Yevgeny Sidorov. He said to me off-hand: “Katzman is coming now, do not argue with him.” And an old, but still lively comrade did walk into the room soon. He began to enthusiastically tell about how he had taken Voroshilov to an exhibition and how the latter had admired some of the pictures. I could not retrain from saying: “What does Voroshilov know about painting?” And Katzman went right on the attack – these young people who are skeptics having read the so-called memoirs of Ehrenburg and so on and so forth… He was really angry. Minding Yevgeny, I headed for the door. But Katzman caught up with me and said: “In spite of our differences we have much in common. Haven’t we?” My silence was clear. But he could not keep from saying: “Want me to tell you what we have in common?” I looked at him in curiosity and he blurted out: “Our Soviet government!”
That was in the sixties. Imagine this man of the arts when he was young in the twenties and especially in the thirties.
However, the question arises: were the Bolsheviks really in the dark about who supported them from the very beginning, and who joined them only after everything had become clear. Of course they knew. But that was not the main thing for them. They did not need experimenters, but spreaders of their ideas and their activity. In other words they needed obedient followers with their art understandable by the masses in the fine arts, and also in literature.
It should be said that dooming art to the role of a servant of the party was thought up by Lenin. The famous Russian artist Yury Annenkov told in his “Diary of My Meetings” of a very curious incident. Annenkov’s father was a close friend of Lenin’s even before the revolution and had helped him hide from the police. Annenkov when he was young knew Trotsky, Zinovyev, Kamenev and other Bolshevik leaders well. (Two years ago they reprinted Annenkov’s memoirs, but only the volume in which he reminisces about writers, poets and artists. Maybe now they will print the other one where he tells about his meetings and talks with the Bolshevik leaders). So when Lenin died, the Politbureau of the Central Committee asked the young and talented artist well known to the party leaders to do a picture of Lenin’s office. Working there Annenkov discovered Lenin’s notes. And among them were the typically energetic and clearly expressed thoughts of the leader on art. Lenin had written: “We need art only as an instrument of propaganda. When it has fulfilled its function then we will remove it like a blind gut as being of not further use”.
This behest of Lenin’s was never published (it was really improper to openly allot art the Role of a servant), but in real life the Bolsheviks steadfastly carried it out. Therefore, the avant-gardists were doomed though they persistently resisted during the twenties.
As early as 1928 the Agitprprom of the CC of the party approved the work of the AARR and told them to do more. In April 1932 a resolution of the same Central Committee did away with all Artists’ Unions and with them went the last remnants of creative freedom. Painters were driven into the new Artist’ Union and were only permitted to paint in the style of socialist realism.
Those of the “left” that had foreseen such an end left the USSR back in the twenties. Two stars of twentieth century world art, Kandinsry and Chagall, were among them. Those who remained suffered: they were not allowed to exhibit their works or teach. Some of them went over to illustrating books, others “reformed” themselves, and still others went underground. As a rule they were reduced to poverty and hunger. During the war the great Filonov died of hunger in Leningrad. The Artists’ Union refused to come to the aid of the uncompromising master.
How can one speak of the natural death of the avant-garde? No, they were crushed for a whole decade and in the end obliterated. It is no accident that during the first thaw in the sixties, some art critics and artists tried to return to art lovers and the country her masters of the twenties. The Artists’ Union, of course, supported by the party, raised their hackles. And I repeat, even in the sixties positive mention say of Kandinsky or Malevich caused the teeth of the stalwarts of the official art, socialist realism, to gnash. They permitted, though unwillingly, writing and speaking about Petrov-Vodkin, Konchlovsky and Falk who were also taboo in Stalin’s times. However, Thr Great Russian Avant-Garde, that was the way the British art critic Camilla Grey Called her book (1952), remained banned. And only since 1988 have Soviet art critics been allowed to write about the Russian avant-garde of the twenties. But, interestingly, even in the profound research publications some of the Soviet art critics at times call for a balanced approach. After all there was the avant-garde and the AARR. And there were interesting artists in both camps. Why now smear the AARR, as they had smeared the avant-gardists? It seems to me that from the point of view of the history of art, such an approach is wrong. First of all, there never were nor could there be among the opportunists in the AARR such world famous names as those of Malevich, Kandinsky, Rodcheko, Tatlin, Cagall, Lisitsky, L. Popova. Secondly, we are talking of victims and murderers. So, neither in creative potential, nor in the sense of human qualities are these two groups compatible.
