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Russian-born Parisian artist
is the featured guest at the Hermitage’s Youth Center. A conversation
about his life, his work and the artistic atmosphere in Paris from the
1930’s-1990’s... The program of "VIP Guests in the Youth Center" has been highly successful for two years now. The first guest of the present season was the French artist Kirill Arnshtam, who was born in St Petersburg and left Russia at the age of two and a half. From the age of five, he became famous as a Wunderkind in Berlin; and when he was 15, he started his professional life as an artist in Paris. Towards the beginning of the 20th century, Paris exerted an unbelievable attraction on all the best in world culture. Kirill arrived in Paris at the time of its cultural golden age. As a 14 year old, he was charmed by the French language and French culture, and he was adopted and recognized in the great capital of Europe as one of its own. "Despite my deep Russian roots and permanent thirst for things Russian," he says, "I love Paris and Parisians, from waiters in the bistros to the great publishers and directors of advertising agencies. I like their way of life, their openness in friendship, their ability to work ’to exhaustion.’" With his perfect command of French, the artist was admitted to the holy-of-holies of the French press -"Paris-Match", "Marie- Claire", "L’Express", "Monde de la Musique"... His illustrations for works by Zola, Maupassant, Dumas, Pierre Benoit, and Andre Varneaux were published in editions of many thousands and were repeatedly reprinted. As Kirill Arnshtam explained, he did not speak Russian for many years. "I married a French woman. I myself was educated in Germany. I spoke the language of the country I lived in. But when I arrived back in Russia for the first time, the language came back on its own; it returned from the depths of the subconscious. And so, I am a Russian." As an artist and illustrator for publications who works to order, Arnshtam finds his inspiration in both literature and art. When responding to the many questions from the audience during the evening of 10 December at the Hermitage’s Youth Center, the master reminisced about his childhood and youth, sharing recollections of his father, the artist Alexander Arnshtam and his circle, talking about his own life and work, about friends and colleagues, and about the artistic atmosphere in Paris from the 1930’s to 1990’s. The next program in the series "VIP Guests in the Youth Center" will take place on 22 December 2005. Breaking with tradition in the Hermitage receptions, students will themselves come as guests to see the director of the Peterhof Museum-Preserve Vadim Valentovich Znamenov. |
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Copyright © 2006 State Hermitage Museum |
