By the time this catalogue is published, I will be fifty years old. During this half-century I have changed my country of residence, traveled all over the world, learned to speak and think in a language I was previously only barely able to comprehend, and met many intelligent, interesting, and wonderful people.
However, if asked the question, “What was the most important event in your life?” I would not hesitate in my response — there could only be one answer — it was the day I met Anatoly L’vovich Kaplan.
I first saw lithographs by Kaplan at my uncle’s apartment in 1960. My uncle was a mediocre Leningrad graphic artist whose drawings invariably appeared in local and national newspapers on the eve of every “proletarian holiday” from May Day to the anniversary of the Revolution on November 7. On the walls of his flat, decorated mainly with the “chef-d’oeuvres” produced by the host of an old woman (which I learned much later was the aunt, appearing in a dream to Tevye the Milkman) and a singing trio. The most striking feature of these two black-and-white prints was their wonderful naturalness, especially evident in contrast to the portraits of the “heroes of labor” which surrounded them.
Five years later, I met Anatoly Lvovich in person at the Experimental Lithograph Studio on the Pesochnaya Embankment.
He was a shortish, stooping, weak-sighted man with narrow shoulders and a marked paunch. His unusual gait stuck in my memory, as did his near perfect Russian, which nonetheless instantly revealed his Jewish ancestry. Kaplan retained all the intonations of the shtetle he had left in 1922. But not only the intonations. Forever he retained in his memory the smallest details of shtetle life, and the faces of his numerous friends, relatives, and neighbors — in short, the whole world of the Pale of Settlement in which he had grown up. That world developed a crack after the October Revolution and totally disappeared in the fires of World War II, along with most of its inhabitants.
I clearly remember the day of our first meeting — this encounter forever left me with the sense of a miracle. I left Kaplan’s studio, having become the happy owner of several prints from the series ‘’Stempenue’’. I was not yet aware that for the rest of my life I would be closely linked with this man who was at times soft, at times awfully intractable, both simple and cunning, both incredibly generous and painfully stingy — but always charming. This man became extremely near and dear to me.
During the following fifteen years of our friendship I had occasion to see Kaplan almost daily, and to observe him in various situations, from serious heart attacks to his happiest moments following the publication of yet another book illustrated by him, or dedicated to some aspect of his creative work. Nevertheless, Kaplan remained for me one of those miracles one could never get used to.
In fact, his entire life was one continuous miracle. Son and grandson of butchers, he became an artist, moved to Petrograd, graduated from the Academy of Arts, drew cinema posters, designed accident prevention placards, illustrated the occasional text, and through it all, he kept that certain inexplicable and irrational something: a “divine spark.”
At the end of the 30’s, he went to the Leningrad Experimental Lithograph Studio. There this spark was to flare up into a marvelous creative fire giving birth to his first miracle: the lithograph series “Kasrilovka”.
Then came the war, evacuation, the hardships of the war years, teaching at school, half-industrial Ural sketches, the pains of returning to Leningrad ravaged by the siege, and a new miracle: the series of Leningrad prints — incomparable, unlike anything else, perpetuating a highly personal image of Leningrad, enchanting and romantic, half-deserted and yet beautiful beyond expression, even in its state of semi-destruction.
One had to be a particularly courageous artist to pursue the subject that had been treated by Benois, Dobuzhinsky, and Ostroumova-Lebedeva. But Kaplan had his own vision of his beloved city and preferred to base its expression on the experience of the Impressionists.
In the summer of 1992 I happened to organize an exhibition of the best lithographs of Kaplan’s Leningrad Album at the Museum of the City of New York. In the introductory essay to the catalogue, Professor Colin Eisler made the following perceptive observation: “Picturesque, tender, romantic, these Russian lithographs also manage to convey the silent intimacy found in Parisian prints by Bonnard and Vuillard”.
In 1946 the album “Leningrad During the Blockade” was published as a separate edition and purchased by eighteen museums in the Soviet Union. To a certain extent, this event determined the destiny of Kaplan as an artist.
During the following years, Kaplan was involved in various activities — from publishing illustrations for “The Man in Cotton-Wool” by Chekhov and “The Blind Musician by Korolenko, to making technical innovations in his capacity as chief artist at a decorative glass factory.
Suddenly one more miracle occurred, this one at risk to his life. At the awful time marked by a wild outburst of stare-sponsored anti-semitism (at the end of 1952 through the beginning of 1953), when radio programs raged on about “killer-doctors” and “agents of international Zionism” from morning until night, Kaplan. then living in a huge communal flat on Tchaikovsky Street, pinned a sheet of drawing paper to the back of the door of his room (which opened inward. giving the illusion of a safety measure, when neighbors appeared) and started to work on drawings for the “Bewitched Tailor”, a series which was to play a special role in Kaplan’s life.