Mikhail Yurievich Gherman, whom I greatly respect, in his book Painting. 1920-1930, which came out in Moscow in 1989 writes: “Farmers Holiday” by A. Plastov (1937), is a sincere and naïve picture myth, painted with passion, with precisely chosen characters, expansively and freely. And what an unforgivable mistake it would be to suspect the artist of simple opportunism! That was the time of labor feats really striking the imagination, of real enthusiasm. And the artist gives from to the knowledge and notions about all the best that is going on in the country, or about a specific, almost everyday, event which therefore should be depicted with a reporter’s preciseness.”
Sorry, Mikhail Yurievich, I just cannot agree with you. A. Plastov is no moron not seeing the world as it really is. And he painted his picture not in a year of real labor victories, but in a year of unequaled terror. It is possible that he did not know precisely about the millions in the camps, about the millions of “dekulakized” peasants exiled to Siberia, and that when there was hunger in the Ukraine in the “wonderful” thirties the mothers ate their children (read Vassily Grossman’s book Everything Changes…). But he could not help knowing that writers and artists were being arrested, that the peasants after working hard all day only lived in poverty. And was not it blasphemy, was not it an example of naked opportunism and obeying the criminal party to paint the “Farmers Holiday” at that time! What kind of “reporter’s preciseness” are you speaking about? And was Plastov really not aware of the crushing of the Russian avant-garde, that the avant-garde artists, his colleagues even if he did not agree with them on questions of art, were living in poverty and huger in the fill sense of the word? No, A. Plastov’s “Farmers Holiday” is the most clear expression of the principles of socialist realism, of this, excuse the expression, art, and its trend. And, God, there were a lot of such Plastovs in the thirties, forties and fifties in our country both in art and in literature. In Ufa in 1959 the chairman of the Artists’ Union of Bashkiria to my question, “Why did they remove the only interesting artist from the spring exhibition”, importantly and irreproachably answered: “We don’t need Picassos and Matisses here in Bashkiria.” The same old ture.
But we shall talk about socialist realists in the next chapter. I’d like to end this chapter by telling about the avant-gardists (it is not a matter of their names) who overcame fear – and there was something to fear – and remained true to themselves and tried to relay their knowledge about avant-garde art to eager young artists. It is difficult to imagine that during the Stalinist terror, with all the informers, there nevertheless were such people. But, as Josef Vissarionovich loved to say, “facts are stubborn things”.
I was told about avant-gardists who lived until the forties by the Muscovite Vladimir Nemukhin, the southerner Leonid Pinchevsky and some other painters and graphic artists. None of these first teachers of the unofficial artists of the sixties were renowned. More often they were the pupils of the greats. Such, for example, is E. Sokolov, a pupil of Malevich and the tutor of Nemukhin, and V. Sterligov, also a pupil of Malevich and tutor of a whole group of Leningrad painters. The merit of these people crushed and maimed by the terrible times is great. They acquainted the next generation of Russian artists with the ABCs of the new art created by the great Russian avant-gardists of the twenties. And in doing so, they risked, I repeat, a lot, perhaps even their freedom and lives.
Alexander Glezer, from the book “Сontemporary Russian Art”
"The National Socialist policy, even the part of it which is called the cultural policy, is determined by the Fuhrer and those he has given corresponding authority."
(Wolfgang Schulz. "The Principles of the National Socialist Cultural Policy")
'Comrade Stalin inspires artists, he points the way for them... The decisions of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and the report of A Zhdanov give Soviet writers a complete work program."
