In the right hand corner of this room, you'll see a rather odd, very tall strip of paper with a lot of heads on it [1] of varying quality, some carefully finished and some more like a doodle. This was something that we found in the last cluster of Leonid's papers that we catalogued. It was in a roll of several rolls of tracing paper – some of them tracings of large paintings that were important works, which he evidently wanted to copy, or potentially be able to copy. So he made the tracings from the originals, before they were packed up to be transported from Germany to England.
But on this piece of paper, what you have is [something quite different. It gradually became apparent that it was] a series of studies of Pushkin. At the top of the strip, the two most careful heads [2 – detail from 1] are his own studies of how the real Pushkin might have looked, [based on two contemporary portraits that became the basis of later cliché derivatives [3]. The one on the right, the biggest of all the heads, has something about the eyes which reminds me of Leonid’s drawings of my mother.
It’s also quite clear that some of them are straightforward [copies of Pushkin's own doodled self-caricatures [3, 4]. which he famously drew in the margins of his manuscripts.
And one of them, which is in the centre, [lying horizontally] towards the bottom third of the sheet, is actually a copy of a contemporary drawing of Pushkin on his deathbed [5, 6], made at the time of his death. Leonid has just copied it.
In the basement gallery, you'll see that Leonid [composed] another picture of Pushkin where he's used Boris as his model.[7] [This is Pushkin, writing a poem to his old Nurse (which he did).] So that's a whole series: of Pushkin by Pushkin; Pushkin via Lydia, and Pushkin via Boris, by Leonid, in this house.
The Garden Room
Studies of Pushkin
Make sure your volume is on
In the right hand corner of this room, you'll see a rather odd, very tall strip of paper with a lot of heads on it of very varying quality, some very carefully finished and some really like a doodle. This was something that we found, I think in the last sort of area of Leonid's papers that we catalogued. And it was a roll or several rolls of tracing paper, and some of them were tracings of big paintings that were important works, which he was evidently wanting to copy or to be able to copy. So he made the tracings before they started travelling from the originals.
So on this piece of paper, what you actually have is a series of studies of Pushkin. At the top of the strip, the two very careful heads are his own attempted portrait of how the real Pushkin might have looked. And the one on the right, the biggest of all the heads, really there's something about the eyes which reminds me of Leonid’s drawings of my mother.
We can see that some of them are actual copies of Pushkin's own doodled self caricature portraits.
And then one of them, which is in the centre towards the bottom third of the sheet, is actually a copy of an engraving of Pushkin on his deathbed made at the time of his death, and Leonid has just copied it.
And in the basement gallery, you'll see that Leonid does another picture of Pushkin where he's used Boris as his model. So that's a whole series of Pushkin by Pushkin, Pushkin via Lydia, Pushkin via Boris by Leonid in this house.