One should not think that it was an act of steadfast protest on Kaplan’s part; protest was not in his nature at all. Rather, the theme of the remarkable story by Sholom Aleichem “stuck” to him so firmly at that very time that, being a true artist, Kaplan could not resist it
There was a special reason why I mention the publication of the “Bewitched Tailor” as a fateful event in Kaplan’s life. While none of the numerous books and articles about Kaplan’s work tell how the artist became world-famous, there is one specific person who introduced Anatoly Kaplan’s work to the West. His mime is Eric Estorick, owner of the Grosvenor Gallery in London, and his involvement with Kaplan began when he saw the “Bewitched Tailor” series
Kaplan s lithographs produced such a powerful impression on Esrorick that he not only bought a considerable part of the edition of the “Bewitched Tailor” through the Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga Publishing House, but he also commissioned a new version from the artist. Estorick also contracted to have printed exclusively for his gallery a limited edition of “Jewish Folk Songs”, a most decorative and colorful series of lithographs, a lyrical “Song of Songs”, and one of Kaplan’s other masterpieces — the black-and-white lithographs for “Tevye the Milkman”. Later Estorick commissioned “The Little Goat” series and he bought the best prints of “Kasrilovka” and “Leningrad during the Blockade”, as well as drawings and gouaches by the artist.
Then another miracle happened In December 1961 the first Kaplan exhibition opened in London; some 131 works were shown. The success of the exhibition surpassed all expectations. “Kaplan is one among only two or three contemporary artists about whom 1 am certain posterity will have no doubt,” wrote the art critic for the “Daily Telegraph”. And "The Burlington Magazine”, one of the most prestigious English art magazines, summed up its impression of Kaplan’s exhibition with a certain exaggeration: “So brilliantly good that in comparison Chagall seems like a clumsy amateur.” Leaving the fairness of the latter opinion to the conscience of the critic, we can nonetheless easily appreciate the atmosphere of benevolent admiration produced by the first of Kaplan’s exhibitions in the West. The best museums all over the world acquired his works: The Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), the National Gallery of Art (Washington); as well as museums in London, Jerusalem, Cambridge, and Canada. Significantly, an exceptionally well-received “chain reaction” of Kaplan’s exhibitions continued throughout the West: New York, Turin, Milan, Los Angeles, Dresden, Vienna, Toronto, West Berlin, Basel, Frankfurt on Main, Jerusalem, Montreal, and elsewhere.
Encouraged by this success, Estorick commissioned the Leningrad art critic, Boris Suris, to write a book about Kaplan, which, however, was not published until ten years later. Ironically, the book does not include as much as a casual mention of the owner of the Grosvenor Gallery.
In 1984 I met Estorick in London and we spoke for a couple of hours. I told him about the subsequent life of Kaplan and presented him with a copy of the Suns monograph. Estorick was philosophical about the fact that his role in Kaplan’s life had been passed over in silence, and he remarked, ‘’I am very glad for Anatoly. And his success should be attributed only to God who endowed him with such a remarkable gift.”
In 1967 I witness the birth of another miracle — Kaplans ceramics. Isaak Zalmonovich Kopelyan, a close friend of the artist and the editor of almost all of his lithographic series, a person of tireless energy and impeccable taste, repeatedly urged Anatoly L’vovich to try ceramics. When an opportunity presented itself, he managed to drag Kaplan into a ceramic studio, and talked him into painting several small tiles.
Anatoly L’ vovich took an intense interest in the new technique. One after another, the ceramics began to appear on the walls of his room — sometimes colored, sometimes monochromatic, but always extremely interesting in their modeling and design. Even the most experienced ceramic artists could not understand how this self-taught person, who had no theoretical knowledge of this medium, managed to create such deeply moving and extraordinary works. They were happy to confide their technical secrets to Kaplan, and sometimes shared with him such rare materials as gold paint.
