Eduard Klebanov

Artist Statement

The first Picture I drew in 2003 after declaring bankruptcy of my “Russian Bookseller Outlet” Store. The Panorama of memory of St. Petersburg was drawn from complete memory! I had been left unemployed for more than a year and took to art which shocked all my relatives and my household. From sheer memory and using simple paper and colored pencils without mistake or an eraser, I depicted a panorama of the Hermitage and parts of St. Petersburg depicting the whole history of my hectic life surrounding those places. Later I found in an album of a book a photograph that accurately conveys my memory. In the picture are six episodes; from how my mother and father brought me to the Hermitage for the first time, to how I brought all my wives and children there. When a friend Igor Tyulpanov, looked through my entire website and albums of my art he told me “I was an unsurpassed master of writing with painter with colored pencils.” I was convinced of his words after looking upon what I had painted, the first picture in my life. I began to write a book about my life and continued to draw on the four sheets of plain writing paper with colored pencils the "Panorama of memory of St. Petersburg, the Palace and Vasilevskiy Island.” My friends and family had thought I went crazy but really two events pushed me to create this work, rather two stories. During the 1937 election when my parents met, (where my father was the Chairman of the Electoral Commission from Minsk and my mother, an active member of the Komsomol, was a member of this election commission in the factory in Belarusia). Two weeks later, dad came to mom's parents and asked for her hand in marriage. They immediately though a wedding which my mother was not present, ( she was to ashamed to ask for three days off). The second inspiration for creating this "masterpiece" was a copy from the pictures by Grisha Bruskin "All People came on Elections”. By seeing this picture I began to formulate the plot and continue expanding on my art. When this "masterpiece" was completed, I found in the remains of the last few books from my crushed store the Album "History of the Construction of the Hermitage" to which my surprise so accurately portrayed my art drawn from memory. At the retired age of 69 and a half, during my time visiting my daughter and grandchildren in New Hampshire I started drawing my next piece. While they slept upstairs, I began to draw again from memory and looking onto the view outside. At the age of 69.5, retired, took up a brush and a pencil, and created it in almost a year my next 25 pieces!