Nadia Leger is an artist, a representative of the avant-garde of the early twentieth century, as well as a woman with an extraordinary destiny. You can easily make films in the adventure genre about the life of Nadia Leger. However, today her biography could well be published as a success story.



So, Nadia Lezhe (nee Khodasevich) was born in the Belarusian village of Osetishche, now it is the territory of the Vitebsk region, and in 1904, when the future artist was born, it was the Vitebsk province of the Russian Empire.


The family was a poor peasant family, like all families in those days with many children. The family had 9 children. The life of the Khodasevich family was further complicated by the First World War, which began in 1914. The hostilities took place on the territory of Belarus, Nadia's father went to the front ... And, perhaps, if not for the 1917 revolution, Nadia Khodasevich's chances become an artist would be zero.



The first story - an article in the magazine

Nadya Khodasevich has been drawing since childhood. Neither her parents nor neighbors could understand such a hobby of the village girl. Nadia Leger herself, already a famous Parisian artist, recalled that she was always attracted to color. Green color of wet grass, blue sky, reflected in puddles - all this she tried to convey in her first sketches. Plus the faces of familiar people. These two themes - color and portraits - will be present in Nadia Leger's paintings throughout her life.



In search of a better life, the Khodasevich family moved to the city of Belev (now it is a city in the Tula region of Russia). And in this city, an already matured girl came across a magazine with an article on French painting. Nadya Khodasevich tore the article out of the magazine and always carried it with her. So her dream was born - to be an artist in Paris.



In 1919, Nadya Khodasevich left her family, which never accepted her desire to become an artist at any cost, and left for Smolensk. It was not by chance that the girl was in Smolensk, she learned that the State Free Workshops - "Svomas" had opened in this city. A branch of Vitebsk UNOVIS, an association of avant-garde artists created by Kazimir Malevich, who lived and worked in Vitebsk in those years, also worked in these workshops.



Both in Smolensk and in Vitebsk in the very air in those years there were ideas of a revolutionary change in the world through art and a revolution in art itself. Malevich's ideas and works also influenced the work of Nadia Leger - geometric shapes and color - all this will invariably be present in the works of Nadia Leger.

Life in Smolensk was not easy; in addition to her studies, Nadya had to work as a nanny to feed herself.



And soon Kazimir Malevich's views on art disappointed Nadia Khodasevich. A fifteen-year-old girl who dreamed of painting, Paris, high art, Malevich's ideas about the utilitarian function of art were received with hostility. And Nadya decided to go - to go to Paris.



The second story - Warsaw and fashionable hats

Nadya Khodasevich arrived in Warsaw in the same way as in Smolensk - penniless. For her, Warsaw was an intermediate stop between Smolensk and Paris, but in the end, Nadya Khodasevich will spend much more time in Warsaw than she had planned.

Nadya Khodasevich entered the Warsaw Academy of Arts without exams. I found housing at the monastery. And she began to earn money as a milliner - to sew fashionable in those days hats.

Hats from Nadia Leger

She didn’t know how to sew hats and therefore went for a trick. Nadya walked around all the Warsaw hat-makers, and asked each of them to teach her to do some little work, since she can do everything else, but she lacks this little thing. As a result, she learned how to sew hats. Probably, she could make an excellent milliner, since Nadia had a lot of clients and they liked her hats, but her dream was completely different - to become an artist.



Also in Warsaw, Nadia Leger married her classmate Stanislav Grabowski. Together with her husband, she will leave for Paris, not knowing the language, but already with at least some amount of money. They will have a daughter in Paris. But the marriage won't last long.

Wedding and Paris

In Paris, Nadya and Stanislav fled from Stanislav's parents, wealthy people who sharply opposed the village girl as their daughter-in-law. And already in Paris, Stanislav will begin to envy Nadia. Since Nadya Khodasevich, in his opinion, turned out to be a more talented artist than he was. Two artists in the same family could not get along.



In Paris, Nadya Khodasevich completed an internship at the Academy of Contemporary Art, headed by the French artist Fernand Léger. But Nadia Khodasevich will become Fernand Leger's wife much later - after World War II, in 1952.

In the pre-war years, Nadya Khodasevich tried to settle in Paris - she sells her paintings on the street, draws to order, and even publishes a magazine - the French-Polish avant-garde magazine L'Art Contemporain - Sztuka Wsp ?? czesna.



The third story - a partisan

And so the Second World War begins. Paris is occupied by German troops. And Nadya Khodasevich becomes a member of the French Resistance.

During World War II, Nadya Khodasevich took part in underground work in occupied Paris. And she even had to run away from surveillance and change her appearance. This was the only period in the artist's life when she changed her hairstyle. For some time, Nadya Khodasevich wore a short haircut and white hair, painted her lips with bright red lipstick. And it was a very unusual image for her. After all, as Nadia Leger recalled, cutting her long braid of dark hair was a tragic event for her. The name of the underground Nadia in those years was Georgette Paino.



As a result, Nadya Khodasevich had to leave Paris, but in the French provinces she continued to participate in the Resistance Movement - she went from village to village, painted portraits for local residents, and at the same time passed information from some underground workers to others.





Happy end

As a result, Nadya Khodasevich, as she wanted, became a Parisian artist, married the French artist Fernand Léger, was familiar with Pablo Picasso and was friends with Ekaterina Furtseva, the Minister of Culture of the USSR.


By the way, in the 1960s, Nadia Leger actively participated in the cultural life of the Soviet Union - she brought exhibitions of French artists, supported actors from the USSR at international film festivals, donated a number of her mosaics to the USSR. By the way, for some reason, the mosaics by Nadia Leger ended up in the city of Dubna, Moscow Region, although they were originally supposed to be on the territory of the artist's homeland - the BSSR.



Nadia Leger died in November 1982.



Illustrations for the article - photographs from the book by L. Dubenkskaya "Nadia Leger Tells"