(E. Yaroslavsky. From the report at the XVII party congress)
What is socialist realism? Of course you could call it a still-born, false and formal art - and all this would be true. But it has to have some kind of a more or less theoretical definition. And it does. It goes as follows: "Socialist realism is the depiction of reality in its revolutionary development." Not very clear? But it is all very simple. For example, if the people in the country are starving, you depict tables covered with all sorts of delicacies. That is reality in its revolutionary development. In other words lies, lies and more lies. It is not without reason that Alexander Solzhenitsyn spoke about the lies on which the whole totalitarian communist system was built as one of the most terrible vices of the USSR. And if it is all built on lies, if black is called white and vice versa, if democracy is called fascism, and Red fascism people's democracy, if the noble and courageous defender of human rights Vladimir Bukovsky is branded as a rogue on the pages of the "most free press" (and one can give endless such examples), then how can literature and art avoid falling into the same pithole. It is for lying that the method of socialist realism was thought up, for only with the help of a great untruth could the people be convinced that the country had a fine present life and a bright future.
Once Stalin, when meeting with writers, had been asked what socialist realism was. He noted with his innate cynicism: "Write the truth, comrades, and that will be socialist realism." But to actually write the truth was extremely dangerous, and many paid with their freedom and even their lives for having tried to write the truth. As for "depicting reality in its revolutionary development", then the real meaning of these words is that (look at the epigraph to this chapter) this reality had to be seen through the eyes of its communist leaders. Therefore, in essence, socialist realism is just propagandist art (remember the testimony of the artist Yuri Annenkov above). It is a false art serving the communist party. The leader of the Moscow non-conformist artists, Oscar Rabin, answering questions put him by a correspondent of the paper Washington Post in 1971, hit the nail on the head, in my opinion: "Socialist realism is whatever you please." And really, more than half a century socialist realist writers and painters depicted not reality, but what the party demanded at one time or another, and of course the portraits of the leaders. If collectivization was announced, then a whole army of painters, distorting how things really were, depicted happy peasants (that the best were dispossessed and even killed was not important, the party needed happy farmers in the pictures), farmers sitting at a table bending under the weight of all the good food celebrating a holiday (when it was known that these people were starving), and heroes of socialist labor (it is known how they became heroes). But if they set about industrialization, then it does not matter what methods are used to go about it, what Draconian laws are applied to the workers. It was necessary to glorify the cause and the socialist realists did just that. There appeared pictures with hard workers who stood reading the paper Pravda next to a blast furnace (other variants were in an automobile plant, a coal mine or somewhere in the Far North, etc.) during lunch break. In general, whatever the party was pushing, that was the kind of pictures the socialist realist artists concocted. And the interesting thing is that even the really talented masters gradually lost their talent, for those selling out their talent inevitably lose it. For example, can the pictures of the young Deineka or Pimenov be compared to their later works
And this is understandable. For when an artist paints a picture he feels something. If not for a day or two but for thirty years he has to imitate others' feelings, then what of his own remain in the end? That is why the talent of so many of our writers, artists and poets deteriorated.
At times I would happen to hear a conversation like the following: "Don't you like Laktionov? Why, he's a master. There's no denying that. Every button painted in the picture looks real." Of course, Laktionov is a master; however, he is not a creator, but a craftsman. Almost anyone could learn to paint like that. Sit ten craftsmen down opposite a tree and ask them to paint it and you will get ten pictures all exactly the same. But if you sit real artists down, each would see the tree in his own way and each would paint it differently. Besides exterior appearances people and things have an internal essence. Let me give you a good example. Once Pablo Picasso was doing a portrait of Gertrude Stein. He made one sketch, then another and his choice fell upon the third one. The artist's friends were surprised: "Why, in the first two she resembles herself, but in the third she's not a woman but a pig in a cube." "But isn't that what she is?" answered Picasso. That's real talent for you.
And it is entirely understandable why the young artists in the sixties willing to work treely, and not follow the dogmas of socialist realism, were so hated by the official artists, that is the socialist realists. First of all, they were rivals. Secondly, where the hell did they come from? After all, and this is notable, it was thought that all avant-gardists had long ago been squashed, and socialist realism reigned over one sixth of the earth. But the fight with modernism went on. After a break due to World War II, the witch hunt began again. In 1947 the Museum of New Western Art in Moscow (what did we need with the impressionists and Fauvists, Cezanne and Picasso?) was closed and in 1949 even the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, where classical Western art was displayed (that was at the height of the battle with cosmopolitanism). Where did all these subversive ideas reappear from right after the great leader and teacher had passed away? The King feared (and rightly so) being caught naked. And that fear forced him to turn to the well-tested weapon of the twenties: to political accusations and denunciations.
