Excerpt from Inna Rogatchi’s essay, January 2019
Simple broche, dear memory
Our good friend Ina Ginsburg, the muse, dear and special friend and supporter of Andy Warhol, was one of those people who got life thanks to the action of Aristides de Sousa Mendes who was struggling through his nervous breakdown while acting to save lives. Ina, the only woman whom Warhol painted thrice, lived a long and productive life being patron-at-large of arts and music in the USA and bringing out, supporting and promoting her fellow Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as Harrison Ford and scores of others, not to speak of Warhol himself who was a pariah in American high society until Ina changed it effectively and single-handedly, starting from a single handshake with the odd outsider and boldly inviting him to her and her husband’s house, an important venue of the American political, financial and cultural establishment. Ina told me all that in detail.
Portrait of Ina Ginsburg by Andy Warhol. (C) Estate of Ina Ginsburg.
Ina who was blessed to live until 98 and passed away in the end of 2014, was ever attached to her family and their dramatic story. More, she was essentially attached to her wide family of Jewish people and our ultimate tragedy that had happened during Ina’s lifetime. She always was acutely aware that she and the part of her family had been enormously, incredibly, miraculously lucky, including the gift of life for them provided by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, but so many of our brethren did not receive that chance to live. Ina as I knew her, was the person who always kept something in the back of her head, and that ‘something’ was her pulsating memory of the Holocaust.
She did not tell too much about it, but one knew that the matter is always there. And when she did, you were burned by the pain that did not wade for a bit. How could it.
Ina was famous art collector whose house was an exquisite small museum and who did acquire much more than a person, a private collector could hope for. At the time I was lucky to get familiar with Ina, thanks to our dear friends Leona and Jerrold Schecters, these lovely quiet giants of American Jewry, she was much more like a very knowledgeable art expert and mentor than a keen collector, understandably. And how surprised I was when Ina did show a very keen interest in the one of my art pieces. I would never think that person whose house in the heart of Washington DC had not enough place for many of her exquisite and rare Warhols and many other extraordinary pieces of superb art would be so keen, so specially keen to have something that I did produce for one of my exhibitions.
Back and again, Ina was looking onto the map that I had created for my The Route exhibition telling on the historical journey of the Jewish people throughout time, history and countries. As a marker for the map, I have used just one element, my photograph of the early XX century Eastern European broche of my grandmother Adel Chigrinsky. As a matter of fact, the broche was the only piece of jewellery that my grandma had ever owned. It was interesting to mention it to Ina who was known for her museum-quality vast jewellery collection. Ina loved my grandma’s broche and she loved my map. The great art collector did commission me to do a big-size special piece of this work. “As big as you can, my dear. This map is important for me”, – she said. “ But you barely have space on your walls, Ina. – I was baffled. – We have had discussed it just the other day”. – “Don’t you worry , my dear – Ina replied with he thoughtful smile which always was a bit apart of her yet more thoughtful eyes. – If I would need to take something down to put your map on my wall, I will do it in a minute. I love this map”.
Inna Rogatchi (C). The Route. The European Jewry’s Journey. Fine art photography collage & graphic design. Unique. The Route project and collection. 2013.
At the time, I thought that great Ina Ginsburg was responding to the style of my map, and that she felt nostalgic for Europe and the European art. And I was happy that her expert eye saw something interesting in what I do. How naive we are even in an advanced age, I think now. It was Ina Ginsburg’s heart, not eye, that captured something in the map telling about the Journey of Jewish people with a pointer of my grandma’s broche.Inna Rogatchi (C). Memory Sun. Eastern European broche, early XX century. The Rogatchi Judaica collection. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. Power of Light. Judaica Symbolism series. 2013.