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Dedicated to Sviatoslav Richter

(Picture: Thomas Taylor Hammond; taken in 1964)

(10.12.2022) It is worth to look a little bit more into the encounter of Sviatoslav Richter (one of my favourite pianists) with Pablo Picasso in 1964. The sources we have might be rather unknown; and it offers not only an opportunity to look at Richter (meeting Picasso), but also at the – direct as well as indirect – relation Pablo Picasso had (as well as Richter had) with Russian art, because the two men linked to some degree over music, but rather, and more intensely, as it appears, over art: as a matter of fact we find Picasso showing a book on Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani to Richter, as well as asking for Robert Falk, who had lived for ten years in Paris, and had exemplified and is still exemplifying the outsider artist – living under the Stalinist regime.

Selected Literature:
Hélène Parmelin, Voyage en Picasso, Paris 1980;
Georges Tabaraud, Mes années Picasso, Paris 2002

(Picture: Georgian Post)

It was journalist Georges Tabaraud who had facilitated the encounter of Sviatoslav Richter with Picasso (the precise date is 29.11.1964 – some weeks after Khrushchev had been removed from power; the place is Mougins; Tabaraud seems to have acted as the driver); Hélène Parmelin was present and probably acted as the translator (she had been born to exiled Russian parents); Jacqueline Picasso (a lover of classical music) was present as well, and it was her job to search – and to find the book on Pirosmani in the mess of the house. It was actually the second meeting of the two men – Richter had played for Picasso in 1961 in Nice, on occasion of his, Picasso’s, 80th birthday. If a Soviet watchdog for Richter was present, it is not known (but had in the beginning, after Khrushchev had allowed Richter to travel abroad; Richter speaks about that in a film documentary, dedicated to his life). Sviatoslav Richter, in 1964, was 49 years old (Picasso 83), and ahead some months of his 50th birthday in the coming March. Journalist Tabaraud provided a rather detailed account on that meeting (it may be based on notes, or even a tape recording), with many direct quotes of what was talked about, but did not transmit, for example (as Parmelin does) that Picasso declined the offer by Richter to have a piano installed in the house and to play for Picasso whatever he might have wanted. Richter himself seems to have written down a brief statement recalling the visit he paid to Picasso, which can be found here. Picasso himself, well, did not transmit anything.

I am assuming that Picasso had known Robert Falk in Paris (Falk being also a friend of Ilya Ehrenburg), and if Picasso asked Richter after Falk in 1961 or 1964, Richter might have said the following:

»From 1942 onwards, I used to visit Falk at home. I remember his quiet and wise advice – never hurry, leave everything until later. This advice covered everything, including music. I retain my deep friendship and devotion for an artist who was always faithful to himself. Completely immersed in art, he overcame time and space. That is why his paintings are always so lively and full of movement. The more you look at his works, the more treasures you discover.« (source: Pushkin Museum)

While Picasso expressed the wish, in 1964, to support Nikos Pirosmani (who had died 46 years earlier), Sviatoslav Richter, as has to be said to his great honour, had been among the few ones, during the Stalinist period, who actually had supported Falk by buying pictures. And this said, one has to recall that one does usually refer to Richter as an unpolitical artist. But whoever has seen the extensive film documentary on Richter’s life (available on Youtube) must know that Richter was not only clever, sensitive and had a sense of humour, but did decide himself what he was to reveal to other people and what not (his father had been killed, apparently, in the period of the Stalinist purges, since one had suspected him to be a German spy).

Picasso, indirectly, while speaking with Richter, seems to have alluded to the problem of how to live as an artist under the Stalinist regime, but only indirectly (if referring to the buttons painted by Stalinist painters rigidly), while talking with Richter about catching the inspiration that an artist has to catch – freely. But this is as close as we get to the conversation, staying aware, that Tabaraud, a Western communist journalist, might have filtered or edited his account. We actually have little information or none as to what Ilya Ehrenburg might have told to Picasso as to the life of Falk under the Stalinist regime (Falk seems to have served also as an inspiration for one of the painters Ehrenburg depicted in his novel Thaw), but we may suspect that Picasso, here, was thinking of things about Falk he knew because of Ehrenburg or Parmelin (who had travelled to the Soviet Union in 1956, when Falk, who had died in 1958, was still alive). Pierre Daix, in his Picasso dictionary, did not include an entry on Falk, and I wonder if this might be a clue pointing to the fact that Picasso and Daix, although being close, also rather avoided to discuss the topic of Stalin and the topic of artists living under the Stalinist regime very often or very plainly.

Robert Falk had guided, according to Richter, his own attempts in drawing with pastels, but although Richter confessed to Picasso that he did a little painting, but only for himself, he probably was too shy or too modest to go into more detail. But Richter was close to Falk, while we don’t know exactly at the moment how well Picasso might have known Falk, if the two men indeed had known each other in Paris.

(work in progress)

MICROSTORY OF ART
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