One of the types of ceramic work by Anatoly L’vovich — painted tiles on a black and gray background — owes its creation largely to the generosity of the ceramist, Irina Kalitaeva, engaged at that time in making a giant ceramic mural which now decorates the vestibule of the hotel “Leningrad”. The composition demanded perfectly smooth black and gray tiles, to be decorated later with gold designs. Sometimes cracks appeared on the surfaces of the tiles during firing, sometimes parts of them became burnt or turned out to be uneven. Such tiles were unfit for Irina’s work, and she not only happily gave them to Anatoly L’vovich, but she also shared the gold paint, of which there was an extraordinary shortage at that time because it could not be purchased, but only obtained for special commissions. With an uncanny skill Kaplan used the “defects” of the tile surface, turning them with a few strokes of the brush (by an almost magical touch!) into a loving couple a horse with a cart, a rabbi at prayer, etc. Several examples of these tiles are in my collection. I always take great pleasure in looking at them and recollecting how they looked before Anatoly L’vovich’s hands touched them.
In connection with the gold paint I mentioned, I cannot resist the temptation to relate a tragicomic episode I happened to witness. In 1969 the Leningrad Union of Artists was feverishly preparing for the celebration of the centenary of Lenin’s birth. For this anniversary, works were commissioned, contracts drawn up, and scarce materials distributed. One of his numerous well-wishers advised Anatoly L’vovich to enter into a contract for a ceramic work dedicated to the anniversary, thereby enabling him to acquire a cherished bottle of gold paint. Kaplan followed the advise and about a year later he realized with horror that the paint was almost gone, but there was no trace yet of a work dedr ated to the “Great Leader”. Since one had to account for contracted work, the artist had to take “safety measures”: on a large ceramic dish representing “Table Song” (1968) with a Jewish proverb inscribed in a circle (“It does one’s heart good to have bread, wine, and fish on the table.”), Kaplan’s friend, Michail Pesin, promptly transformed the portrait of an old Jew in the background of the composition into a portrait of Lenin with the help of some white gouache. But how could he account for the gold paint? Anatoly L’vovich made a remarkable decorative plate largely covered by the Yiddish inscription “Lenin lives forever”, and above the inscription he placed a small golden blot-like profile (a bit larger than a ruble coin) which only a very benevolent viewer could recognize as Lenin — the “Great Jubilee Hero”. The exhibition on the premises of the LInion of Artists in Leningrad displayed three ceramic works by Kaplan — the two mentioned above plus a “Bird” dish, and several color lithographs. When the works had already been hung, a chief from the city Communist Party Committee came to approve the exhibition. When he approached Kaplan’s works his practiced eye noticed something wrong. He asked the “People’s Artist”, B. N. Smirnov, who showed him the exhibition, “In what language are these inscriptions?” Smirnov was quick to reply, “In one of the languages of our multinational Motherland.” “Cut it out,” interrupted the chief, “they are in Jewish, aren’t they?; and he immediately ordered both works portraying Lenin removed. So, Kaplan was represented at the Jubilee Exhibition by a couple of lithographs, and a plate . . . with a bird.
It was through ceramics that Anatoly Lvovich broke the constraints of his usual imagery, and, with his characteristic keenness, became interested in Gogol. In the last two years of his life he was mainly occupied with the creation of sculptural portraits of Gogol’s characters in “Dead Souls”, “Inspector”, Marriage”, and “Gamblers”. Two events provided creative impetus for these series. One of the employees of Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, publishers of the first book of “Ceramics by Kaplan”, presented the artist with several other books from the same series, among them “Daumier Sculpture”. The satirical sculptures by the great French artist made a lasting impression on Kaplan. He was especially impressed by the fact that Daumier managed to achieve extraordinary expressiveness in spite of the very modest dimensions of his sculptural caricatures.
For the second reason for Kaplan’s sudden interest in Gogol, I must address one of the most delicate problems posed by Kaplan’s creative work. Anatoly L’vovich was constantly compared to Chagall or contrasted with him. Only a few professionals understood that both artists were related by their roots, by their place of birth, and by the tales of Sholom Aleichem, whom they both admired.
I can hardly avoid wincing when some Americans, seeing the marvelous ceramic by Kaplan “Fiddler on the Roof’ in my New York apartment, exclaim in surprise, “Oh, you have a real Chagall!” It is difficult to explain to them that it was Sholom Aleichem who put the fiddler on the roof; Chagall just paid tribute to the great Jewish writer, as did Kaplan, Natan Altman, and a number of other artists.
But back to Gogol. The constant comparison with Chagall could not but offend Anatoly L’vovich. He wanted to prove to himself and to others that his works could be no less profound, and no less interesting and important than those by Chagall. After the first etching on a biblical theme (“Entrance of Haman into Jerusalem”), Kaplan gave up this idea, but the theme of the “Dead Souls”, treated by Chagall in 1923-27 in “dry point”, fascinated Kaplan so profoundly that he nonetheless risked rivalry , consciously choosing another medium.