Книга.
О художнике Эдуарде Зюзине я слышал не один раз, он очень яркая личность среди московских художников 60-тых годов.
Но вот однажды, в музей, в Джерси-Сити, пришел коллекционер по имени Энтони Брой, который принес на экспертизу две картины, одну - известного русского живописца Пимена Орлова, бывшего крепостного художника, остаток дней своих прожившего в Италии, вторую - портрет, выполненный шариковой ручкой на бумаге художником, подпись которого было трудно прочесть. Однако принадлежность портрета руке большого мастера, была очевидна.
Энтони купил этот портрет у русского художника, проживающего в Джерси-Сити, фамилию которого он позабыл. Александр Глезер, посмотрев, мгновенно определил: – «Это графика Зюзина». По воли случая, через несколько дней, Зюзин появился в музее. Он выглядит моложе своих лет – качество присущее людям одержимым творчествам. Внешность и манеры выдавали коренного москвича. Невысокого роста, спортивного телосложения, с седой бородой и усами, живыми светлыми горящими глазами, мужчина лет семидесяти. Каждая судьба индивидуальна, но судьба Эдуарда Зюзина, поражала своей драматичностью.
Эдуард вспоминает:
«Я родился в Москве, моя семья проживала на 3-й Миусовской улице, дом 6/8 квартира 3, что в районе Тверской-Ямской, в этом доме жили композиторы, рядом жили Дмитрий Шестакович, Хачатурян, композитор Свешников. Моими близким друзьями были: поэт Иосиф Бродский, актеры Иннокентий Смоктуновский, Анатолий Кторов, Игорь Ильинский, Георгий Вицин, артист Андрей Карташов.
Георгий Вицин был тогда еще никому неизвестен, выступал в клубах, был беден. Я с ним познакомился в клубе имени Зуева, где он выступал. Я был восхищен его игрой и после спектакля признался ему в этом, предсказав ему великое будущее, в ответ он рассмеялся. С тех пор мы крепко подружились.
Игорь Ильинский был любимым актером Сталина. Игорь Ильинский был очень привязан ко мне, был большим поклонником моего творчества, любил меня, как сына. После смерти Игоря Ильинского я, со слезами вспоминаю, как заставил, этого великого актера, в течении более двух часов, ждать меня под дождем у памятника Пушкина, на улице Горького, опоздавшего на встречу с ним, не успев вернуться из загородной поездки по мусорным свалкам, которые мы осуществляли с Василием Ситниковым.
Я был близко знаком с Анатолием Кторовым, замечательным русским актером, который, как и мама Эдуарда, он был учеником Мейрхольда. Кторов, как и Ильинский, считал меня талантливым художником.
Андрей Карташов, был моим близким другом. Тогда он влачил нищенский образ жизни, в то время у него не было даже собственной квартиры и он, по бедности, не мог снять комнату в коммуналке и снимал только угол. При встречах со мной, Андрей часто появлялся в компании артиста Крамарова, с которым близко дружил.
Однажды я спас Карташова от верной тюрьмы. Это был 1967 год, в стране шла борьба со спекуляцией. Карташов, которому нечем было платить за свой угол, продал набор китайских шариковых ручек, его задержали, составили протокол, препроводили в отделение.Я, узнав об этом, поехал в отделение милиции, в котором находился Карташов. Накануне этого происшествия, я выгодно продал несколько своих картин, купил светлый дорогой костюм и туфли, благодаря этому, выглядел весьма представительно. В отделении меня встретил капитан. Я сказал капитану, что хочу говорить с начальником. Капитан попросил подождать. Я удобно устроился в кресле, положив ноги в новых ботинках на стол, поза не обычная для этого заведения, явно не понравилась капитану, однако он доложил начальнику. Начальник отделения, в чине полковника, вышел из кабинета, увидав мою позу, попросил предъявить документы. Это обстоятельство помогло решению вопроса. В моем паспорте лежала визитка Молотова, с которым я был знаком лично. Карташова отпустили.
