I was about three years old when my grandpa came back to Odessa from the Gulag. He was about as old then as I am now. I was his first grandson and, after the horrors of Stalin’s concentration camps, I was a great gift in his life. A powerful guy, he had big, strong hands. His face expressed both immense strength and tremendous sorrow. I studied his face every day, and, at about age ten, I got the feeling that I had to draw my “Seida” Gervits.
The second face that asked to be painted was my mom’s. As a very young child, I didn’t see her face; to me, she was like air or the light of a star, given freely and taken for granted. Very soon, though, I started to look at her more like an artist than a son. Suddenly, I discovered her beautiful eyes, dark like Spanish olives; her Madonna-like, harmonious face; her black hair pulled back in a braid.
Very early in my life, I enjoyed the visible world. My passion for looking at the world was likely prompted and supported by a handful of oil paintings hung over my crib. There was a copy of Ivan
Kramskoi’s Enigma, Unknown Lady and a couple of landscapes in which the mastery of oil technique blew me away.
Once, I stepped outside for a walk and was stopped by something fascinating: a man wearing an old uniform was seated on a small chair and painting on a small easel. I found the smell of those paints sublimely beautiful. I froze and stood behind him until he finished his painting. Ever since, I’ve had the penchant for looking everywhere in town for artists painting in the street.
From these many experiences grew my artistic passion, especially my love for portraiture.
Leonid Gervits