Suzannes

In 1934 a sharp-eyed scout for Leicester Galleries wandered into the Galeries Zak in Paris and saw six pictures by a young German girl, just purchased by Mme Zak. Painted in monotones of grey, tan and pink, in a style heavily reminiscent of Marie Laurencin and spiced with Degas and Renoir, were pictures in a musicomedy adaptation of 1900 costumes: drinking at cafes, riding on merry-go-rounds, many another simplified scene. Almost immediately the artist, 26-year-old, blonde Suzanne Eisendieck, became a ward of the Leicester Galleries, and a story straight out of La Vie de Boheme turned toward a happy ending.

Suzanne Eisendieck was born in Danzig of Polish parents. Her father was a lumber dealer. For two years she studied in Berlin, then moved on to Paris with exactly 300 francs in her thin purse. She got a Montparnasse garret so small that she had to lean halfway out of the window to paint at all. Already she had developed a style. She wanted to paint the mythical world of 1900 (eight years before she was born), when ladies wore feather boas and bright feathers in their hats, when gentlemen had whiskers and drank champagne. Because she was much prettier than any model she could afford, she painted herself.

Suzanne Eisendieck's genteel penury was brought to the attention of Dietz Edzard, a young artist with an ingratiating manner and amiable eyes. Artists Edzard and Eisendieck soon became the best of friends, began to paint so much alike that laymen now have some difficulty in telling their work apart. He it was who interested Mme Zak in his friend's paintings, saw her proudly through a typical Leicester Galleries opening last June, attended by everybody from hatchet-faced Lady Oxford to the Baroness d'Erlanger and Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. All the Eisendieck pictures were sold within a week.

Last week Manhattan critics and socialites could see, at the Marie Harriman Gallery, Suzanne & Friend (always in 1900 costumes) boating sentimentally on the Seine; Suzanne, as a barmaid, serving Friend, as a silk-hatted rounder; Suzanne & Friend as a couple of spangled circus riders; Suzanne crossing the Place de la Concorde in a very becoming grey veil; Suzanne as a ballet dancer; Suzanne in a striped jacket (see cut); Suzanne as two ballet dancers, peeking through the curtain.

Red stars, marking sales, settled like flies on the frames. The adjective most frequently heard at the opening was "Adorable!"

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