The results of his efforts surpassed all expectations. In order to avoid any appearance of partiality on my part, I quote from the official letter from the Director of the State of Russian Museum addressed to the artist, “Dear Anatoly L’vovich, With profound gratitude the Academy Council of the Russian Museum accepts your generous gift, a series of sculptural portrayals from the “Dead Souls” by Gogol. Your works, executed with the wealth of creative imagination characteristic of you, and extraordinarily active in their plasticity, rival the expressive strength of Gogol’s language. Your mask portraits have revealed a new aspect of the immortal images of the “Dead Souls”, namely their allegorical philosophical meaning”. The Dresden Gallery, where the series of ceramic bas-reliefs (based on Gogol’s “Gamblers”) are kept in permanent collection, expressed similar enthusiasm.
Even later than his work in ceramic (beginning in 1971) Anatoly L’vovich started to master another technique new to him — pastel. Thus, a new miracle appeared; one of color, romanticism, and expression. It is astounding that the very first of his pastels, “Dance” (1971), became one of the best in this technique. Kaplan created more than four hundred in all! In fact he painted another, “Heder”(1980), a few days before his death. Comparing these two works, both of which I am happy to have in my collection, I can hardly believe that a nine-year interval separates them! Although sometimes Kaplan had to “learn by his own mistakes”, he was extremely fast at doing so. Thus, Valery Stephanovich Primenco, a photographer from the Hermitage, brought him a present from Paris in about 1975- 1976, a pastel fixative. Anatoly L’vovich was very glad, since the problem of keeping pastels packed tightly in files had always troubled him. And then I witnessed a real “murder”. The artist did not know at the time that after application of the fixative pastels darken considerably. So, some iridescent, chimerical works lost their festive look, and darkened and shriveled before my very eyes. But after the shock, caused by this mistake, Kaplan quickly learned his lesson and made all other works in this technique much lighter and brighter, always anticipating exactly what the pastels would look like after fixative was applied.
This was another of Kaplan’s mysterious and incredible features — the ability' to master a new technique immediately and to “feel at home” using it. That was the case with etchings and “dry-points”: the first of which came out in 1973, and the last — the two-hundredth — in 1980. Printing a series of Kaplan's etchings at the studio in the Pesochnaya Embankment. a printer once made an extremely perceptive remark, “Drawing by Anatoly L’vovich is not at all labored.” I can add that the line in all his etchings is free yet firm. He never had to draw a line twice. Examining Ins late and most evocative etchings, it is difficult to believe that the needle was led on the metal surface by the hand of a weak and sick man. almost 80 years old!
It is interesting to note that Kaplan, although a graduate of the painting department of the Academy of Arts, returned to painting only towards the end of his life Indeed, for the most part he did not make full use of ns technical possibilities. I am still surprised by the fact that Anatoly L’vovich, for all his love of playing with the surface (Consider his treatment of the clay of his future ceramics! And how he scraped and sprayed lithographic stones to achieve special effects!) never used one feature unique to oil painting, the creation of an impasto that fascinated great artists from Rembrandt and Velazquez to Van Gogh (whom Kaplan deeply admired! In his oil paintings, Anatoly L’vovich remained a graphic artist, whereas his brilliant gift as a painter manifested itself in gouache and tempera. One of the best tempera paintings made by the artist, “The Synagogue,” always hung over his desk. I was pleased to give this work, together with the pastel “Evening Twilight”, to the Vatican Museum in 1985 — a museum which holds the best works by artists from Michelangelo to Raphael, and from Roualt to Manzu.
The Secretary and Treasurer of the Vatican Museums at that time, Walter Persegati, wrote me in May 1985, “The paintings by Kaplan have arrived safely. We are thankful to you for your generous contribution to our Collection of Modern Religious Art. The works are very beautiful and we are happy to have them.”
I consider this letter a compensation made by fate for the sad bewilderment experienced by all of us — friends and acquaintances of the artist — when in 1972 we received the first copy of B. Suris’s monograph of Kaplan and saw that the censors had removed the Star of David from the funeral cover on one of the best gouaches by the artist, “Weeping Over a Dead Child”.
Taught by bitter experience, Kaplan himself removed the Star of David from the funeral cover in his etching “Mother’s Death” from the series “Remembrance of Rogachev”. The artist knew that the Russian Museum had expressed an interest in buying this series, and was afraid the entire set would be rejected because of this single etching. It was one of those rare occasions when I had to exert pressure on Anatoly L’vovich, which resulted in a compromise. The etching was printed in two variants, with and without the Star of David.
