Them Read online

  Praise for Them: A Memoir of Parents

  “In an arresting new memoir…(Gray) paints a vivid, often harrowing portrait of her formidable mother and her equally formidable stepfather…. What is so astonishing is…her ability to wield the cool detachment of a biographer while simultaneously drawing on a daughter’s heated reservoirs of memory and emotion…. In these pages she uses all her writerly gifts—her skills of observation, emotional recall, and, yes, detachment—to give the reader an intense and remarkably powerful portrait.”

  —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

  “A spellbinding, warts-and-all double portrait…a dazzling account…With a masterful balance of ‘ruthlessness and tenderness,’ research and reminiscence, grievance and gratitude, (Gray’s) book is a sterling example of the personal memoir exalted to cultural history.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Francine du Plessix Gray examines in loving but unsentimental detail the lives of her mother…and stepfather…. Tatiana and Alexander are fascinating characters, but so what? Gray’s unapologetically subjective candor and lithe prose are what make their story so lively and so devastating. Them is one of the finest memoirs in recent years.”

  —Newsday

  “It’s a cursed blessing, and a blessed curse, to have strong parents; so novelist and biographer Francine du Plessix Gray makes it appear in Them, her beautifully written, often painfully and bravely honest memoir…. She bestows…the light and warmth of her patient, unflagging attention and the grace and penetration of her words.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Gray’s way with words, her insight into the human condition and her almost eerie sense of objectivity about her upbringing have converged to create an enthralling story of the primal bond between a child and her parents. And what parents—the Libermans are two of the most fascinating characters you’ll ever encounter in the pages of a memoir, or for that matter, any book.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “[An] expansive, compelling book…This formidable memoir…is an elegant act of literary commemoration and conciliation…. Here is a daughter’s unflinching account of her parents’ and her own survival.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Them is blessed with the memoir’s equivalent of good bones: epic scope and historic scale…. But the tale is in the telling, and Gray’s acumen, honesty, and elegant prose…are equal to the task of portraying her exceptionally complicated parents, while her exhaustive research and uncluttered perspective allow her to illuminate their relationship to their times in a way most memoirists cannot…. An excellent book.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “An exquisite memoir…Gray has written that rare memoir never sunk by indulgence…. We, as readers, are indeed lucky to devour such a gift.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “Them is the book that Francine du Plessix Gray was born to write…. This brilliant and moving memoir [is written with] honesty and rigor…a compelling and fascinating book.”

  —The New York Sun

  “Them is like Star magazine for the literary set. Jam-packed with juicy gossip…it is guilty pleasure without the guilt…probing, sometimes heartbreaking.”

  —The Houston Chronicle

  “[A] complex and rewarding family memoir…more addictive than any Vanity Fair exclusive. Gray is such a fine writer, her family story reads like a novel.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A genre-bending book, part memoir, part biography, part elegy and part lyrical magic…Within its sweeping scope are cameos so unforgettable, language so transcendent, that the book achieves the rare feat of offering something for everyone.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Distinguished journalist, novelist and biographer du Plessix Gray turns her descriptive and analytic powers to the legendary lives of her glamorous, Russian-born mother and stepfather…. Famous names and juicy stories, served up with literary elegance.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Du Plessix Gray [is] a writer of scintillating style and resonant substance…An enthralling storyteller and incisive interpreter of the human psyche…du Plessix Gray’s penetrating and unforgettable memoir of a peerless family reads like a great epic novel.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “[A] fascinating book.”

  —Washington Monthly

  “The story that Francine du Plessix tells in this…family history cum biography cum memoir is exceedingly interesting, indeed at times startlingly so.”

  —The Washington Post

  “A rich pastry of a book, stuffed with information on the immigrant experience, parent-child relations, social climbing, the fashion, retailing, and publishing industries, and the art world.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THEM

  Francine du Plessix Gray is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction including Simone Weil; At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life; Rage and Fire; Lovers and Tyrants; and Soviet Women. She lives in Connecticut.

  Them

  A Memoir of Parents

  Francine du Plessix Gray

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2005

  Published in Penguin Books 2006

  Copyright © Francine du Plessix Gray, 2005

  All rights reserved

  Portions of this book first appeared in different form in The American Scholar and The New Yorker.

  Back matter constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Gray, Francine du Plessix.

  Them: a memoir of parents / Francine du Plessix Gray.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-2136-5

  1. Iakovleva, Tatiana, 1906–1991. 2. Liberman, Alexander, 1912–1999.

  3. Immigrants—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 4. Russians—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 5. Women fashion designers—New York—Biography.