Крепкая дружба связывала меня с Иннокентием Смоктуновским, она прошли через всю мою жизнь. Кеша, так называл я Смоктуновского, в ответ называл меня «мой маленький гений». Обычно я приезжал к Иннокентию среди ночи, после ресторана, в 2, 3, а иногда в 4 часа, к страшному неудовольствию его жены Суламифь. «Эдуард, не приезжай к нам никогда ночью» - замечала Суламифь «У Кеши завтра тяжелый день, он читает лекцию, выступает на телевидении, дает интервью для газет, вечером играет Бориса Годунова». Но тут появлялся Кеша, восклицая:- «Я рад видеть «моего маленького гения», Суламифь накрывай на стол». Однажды, заметив, что нет свежего хлеба, он сам пошел за хлебом в 3 часа ночи, в единственный ночной магазин. Затем ухаживал за мной, подкладывая мне самое вкусное. Он считал меня художником номер один в Москве. Когда меня арестовали, Кеша ни разу не пришел навестить меня в тюрьме, это больно ранило меня. И только спустя много лет я понял, что визит Иннокентия в тюрьму мог поставить под удар его семью и карьеру. Спустя много лет, Кеша попросил у меня в долг небольшую сумму, незначительную для меня тогда, я отказал, упрекнув его в старых обидах. Кеша молча пережил упреки. Спустя много лет, когда я эмигрировал, Смоктуновский два раза приезжал в Америку, пытался разыскать меня. По настоящему я понял, что нас связывала прочная невидимая нить, когда прочел известие о смерти Кеши. Никогда не прощу себе, что отказал ему. Это мучает меня так же глубоко, как то, что я не слушал маму, которая для меня свята. Однажды днем, гуляя по улице Горького, Кеша хвастался своей необычайной известностью, я не уступал ему. Тогда Иннокентий привел такой расчет: - «Эдуард, ну допустим, тебя знает пол Москвы, представь себе, что меня знает весь Советский Союз. Ты, по сравнению со мной, просто… Эдик». Этот спор закончился потасовкой. Мы боролись на снегу, к огромному удивлению прохожих, все узнавали Смоктуновского. Я навалился на Иннокентия всем телом. «Отпусти, идиот! Меня же все узнают». Потом долго смеялись.
Моя техника поражала многих. Анатолий Зверев просил дать урок, его поражало, как я это делаю. На протяжении нескольких лет мы встречались в Московском зоопарке,
где рисовали животных, участвовали в неформальных выставках на Малой Грузинской. Однажды устроили соревнование, кто напишет больше рисунков. Один рисунок Зверев подарил мне, подписав «Моему учителю Эдуарду Зюзину». Работы Зюзина расходились по многим коллекциям. Еще задолго до этого, в 50-х, профессор Лобчинский приобрел у Зюзина его работу «Третий Ростовский переулок», которую спустя много лет, разбогатевший Зюзин, вернул себе, обменяв ее на картину Ливитана. Тогда Лобчинский дал Эдуарду телефон известного коллекционера Александра Леонидовича Мясникова, академика с мировым именем, личного врача Сталина, труды которого были переведены на многие языки мира. Мясников пользовался в стране огромным влиянием. В своей манере вести и общаться он полностью подражал Сталину. Мясников представил Эдуарда крупнейшим коллекционерам Советского Союза, таким, как Костаки, Рубинштейн, Семенов. Мясников говорил, что коллекция Рубинштейна, это ничто по сравнению с его коллекцией. После моей коллекции, самая серьезная коллекция у Георгия Дионисовича Костаки, который работаем в Канадском посольстве завхозом. Мясников показывал мне Рембранта, Кандинского, Малевича.
В то время кумиром Зюзина был французский художник Альберт Марке. Представляя Эдуарда коллекционерам, восхищенный Мясников воскликнул: «Я ставлю Зюзина выше Марке». Кстати говоря, сам Мясников приобрел у Эдуарда более двадцати работ. В то время работу Эдуарда «Автопортрет» приобрела известная московская «львица» и коллекционер Наталья Шмелькова. Она приобрела понравившейся портрет за огромные по тем временам деньги, которые выплачивала Эдуарду в течении двух последующих лет.
