OLGA KEŠELJEVIĆ BARBEZAT: INVISIBLE PARTICIPANT AND WITNESS TO AN EPOCH
Text topic: Studies
Text author: Дијана Метлић
In this paper, for the first time in national historiography, the life and
work of Olga Kešeljević Barbezat, an art historian and actress, are dealt
with in more detail. Having arrived in Paris in 1936 with the intention
to defend her PhD thesis in art history, she established relations with a
circle of Yugoslav artists: Ljubica Cuca Sokić, Ivan Tabaković, Bora
Baruh, Petar Lubarda etc. During the Second World War she married
Mark Barbezat, a young intellectual who would soon launch L’Arbalète,
the publishing house well-known for the works of Jean Genet, Antonin
Artaud, Albert Camus, Lana Leclercq, Sartre, Eluard etc. Considering
the published correspondence between Barbezat and Genet, numerous
dedications in the books owned by the Barbezat family, Olgaʼs portraits
painted by some of the most influential Serbian twentieth-century
artists, the testimonies of the successors of their families, postcards
and letters sent to painter Nedeljko Gvozdenović (kept in the Archive
of SASA in Belgrade), as well as other material traces, this paper
discusses the role of Olga Kešeljević Barbezat on the cultural scene
of France, as well as the intelectual relations she had with the Serbian
artists whose works were part of the Barbezat art collection. At the
same time, knowing that the family heritage was put up for auction in
2016, after Olga Kešeljevićʼs death in December 2015, it is important
to think about the availability of any new material and possibly existing
personal correspondence with Serbian artists that would contribute to
the results of this research in the future.