  7. Publishers and publishing—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 8. Sculptors—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 9. New York (N.Y.)—Biography. I. Title.

  CT275.II5G73 2005

  974.7'I0049I7I'00922—dc22

  [B]

  2004065944

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal
and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  To Them

  With love and longing

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Introduction

  A Note on Transliteration

  PART ONE: THE OLD WORLD

  ONE Tatiana

  TWO Uncle Sasha

  THREE Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky

  FOUR The Mayakovsky Legacy

  FIVE Alex and His Father

  SIX Alex and His Mother

  SEVEN Alex and His Women

  EIGHT Tatiana and Bertrand

  NINE 1939–1940

  TEN The Debacle

  ELEVEN Leaving All Behind

  PART TWO: THE NEW WORLD

  TWELVE Rochester, New York

  THIRTEEN The Authentic Journal of Society, Fashion, and the Ceremonial Side of Life

  FOURTEEN In the East Seventies

  FIFTEEN Saks Fifth Avenue and Condé Nast

  SIXTEEN Our Home I

  SEVENTEEN Our Home II

  EIGHTEEN Remaining in Fashion

  NINETEEN The Artist in His Studios

  TWENTY Tatiana’s Decline

  TWENTY-ONE Tatiana’s Last

  TWENTY-TWO After Tatiana

  TWENTY-THREE Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  Tatiana in her heyday in the mid-1950s

  Tatiana’s maternal grandfather, Nikolai Sergeevich Aistov, late 1870s

  The Iacovleff children with their parents, early 1890s

  Tatiana and Ludmila with their father, 1915

  Tatiana’s mother, Lyubov Nikolaevna Aistova, 1904

  Tatiana with her grandmother, Babushka, 1925

  Tatiana’s aunt Alexandra Yakovleva, late 1920s

  Alexandre Iacovleff (Uncle Sasha), mid-1920s

  Uncle Sasha and Anna Pavlova

  Alexandre Iacovleff, mid-1920s

  Alexandre Iacovleff’s portrait of Haile Selassie, 1928

  Alexandre Iacovleff’s portrait of a Tibetan lama, 1932

  Alexandre Iacovleff’s portrait of his mother, 1929

  Alexandre Iacovleff’s portrait of Tatiana, 1929

  Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1928 (Alexander Rodchenko)

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Tatiana in Paris, 1929

  Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1929

  Tatiana and Bertrand du Plessix, 1929

  Alexander Liberman, 1960 (Irving Penn)

  Alexander Liberman’s father, Semyon Liberman, late 1920s

  Alexander Liberman’s mother, Henriette Pascar, mid-1920s

  Alex with his father, 1913

  Alexandre Lieberman in Paris, age nineteen

  Alex’s cover design for Vu, March 1934

  Alex’s cover design for Vu, April 1934

  Alex’s photograph of Hilda Sturm, 1937

  Alex’s portrait of Hilda Sturm

  Alexander Liberman, self-portrait, 1938

  Alex’s photograph of Liuba Krasin, 1938

  Tatiana at Alex’s house in 1938

  Tatiana and Bertrand du Plessix, 1930

  Bertrand du Plessix, 1930

  Tatiana and Francine, 1931

  Tatiana, early 1930s

  Tatiana in 1940

  Hélène Dessoffy and Hans (“Spatz”) von Dincklege

  Bertrand du Plessix and Francine, 1939

  Tatiana and Bertrand, mid-1930s

  Bertrand du Plessix, 1939

  Alex’s first photograph of Francine, 1940

  Francine picking grapes, 1940

  Tatiana, Alex, and Francine, departing for the United States, 1941

  Alexei Iacovleff, ca. 1900

  Tatiana and Francine arriving in the United States, 1941

  Tatiana’s family in Rochester, New York, 1941

  Tatiana, Alex, and Francine, 1941

  Alex’s portrait of his father, 1942

  Alex at a Vogue party, 1943

  Alex’s first cover design for Vogue, Spring 1941 (Horst P. Horst)

  Tatiana and Salvador Dalí, late 1940s

  Alex, 1941

  Tatiana and Francine, 1941

  Tatiana, publicity shot, early 1940s

  Tatiana in her Saks Fifth Avenue workroom, 1948 (Constantin Joffe)

  Vogue cover with Tatiana hats, April 1945 (John Rawlings)

