A woman of incredible beauty and charm, a model and model, art critic and organizer of her own gallery, singer and actress, philanthropist and producer - all this is Dina Verny, nee Aybinder, muse of the French artist and sculptor Aristide Maillol. And besides, Dina Verny is a member of the French resistance, who saved several hundred lives from death in fascist camps and dungeons.
Childhood and youth
Dina Yakovlevna Aybinder - Jewish by birth - was born in the former Romanian Bessarabia, in the city of Chisinau on January 25, 1919. The time and place of birth were very turbulent: wars and revolutions, Jewish pogroms - all this made the Aybinder family look for opportunities to emigrate. In 1925 they moved to Paris, where Dina's father Yakov Aybinder, a pianist by profession, got a job as a pianist in a cinema. By the way, many Aybinder were musicians - pianists, violinists, and Dina's own aunt was an opera singer. The girl herself was very fond of singing, had a clear, deep voice, knew many Odessa songs, and later learned French. The Aybinder family was Russian-speaking.
In Paris, Dina was educated at the Lyceum, and upon graduation she became a student at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Paris at the Sorbonne. By the age of 15, the girl turned into a bright beauty with a stunning figure, luxurious long and dark hair, as well as a lively, cheerful character and an active lifestyle.
She managed to do everything: to study, to play novels, to sing "thieves" songs in Russian restaurants, arousing admiration among the audience. During her university years, Dina joined the movement of naturists - people who advocate freedom and emancipation of the naked body. Therefore, it was not difficult for her, let alone embarrassment, to become a model for the great master.
Meeting with Aristide Mayol
15-year-old Dina Aybinder was introduced to Aristide Mayol by Jean-Claude Dondel, the architect and acquaintance of Jacob Aybinder. Mayol was then 73 years old, he was already a famous sculptor and artist with a worldwide reputation, and for 30 years he had been married to Clotilde Mayol.
The girl impressed the elderly Maillol so much that he immediately invited her to pose for paintings, and later for sculptures. Dina began to visit Mayol at his workshop in the suburbs of Paris. At first, such creative meetings were infrequent - only on weekends. The artist painted the girl, paying her 10 francs for every hour, and she, unable to restrain her temperament and sit still, began to sing, then read, then do her homework. Mayol even built a special book stand for her, and that is why in many of the artist's works of those years, Dina is depicted with her head lowered and a focused gaze.
Gradually, the relationship between young Dina and the elderly Aristide became deeper: the girl became the artist's muse, awakened in him a new powerful impulse to creativity. In turn, he recognized in his muse a bright personality endowed with artistic taste and extraordinary intelligence. Mayol taught Dinah to appreciate and understand art, put knowledge and emotions into her, in fact, he became her teacher and mentor. A deep spiritual connection arose between two seemingly completely different people, which lasted for 10 years.
Already a student and at the same time a naturist, Dina herself invited Aristide to pose nude, which caused a new surge of creative energy in the artist and sculptor. He captured Dina's luxurious body both in paintings and in sculptures - bronze, marble. Most famous museums in the world have works by Maillol depicting Dina Aybinder. Moreover, all the works had very unusual names: "Air", "River", "Mountain", "Harmony", etc. By the way, Dina posed not only for Mayol, but also for other masters, including Pierre Monnard, Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy and others.
Last name Verney
Dina was a very flirtatious and loving girl. In her student years, she fell in love and in 1938 married a student and future cameraman Sasha Verny, an emigrant from Odessa, Alexander Vernikov. The first and last names were abbreviated in the French manner, with emphasis on the last syllables. Dina and Sasha were together for only two years, during which time Sasha shot his wife in two films (one of them is "Height").
The husband was very jealous of his wife for the elderly Mayol, and he was indignant not so much that Dina posed naked, as with the emotional and spiritual connection that was between the master and his model. Maillol was also exposed to scenes of jealousy from his wife Clotilde, but she had to come to terms with the constant presence of Dina Verney in their lives after Aristide threatened to deprive both Clotilde and their overage son Lucienne.
The marriage of the Verny spouses broke up with the outbreak of World War II, when Mayol persuaded Dinah to leave with him away from the fascist regime to his summer residence in the town of Bonuls in the South of France, near the Spanish border. Sasha stayed in Paris, took part in the French Resistance. From marriage with her first spouse, Dina had only his last name for life. Sasha Verni later became a famous cameraman, directed such films as Hiroshima, My Love, Day Beauty, and others.
The Second World War
In Bonyuls, Dina settled not in Mayol's house - local customs did not allow this - but nearby in a farmhouse. Every day Dina and Aristide went to the mountains, found picturesque landscapes and enjoyed life: Dina posed and admired nature, Mayol painted and admired Dina, they drank wine and ate fruit. Mayol showed the girl secret mountain paths that only he knew about. It was these paths, later called the "Mayol paths", that Dina Verny later ferried people fleeing from the persecution of the Nazis.
Unbeknownst to her patron, Dina joined the ranks of the Resistance, began to cooperate with the American journalist Varian Fry - the leader of the anti-fascist underground in Marseille. Dina met at the station refugees, Jews, famous figures of science and culture, persecuted by the Nazis. Her bright red dress, donated by Mayol, served as an identification mark. Under the cover of the darkness of the night, Dina Verney led the exhausted and hunted people through the "Mayol paths" across the border to Spain, where freedom awaited them. The young woman saved hundreds of lives from death, and this was undoubtedly a feat.