Kaplan was amazingly immune to any opinions or efforts to exert pressure on him in matters of his creative work. I cannot help telling an amusing episode connected with the printing of one of the most outstanding series of his lithographs, “Tevye the Milkman.”
Examining the works with a critical eye before beginning to print the author’s edition for the Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga Publishing House, its editor, I. Z. Kopelyan, wisely remarked to the artist that in one of the prints, chickens were walking in a yard, brightly lit by a full moon. “Tolya, hens sleep at night. You should change something in the lithograph,” he said. Kaplan immediately agreed. “I am an old fool,” he grunted to himself, “how could I make such a blunder?” But after half an hour’s hesitation, lamentations, and sighs, he suddenly approached Kopelyan and resolutely said, “Look, Izenka, let them walk!” Thus the sheet was printed as it was.
Another miracle was Kaplan’s extraordinary industry. He never stopped working. He did not need hours to solve the problem of where to find a subject. Being an artist “by the grace of God,” he never suffered the absence of that special state which is usually called inspiration and, by the way, never spoke about it in a pompous manner.
It would not be true if I claimed that Kaplan was indifferent to the public, visible aspect of his success. He sincerely rejoiced when a book was published about him and was as sincerely upset when some official reviewer of an exhibition “forgot” to mention him.
Two feelings entirely alien to him were envy and self-sans faction. He was one of the most benevolent visitors re exhibitions and often interrupted my wrathful Tirades with regards to some hack with arguments like “Sashenka, he made such an effort. . .
Only once did I see Kaplan outraged. One of his many visitors presented him with a set of postcard reproductions of illustrations by Ilya Glazunov for books of Dostoevski. After the guest left, Anatoly L’vovich tore up the present and threw it away. Glazunov was for him the personification of all that he hated in am total lack of talent combined with conformism.
When I started to write these notes I pledged to refrain from evaluating Kaplan’s work as an art critic. But it is difficult to avoid answering the question asked by one of my closest and dearest friends when I first came to Leningrad after a ten- year absence, “Are you still in live with Kaplan’s work"” I had never asked myself this question, muck as we never ask ourselves whether we love our parents or dear friends with whom we spent all our life.
But naturally, the twelve years of my life spent at the Metropolitan Museum and all that I saw during my numerous travels throughout the world could not bur effect my attitude to Kaplan’s creative work. I am still in love, but now I see it with new eyes. Now I see nor only his achievements, but also a degree of limitation to his wonderful talent. Kaplan was, and still in my eyes remains, a “chamber artist”, and that is the place he occupies in the history of art. This does not in any way diminish his importance. He was an artistic chronicler — not an indifferent chronicler of a by-gone world, but its inspired glorifier, a romanticist forever fascinated by the images of his childhood and youth.
In America, I once happened to show my collection of Kaplan’s works to a talented poet, writer, and keen connoisseur of art, Alexis Rannit. A few days later I received a letter from him containing the following lines. “In this loud world Kaplan is a master of silence. It is a pity many people cannot understand that a whisper and a light touch can create a large space. Kaplan followed this way, he was a poet of silence and subtle lyric flow. It is interesting that this silence is colorful and full of calm passion. Kaplan saved the Jewish world we lost And what is more, he thus achieved a high moral ground.”
Even such wonderful words are not exhaustive. Rannit did not see, and thus thus not appreciate, the remarkable sculptures by Kaplan on the motifs from Gogol, or his illustrations to “Nathan the Wise” by Lessing, or the “Man in Cotton-Wool” by Chekhov, do not think Anatoly L’vovich is merely a Jewish artist. He is an international artist, because truly high, real art, sooner or later becomes universal, whatever national soil gave birth to it.
There is no point in arguing over national claims to Modigliani, a Jew by birth, born and brought up in Italy, who worked and died in France. An artist of true talent is a rarity which should belong to everyone. He fires the imagination of all, regardless of creed, nationality, or race. And in accordance with Esenin’s words, “You cannot see a face when face to face,” the further time removes the artist’s personality from us, the more important his work seems to become. You begin to understand more clearly that not only Jews who gave birth to Kaplan, not only Russia where he was born, worked and died, the whole world can be proud of him, the world to which he so generously gave his colors, his heart, and above all, that silence so well described by A. Rannit. And it is silence that this “mad, mad, mad world” needs most!
Therefore, whenever the artist’s exhibition is held, a multitude of people wall visit it. And people contemplating Kaplan s works do not need any annotations, any translations. His main themes — love, joy. grief. birth, death, and faith — are eternal. The artist speaks with his visitors through the language of the heart, and, luckily for us, this language is universal.

By Dr. Alexander M. Shedrinsky