Последнее приобретение, закончилось для Мясникова трагически. Эдуард был приглашен ученым и влиятельным чиновником к нему домой. Однако вместо ранее предложенной суммы, в действительности решил заплатить сумму в два раза меньшую. –«Вы не джентльмен Александр Леонидович- парировал Зюзин. Ошеломленный таким ответом, всемогущий чиновник, опешив, предостерег: «Милостивый государь, за такие слова вызывают на дуэль. Знать вас никто не будет. Если бы дома, сейчас находился мой сын, он бы выбросил вас из моего дома». В ответ, приблизившись к Мясникову вплотную, Эдуард расхохотался ему в лицо. Смех длился несколько минут, после чего Мясников побледнел. Было видно, что Мясникову стало нехорошо. Эдуард вышел не прощаясь. Мясников закрыл за ним дверь. Назавтра, из газет, Эдуард узнал о смерти Александра Леонидовича. В Москве говорили, что Зюзин убил Мясникова. Спустя несколько дней, на улице, к Эдуарду подошли неизвестные люди, пригласили зайти в кафе. Предъявили документы сотрудников КГБ, расспрашивали о подробностях размолвки. Из разговора с ними Эдуард узнал, что врачи не обнаружили на теле умершего никаких признаков насилия. Они сообщили Эдуарду, что убийство, по мнению врачей, произошло не физическим способом, а путем психологического воздействия, гипноза, действие которого они ощутил на себе во время их общения с Зюзиным. Зюзин, в свое оправдание, заметил, что если бы врачи тщательно исследовали здоровье умершего, то могли убедяться, что если бы, к примеру, кто-то уронил стакан воды, в его присутствии, который бы разбился, это также могло бы привести к смерти. -«Вы обладаете сильным гипнозом Зюэин. Вы можете принести пользу государству. Мы предлагаем вам работать в КГБ, в звании капитана и мы уверены, что вы быстро сделаете карьеру».-«Я художник, и никем кроме художника никогда не буду, это твердое мое слово», дал Зюзин исчерпывающий ответ.
Воспоминания уносят Эдуарда в далекое прошлое. Эдуарду было четыре года, когда во время эвакуации их поезд разбомбили, оставивших поезд пассажиров окружили люди в немецкой форме. Память Эдуарда навсегда запечатлела серые танки со свастикой на броне, расстрелы, немецкий офицер, говоривший на чистом русском, без акцента, расхаживая перед шеренгой: «Мадам, ну как вам не стыдно, почему вы дрожите, вы же русская женщина». Евреев и цыган отвели в сторону и расстреляли у всех на глазах.
Эдуард вспоминает: «Моя мама была ученица Мейрхольда, подруга Зинаиды Райх, также как и Райх, она была замучена в КГБ. После того, как КГБ убило мою мать и сестру мамы, они умерли от пыток в тюрьме, я возненавидел все и вся в этой стране. Моей страстью стала графика. Меня все время, тянуло рисовать, я учился рисовать везде, где только мог.
Вообще на формирование Зюзина, как художника повлияло три человека, он называет их своими учителями.
Первый – профессор Петербуржской Академии художеств, Георгий Кузьмич Кравченко, чьим наставником был Репин. Кравченко был реалист, человек строгих правил. После долгих месяцев штудий и унизительного критики метра, Зюзин принес ему первую свою работу. -«Рисунок отличный, вы делаете успехи», заметил профессор. Всем известно, что высшей похвалой Кравченко было молчание, и когда молодой Зюзин удостоился столь высокой оценки, он возомнил себя гением и бросил учебу. Но семена, брошенные на бл&a
Следующим учителем был Василий Ситников, у него Зюзин учился современному искусству. Это было в 60 годы. К слову, Ситников провел в лагерях более десяти лет и относился к советской власти соответственно. Василий родился в деревне, его родители были кулаки. Они трудились, не покладая рук, заработали небольшое состояние, затем были раскулачены и сосланы. Василий сбежал в Москву, устроился на работу, снял комнату в коммуналке. Ему еще не исполнилось пятнадцать. Как-то встретил в Москве односельчанина, обрадовался ему. Тот предложил: «Василий, немцы скоро будут в Москве. Когда начнут занимать Москву, отомстим за родителей, начнем раздавать листовки и гранаты. Вот ящик, в нем гранаты и листовки, спрячь их у себя. Василий согласился. На него донесли соседи, провели обыск, арестовали. Офицер КГБ требовал назвать имя того, кто передал ящик, Василий не хотел выдавать земляка. Тогда офицер, сообщил, когда вспомнишь, получишь еду и воду. Голод можно было терпеть, жажда мучила невыносимо. На допросе следователь пил пиво из двух бокалов, переливая его из одного бокала в другой на глазах несчастного подростка. Через несколько дней повели в баню. В бане удалось вдоволь напиться, сопровождающие бросили на пол селедку. Голодный подросток с жадностью накинулся на еду.
