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.