  Country lunch in France, early 1950

  The family in the house on Seventieth Street

  Mabel Moses

  The living room at Seventieth Street, late 1950

  East wall of the library at Seventieth Street, mid-1950s

  Tatiana at home, early 1940s (Erwin Blumenfeld)

  Tatiana and Francine, 1944

  Alex, Tatiana, and Francine, February 1948 (Irving Penn)

  Iva S. Patcevitch 349 Tatiana and Alex, 1946

  Tatiana and Alex on the terrace of our summer house

  Nada and Francine, 1946

  Marlene Dietrich, 1948

  Thaddeus and Luke Gray, 1963

  Tatiana and Thaddeus, summer 1960

  Alex’s “Yellow Boy,” 1938

  Alexander Liberman, “Santa Maria della Salute,” 1948

  “Two Circles,” Guggenheim exhibition, 1954

  Giacometti in his studio

  Tatiana and Iva Patcevitch, mid-1950s

  Alex painting his “Volcano” series, late 1970s (Dr. William Cahan)

  Family photograph, March 1960 (Irving Penn)

  House and Garden cover, featuring the Liberman home in Warren, Connecticut (David Massey)

  Gennady Smakov, 1984

  Tatiana and her grandsons, Luke and Thaddeus, late 1970s

  Alex and Si Newhouse, early 1990s (Crosby Coughlin)

  Alex’s Adam, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

  Tatiana’s last Christmas, 1990

  Alex and Tatiana, late 1980s (Dominique Nabokov)

  Tatiana Yakovleva du Plessix Liberman, c. 1960 (Irving Penn)

  Alex’s portrait of Melinda
Pechangco, 1992

  Alex and Melinda at home in Miami, Vanity Fair, November 1993 (Annie Leibovitz)

  Alex and Melinda, late 1990s

  Alex on his eighty-fifth birthday, September 1997

  Alex in Warren, Connecticut, 1977 (Irving Penn)

  Introduction

  I have an extremely fertile dream life, and a decade ago, upon the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death, I had a powerful dream about her. It went this way:

  I am living quietly alone, in a simple country house that is set on a hill overlooking a valley, with a view of another hill of equal height to mine. Suddenly, a message arrives from Mother saying that she wishes me to come immediately to live with her on the opposite hill, which is called “Atlanta.” (Oh, clever subconscious! Change the “l” in Atlanta to an “i” and you get the anagram of my mother’s name, Tatiana.) Mother’s message annoys and riles me, I adamantly resist her command, I send her back the following message: “I’m very happy on my hill, I do not wish to go live with you on your hill, I shall stay where I am!”

  Whereupon Mother appears at the threshold of my house, joining me on my own hill. She is the radical opposite of the tall, imperious, flashy mother I knew in real life. She is a very tiny, meek, sweetly smiling old lady dressed in black, wearing a timid little black hat with a dotted veil. And as the dream ends, Mother turns into the happiest old lady I’ve ever seen, she just stands there by the door of my house, declining to enter but smiling merrily at me and waving and blowing me kisses, and I smile and wave and blow kisses back, and there is an aura of serenity, of mutual approval, of tender understanding between us far greater than any we ever shared in real life.

  Upon waking from that dream in 1995, I knew exactly what it was telling me: it was time to have a conversation with my mother, the kind of dialogue that many of us can share with our parents only through the act of writing, the kind of conversation I could never have had with her when she was alive. For my flamboyant Russian-born mother—who was one of the foremost fashion icons of her generation, whose life had to do with the art of putting on a spectacular show and of casting her spell on as many people as possible—was particularly averse to conversation. Tatiana Yakovleva du Plessix Liberman announced rather than discussed, proclaimed rather than communicated, dictated rather than conversed. Moreover, the violent historical upheavals she had survived—the Russian Revolution, World War II—had left psychic wounds that she would never expose to anyone, and that she attempted to cloak in silence. And as I wrote my first nonfiction portrait of her—“Growing Up Fashionable,” which was published in The New Yorker and is now diffused throughout several passages of this book—I realized why so many writers have turned to the family memoir and seen it as an essential part of their oeuvre: whether we are Colette, Vladimir Nabokov, Maya Angelou, or Harold Nicolson, the process of piercing our parents’ silence, of unraveling the webs of deceits that they spun about their true selves, and often ours, is not only a way of bringing our beloved dead back to life: it can also offer us a greater measure of retrospective clarity, of self-knowledge, than any other literary form.