Послу этого начались нечеловеческие мучения. Мучительно хотелось пить. На допросе, увидев следователя с бокалом пива, Василий, потеряв рассудок, схватил со стола ложку и воткнул ее в глаз своему мучителю. Вбежала охрана, повалили, жестоко били ногами. Василий потерял сознание, пришел в себя в камере, на бетонном полу. Тело было сплошь черное от побоев. Что произошло со следователем, так и не узнал, был направлен этапом в спецбольницу для душевно больных в Казань. Это был сущий ад. Шла война, голод, охранники забирали предназначенное для заключенных питание. Говорили, что «враги» не заслужили жить, нужно вывести и пустить в расход, чтобы продукты не переводили.
Морили голодом. В ведро заливали воду, добавляли три ложки супа из котелка охранника, варили и давали заключенным. Только три ложки на ведро воды, это было нормой. Каждый день умирало несколько десятков человек.
Чтобы не сойти с ума работал, помогал заключенным, мыл туалеты, ухаживал за больными. В благодарность, больные давали хлебнуть супа из тарелки, хлебал, не опасаясь заразиться, думал только о том, чтобы выжить. За трудолюбие снискал сочувствие санитарок, они подкармливали, иногда выпускали в узкий прогулочный дворик, огороженный забором, из металлической проволоки, давали подышать свежим воздухом. После душной камеры, это был настоящий оазис. В конце дворика был пруд, там водились лягушки, ловил их и ел живыми. Это помогало выжить в течении долгих десяти лет. «Как выжил, сам не знаю».
От Ситникова Зюзин узнал о творчестве таких художников, как Фальк, Малевич, Кандинский, Пикассо, Шагал. Творческая судьба Ситникова складывалась удачно, он был президентом Академии художеств, но от предложения Серова вступить в Союз художников СССР отказался, слишком изменились его взгляды на многие вещи.
Третьим учителем Зюзина стал Шагал.
Эдуард впервые встретился с Марком Шагалом в 1973 году в Третьяковской галерее. Шагалу было 86, но выглядел он на 50 – 55. Лишь потом, Эдуард узнал о его реальном возрасте. Небольшого роста, в черном костюме, белой рубашке, темный галстук, очень энергичный. Простой в общении, с глазами человека глубокой внутренней культуры, мыслителя.
«Шагал был в окружении поклонников. Я молодой, нахальный, протиснулся к нему, представился и показал свою графику. Мне уже было около тридцати пяти, я был уже зрелый художник, уверенный в себе. Шагал, к великому неудовольствию всех окружающий, заинтересовался моими работами: «Чем вы это делали?»
– «Шариковой ручкой». Он был поражен: «Я никогда не видел такого мастерства, такого разнообразия стилей». «Я начал рисовать еще в раннем детстве, в детском доме, первые мои рисунки были акварелью. Однажды мое внимание привлек рисунок моего приятеля, он нарисовал танк, который мне так понравился, что я стащил его у приятеля и запираясь ночью в бытовке, часами разглядывал его».
«Шагал предложил мне встретиться на следующий день. Говорили в основном о технике, художественном мастерстве. Я сказал ему, что его полыхающий цвет напоминает мне средневековых мастеров, Кранаха, например. Шагал засмеялся: «Вы знаете Кранаха?» Он говорил, что работает на лаках, что искусство лесс&