Dinah was tracked down by French policemen, and in the spring of 1941 she was arrested right at the station. The young woman spent two weeks in prison, but then she was released: Mayol found lawyers who proved that Dina was confused with another anti-fascist woman. Soon Dina left for Paris, obsessed with the ideas of struggle. Moreover, her father remained in Paris; after the war, she learned that Yakov Aybinder had been taken to Auschwitz and killed in a gas chamber in December 1943. And at the beginning of the same year, Dina Verni was arrested for the second time on denunciation and charges of anti-fascist activities. At 24, a young woman, besides a Jewess, was imprisoned in one of the most terrible prisons of the French Gestapo - Fresnes.
Dina had to endure six months of terrible torture, beatings and interrogations. During the torture, she often lost consciousness or choked with blood, which in this case was good: she was dragged into a cell and thrown on the floor like a sack. But nevertheless, she survived, although she was sure that the end was about to come. And again Dina was saved by her patron: Aristide Mayol turned to his friend and student Arno Brecker, who was the main sculptor of Nazi Germany and was in good standing with Hitler. Brecker asked Gestapo General Müller for help, and Dina Verney was soon released.
Dina and Aristide returned to Bonyuls. And in 1944, the 83-year-old artist died in a car accident: a tree fell on his car, and he died a few days later in the hospital. Information immediately appeared that this accident was rigged by anti-fascists as revenge for Mayol's friendship with Brecker and other Nazis, but there is no reliable information about this. And Dina suddenly found out that she suddenly became the richest woman in France: Mayol bequeathed all his fortune and creative heritage to her, his beloved muse, leaving his wife and son only some insignificant real estate. Shortly before his death, the master completed his last sculpture depicting Dina - "Harmony".
Postwar years
After the death of Aristide Maillol, Dean Verny promoted the work of her patron and benefactor for the rest of her life. She developed a stormy activity and proved herself as an "iron" business woman and a highly professional art critic. In 1947, Verny became the owner of her own art gallery in Paris on rue Jacob, where works by both Aristide Maillol and other contemporary artists and sculptors - Henri Rousseau, Matisse, Dongen, Bonnard, Serge Polyakov, and many young authors were exhibited.
In addition, Dina acquired a castle and an estate near Paris, where she began to breed thoroughbred horses that enjoy world fame to this day, and also collected a unique collection of old carriages of famous masters, starting from the 17th century.
Another hobby of Dina Verney was dolls: she collected old antique doll miniatures, doll houses and all kinds of accessories. Over the years, this collection helped Dina realize her innermost dream: to open the Mayol Museum in Paris. To this end, in the 1970s, she began buying out premises in an old 17th-century mansion, and by the mid-1990s, she gradually bought out the entire building. Repairs and alterations were required, and this required a lot of money, and Dina sold some of her dolls at Sotheby's. The Aristide Maillol Museum was opened, and at the inauguration ceremony, French President François Mitterrand presented it to the founder of the Legion of Honor.
Travel to the Soviet Union
Dina Verny came to the USSR a few years after Stalin's death to find at least some relatives. Subsequently, her visits to the Union became quite frequent. She communicated with artists, poets, musicians - representatives of avant-garde art movements, Ernst Neizvestny, Mikhail Shemyakin, Oscar Rabin and many others became her friends. Dina bought paintings by Soviet artists and exhibited them in her gallery. She liked to visit the "kitchen gatherings" of creative bohemians, to communicate with dissidents, former captives of the Gulag. She helped those who needed - things, food, medicine.
At "kitchen gatherings" Dina listened and memorized author's and thieves' songs performed by bards with a guitar. The romance of these songs captured the woman so much that upon her return to Paris, she made several studio recordings, after taking professional vocal lessons. Later, the album "Songs of the Gulag" was released by Dina Verny, who by that time was already 55 years old.
The KGB became interested in Dina's activities, they began to follow her and invite her to "talks", and then they completely stopped issuing visas to enter the USSR. Only after perestroika was Dina able to resume communication with Russian artists and even arranged an exhibition of Russian painting and graphics of the early 20th century "To Other Shores" in the Mayol Museum.
Personal life
After breaking up with Sasha Verny and the death of Aristide Mayol, Dina Verny got married twice. First, her husband was the sculptor Jean Serge Lorquin, in marriage with whom Dina had two sons: in 1949 - Olivier Lorquin, in 1957 - Bertrand Lorquin. Baron Dupold became Verney's third husband, but this marriage also failed.
Dina, who devoted herself to promoting Maillol's creativity, instilled in her sons reverence and love for his work. Olivier's eldest son, a writer, later headed the Mayol Foundation, and the younger Bertrand, an art critic, made an invaluable contribution to the creation of catalogs of works by Maillol and other authors.
Dina Verney completed her earthly journey on January 20, 2009, just five days before her 90th birthday. According to her sons, just before her death, she said: "I'm going to Mayol." Dina Verney is buried in a small rural cemetery next to her estate near Paris.
