The beautiful big pastel [1] on the right hand wall, after the Einstein, is a very impressionistic rendering of a classical legend that Leonid returned to many, many times all the way through his life.
This is a rather abstract version of it, but in some other versions [2], which are in oils, he has lots of different props around the edges of the picture that tell you what the story is. But in our display here we only see a nude lying on her back and a rather shadowy brown figure in the top left hand corner.
This is the story of Hercules, the great classical he-man hero, and Omphale, a little known beautiful woman. I don't know anything else about her story except that she so captivated Hercules that he gave up being a he-man and fulfilling the labours of Hercules - he got distracted and he spent a long time in the clutches of this lady to the extent that many artists illustrated his story with him either spinning or doing some other female work while she just lolled around.
This is actually a very beautiful pastel version of the story, and the reason that Leonid kept returning to it was because he saw himself as Hercules, distracted from the true course of his career by his love for his wife.
The body is very definitely that of Rosalia. There are many drawings that we refer to in our archive as just 'lovely pink bottom' [3] She's frequently seen reclining from every angle [4, 5]. And Hercules-alias-Leonid lamented throughout his life what he called the ‘tactical error of the 14th of May’ or whatever it was, which was the day of his wedding, because he gave up his plan of going to Paris and becoming a member of the new art movements there, because of his love of his wife and his family. He was a family man.
My uncle Alexander, Leonid's second son, told me this story and I was rather shocked by it because it seemed distinctly unkind to his wife. But actually it is true that he didn't emigrate to Paris. He did stay at her side. He loved her deeply for the whole of his life.
And he was rather tied to her, in a way that I can remember my aunt Josephine describing – how he would go out, to sketch and have nothing in his pockets, no money, or anything, because she was the person who kept the purse strings [6] and she was the person who ran the household. He would go off to his incredibly untidy studio and she would have a flat that was dazzlingly clean, and where the children were in the bright windows looking out over the Moscow squares.
It was a partnership in which she also sacrificed her career to the career of being a mother.[7, 8, 9] She dropped most of her public musical performances, as soon as she was married. And Boris was born a year later in 1890, so that, in fact, both of them made very important sacrifices of their own ambitions for a family that was their joint creation.
The Pink Room
Hercules and Omphale
Make sure your volume is on
The beautiful big pastel on the right hand wall, after the Einstein, is a very impressionistic rendering of a classical legend that Leonid returned to many, many times all the way through his life.
This is a rather abstract version of it, but in some other versions, which are in oils, he has lots of different props around the edges of the picture that tell you what the story is. So here we see a nude lying on her back and a rather shadowy brown figure in the top left hand corner.
This is the story of Hercules, the great classical he-man hero, and Omphale, a little known beautiful woman. I don't know anything else about her story except that she so captivated Hercules that he gave up being a he-man and fulfilling the labours of Hercules - he got distracted and he spent a long time in the clutches of this lady to the extent that many artists illustrated his story with him either spinning or doing some other female work while she just lolled around.
This is actually a very beautiful pastel version of the story, and the reason that Leonid kept returning to it was because he saw himself as Hercules, distracted from the true course of his career by his love for his wife.
The body is very definitely that of Rosalia. There are many drawings that we refer to in our archive as just 'lovely pink bottom'. It's seen from every angle. And Hercules-Alias-Leonid lamented throughout his life what he called the ‘tactical error of the 14th of May’ or whatever it was, which was the day of his wedding, because he gave up his plan of going to Paris and becoming a member of the new art movements there, because of his love of his wife and his family, he was a family man.
And my uncle Alexander, Leonid's second son, told me this story and I was rather shocked by it because it seemed rather unkind to his wife. But actually it is true that he didn't emigrate to Paris. He did stay at her side. He loved her deeply for the whole of his life.
And he was rather sort of tied to her in a way that I can remember my Aunt Josephine describing how he would go out, to sketch and have nothing in his pockets, no money, anything, because she was the person who kept the purse strings and she was the person who ran the household. He would go off to his incredibly untidy studio and she would have a flat that was dazzlingly clean, and where the children were in the bright windows looking out over the squares.
It was a partnership in which she also sacrificed her career to the career of being a mother. She dropped her musical performances, public performances as soon as she was married. And Boris was born in 1890, so that in fact, both of them made very important sacrifices of their own ambitions for a family that was their joint creation.
