Pansies — October 2024
I never cease to be amazed at how the invisible connections of the universe work. Another work by my grandfather, Grigory Mikhailovich Yanin, has come to light. More precisely, it was never truly lost — I simply had no connection to it. Now I do.
Just the other day my sister Masha, who lives in Moscow, sent me a photograph of the work with the question of whether it might be grandfather’s. Masha in turn is in contact with our sister Zhenya, who lives in St Petersburg.
On the back of the work is written: “To Maria Konstantinovna — a fond remembrance from Z.P.S. and G.M.Y.” Z.P.S. and G.M.Y. are Zoya Petrovna Seikova and Grigory Mikhailovich Yanin. The date is 5.12.1972.
I know of Zhenya and her mother Virginia from stories told by my great-grandmother Vassa Ivanovna and my mother. I have never met Virginia and Zhenya personally — and that is a significant gap that must be filled. This is how art restores missing connections and returns not only memories but family bonds.
The Road to the Temple — September 2024
We cannot know how our words will resonate. Nor can we fully understand where our actions will lead.
When I decided to put this website together, I thought of it as the right place to preserve information that matters to me and my family — everything in one place, as I like it. As the site has grown, paintings have begun to emerge, and with them, stories.
The latest find is a painting, “The Road to the Temple,” painted in 1991. Around the same time the painting was sold, and we did not even retain a photograph. Thirty years and three years later it has come to light, and is currently being offered at Coronari Auctions (10–11 October 2024).
The Road to the Temple. Oil on canvas. 157×120 cm. 1991.
A Wedding Gift, 1974
In April 1974, Grandfather Grisha gave this work to Alik (his nephew) and Olga Yanbulat. All these years we have maintained our family connection in a moderate way — as best we could.
Perhaps the time comes when you feel a desire to find “your people.”
S. L. Rubinstein wrote that a person can understand themselves through their relationships with other people and the surrounding world.
There are no words for the feeling when you see people — not your own children, but adults — with whom you are connected by shared genes. We spent a full hour working out who has whose nose, whose ears, who takes after whom.
It is a peculiar act of self-knowledge, when you begin to see how you are woven into your wider family — where your roots lie, and what the cause-and-effect connections of past events have been. The conclusion is unexpected: give people art — it brings them together.
Grandfather’s Apples — June 2024
Another “stray.” This year I found the painting “Apples” at the golden wedding anniversary of Alik (my mother’s cousin) and Olga — people we had not seen for a very long time.
As we recounted the events of the last twenty-five years, talking over one another, it emerged that three whole paintings by grandfather still “live” in Alik’s family.
It is hard to put into words the feeling when your fingers touch the paint on a canvas. The mere thought that HE painted this fills one with energy and warmth. The painting “Apples” carries no date. I suspect it was made in the early 1970s. I like to think these are apples from our dacha — with a very real basket and tablecloth.
Grandma’s Asters — May 2024
Sometimes remarkable things happen. Today I received this message: “Elena, good day. Yesterday I bought a painting by your grandmother on Avito.”
The work — asters on a red background, painted at the dacha in 1986 (asters and red currants from grandmother’s garden).
The modern world can, quite literally, return paintings from the past to us.
The young woman who bought the painting found me somewhere on the internet, wrote a letter, and now this work is here. How good that there are people who do not throw art away (I mean the seller) and who take a genuine interest in the authors (I mean the buyer).
Marina (the buyer shares her name with my mother) now has not only the work itself, but an entire story connected to it. I am happy that the painting is alive and in safe hands. Very soon I will share other “foundlings” — several works by my grandfather, Grigory Mikhailovich Yanin. Life goes on.