Elephantine Ambitions

"'Cool,' the young people say, ‘It's Saddam and Madonna."

Mina Litinsky, proprietor of the Sloane Gallery, recounts the mistaken identifications some young visitors made of a painting she had on display — Leonid Sokov's Marilyn and Stalin. The two twentieth century icons embrace, Monroe looking Warholesque, Stalin in caricature, grinning as only Arthur Miller or Joe DiMaggio could have understood. It is a signature work by an artist who is in the permanent collections of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Australia National Gallery, and the Tretyakov Gallery and Pushkin Museum in Moscow, among others.

But this is not New York or Moscow. The Sloane Gallery is just off tony Wynkoop Street in the shadow of Denver's restored beaux arts Union Station. Something of a local institution, the Sloane deals exclusively in contemporary Russian art and has been open for 30 years in what can be a capricious business.

Sloane might seem a peculiar name for Litinsky's gallery, but it is actually an anglicized version of the Russian word for elephant, slon. As Litinsky tells it, a British publisher wanted to produce a series of books about elephants by writers from different countries. The Englishman wrote about elephants as the diamond of the British Crown, the Frenchman, of course, of a love affair between a lady and an elephant. The German wrote three volumes, the first alone being an introduction to the question of elephants. The Russian wrote just a small pamphlet, titled "Russia is the Homeland of All Elephants."

Litinsky, who emigrated from the USSR to the U.S. in 1983, recounts the anecdote in an accent that is as broad as her laugh. "Russians claim that they invented electricity, the radio, and everything else. So my shop is home to all Russian artists in America." The elephant is the greatest of all animals, she said, and she represents the greatest of Russian artists.

Her claim is not preposterous. In addition to Sokov, she hosts Tengiz, the team of Komar and Melamid, and Kalinin, all of whom can be found in major museums from San Francisco to New York, Israel, Russia, and beyond. Kalinin may be familiar to readers for his iconic painting Lenin Hails a Cab, in which the father of the Soviet Union raises his hand for transport, rather than the people, with a McDonald's sign cum hammer and sickle blazing over his shoulder. It was the cover art for the New Yorker for July 12, 1993. Other notable artists like Maxim Shostakovich, conductor and son of the great Soviet composer, and the late cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, have made pilgrimages to visit her shop.

Litinsky is particularly proud to host Komar and Melamid's George Washington as Victor with Hitler's and Stalin's Heads (1996-97), part of their American Dreams series. The eight-by-four-foot painting presents our first president life-size. His right glove rests at his feet; his naked hand grasps the living head of the Führer, while his gloved left hand holds the equally alert head of Uncle Joe, perhaps hinting at the more direct power used to fell the Third Reich. The classical pyramidal construction draws the eyes to Washington's head and shoulders, framed in a circle of light before the crest of the United States — an image straight out of the National Gallery. His crimson cape finishes the triangle on a pedestal that reads, "Washington Lives." It's classic Americana from two sons of the Soviet Union.

Of course, Litinsky has a story to go with the painting. Following a museum tour of the United States, it came back to her gallery just a few days before September 11, 2001. On that terrible day, she recalls, "people were coming from Union Station, walking around, asking ‘Why, why?' People passed by the window where it hung and there were tears in their eyes. They asked me what it was called and when I told them they applauded and wept. Usually Americans are not willing to show their feelings, but everybody was so shocked. And when they saw the American symbol as a victor, they felt so proud."

Shortly thereafter, Litinsky said, a person of Middle Eastern appearance came by and his reaction was exactly the opposite: his eyes blazed with hate. "‘Who is it' he asked? ‘Who do you think?'" she replied. He said nothing and walked away. Only later did she realize that he had made the same mistake as her young guests, confusing Stalin for Saddam. For a time, the man returned frequently to show other Arab men the painting. She moved the picture to another window and several days later the window was broken. She never saw the men again.

"Isn't it wonderful" Litinsky says with delight, "that that piece could generate so much emotion, that some people would clap and some people would cry and another would break a window? The artists did something right."

Mina has more stories to tell. Visit her when next in Denver. RL