I’m honoured to feature in today’s post an interview with musician Lorand Sarna, son of painter, illustrator and photographer Jerry-Plucer Sarna (1904-1994).
Lorand recently got in touch with me after reading a post I wrote about his father (please refer to it for further images and for a short biography) and very kindly accepted to shed some light on his father's life and career by answering my questions.
His feedback allowed me to discover some interesting details about his father's work and to find out that the beautiful model portrayed smoking in one of Jerry Plucer-Sarna's photographs was actually his wife, Lorand's mother, model Gyongyi Armstrong.
Interestingly enough, Jerry-Plucer Sarna’s death anniversary fell on Monday (he died on 3rd January 1994), so this interview seems to be a very timely tribute. Special thanks to Lorand for accepting my interview proposal.
Jerry Plucer-Sarna photographer, painter and illustrator: which aspect did you prefer of your father’s work?
Lorand Sarna: I always knew him mainly as a painter. Painting was his first love, though he considered himself a "Sunday painter". I only lived with him as a baby in New York to when he left when I was 5, so I don’t remember much of his time over there. Then I lived with him in Paris from 1978 to ‘81, in my twenties. After that I kept contact with him from Amsterdam until his death, visiting him once a year or so. He wasn’t working much then as a photographer, but, every now and then, he got a contract with a large German company. He called it selling “French chic to the Germans”. For the French he was "plus cher", that is "more expensive". He did some shoots at the time that I found fascinating, but he would never take photos at that time for pleasure, just to fulfil a contract. He didn’t consider it art; painting in his opinion was art. He loved painting as an artist and did it fairly often.
Can you provide us with some of your earliest memories of your father?
Lorand Sarna: I have very few memories of him from my early years, but I can tell you something about his life. I have one sister. My mother was a model at Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar – Gyongyi Armstrong. We lived in a big place out in Oyster Bay, Long Island. They split when he finally told her “I am an artist, you can’t expect this from me" and she replied: "Well, I am too". She was indeed a painter. My mother told me he used to be terribly chic. He never paid his bills and was 30 years older than her. He used to drive a yellow Porsche and I have this memory of sitting on his lap while he drove his Porsche. He loved gardening, he loved flowers and everything that was beautiful. He tried smoking but found it wasn’t that chic. Before moving to Paris he was a ski instructor in Austria. He went to the Berlin Art Academy. His parents were Jewish. He lost his mother in the war in Warsaw. His brother, who was in the resistance, flew to Israel after the war. I guess his father was also lost in Warsaw. My father was not at all touched by the war. He kept his Jewishness a secret, even from my mother. He whispered it to me in the hallway in ‘79. I remember my mother was amazed when I told her as she had no idea.
Though he was born in Italy, your father worked between France and the States – where did you grow up?
Lorand Sarna: He was supposedly born in Italy, though he was not sure of his birth year because of the Russian calendar. I guess he was born in Poland. His mother was Polish, she was a classical pianist from Warsaw. His father was supposedly from Rome, a tenor opera singer, a sort of a turn of the century pop star. His father was told that he shouldn’t let his fans know that he was married and had children. So Jerry and his brother were sent off to a boarding school in Germany, a sort of Rudolf Steiner School. He didn’t know his own father very well. Whenever he wanted to get his attention he would be practising I guess with his mother, that’s why he disdained musicians. He never wanted children but my mom kind of tricked him into it. He said he didn’t have fatherly feelings. When I was 18 I told my mom that I was a musician – I still am in fact – and she said "So were all of your grandparents!". I didn’t know any of that, it was one of those strange twists of life.
Did you father’s profession inspire you in your own career?
Lorand Sarna: Maybe if we lived together in my youth it might have. When I was 25 I felt a great loss not having known him and didn’t want to live my life not knowing him. So I moved to Paris not expecting to stay very long. I played on the streets and in the Metro, paid him rent – he asked a lot! – and continued my music studies at a conservatory. He thought I was a spaced out musician, a true spaced out artist. I could say that his freelance lifestyle influenced me. He was wonderful to live with and fun to have discussions with. He always had something interesting to say as he was full of life and love for it. He loved women and considered himself a Pygmalion, loving and educating young women to be models or artists. They loved him. He considered religion to be the greatest of evils. He didn’t smoke or drink or did any drugs. When I was 18 I visited him while travelling through Europe. It was a meeting between a pre-World War II European artist and a young American hippie – what a memory. He kicked me out of his life for good when I said I would not for his sake never smoke marijuana again as he was fanatically against drugs since one of his good friends had died from drugs. I remember I left the next morning, mingled with the excit
ing jazz scene in Paris for a while and then travelled to Morocco where I got stoned for 3 months. After I went back to Paris I hung out with him and his 25-year-old girlfriend for a while. They were quite interested in the hippy scene in Morocco at the time and he seemed to be more open to me. I pretty much smoked out my fascination for getting high while I was in Morocco, but he always thought that I was into drugs, though, right to his death.
As a child did you ever meet the people – artists, photographers or editors – your father worked with?
Lorand Sarna: Just my mother and her model friends. Dovima was her good friend.
Did you father use to talk at home about the world of fashion, working at famous magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and taking pictures of models? What kind of opinion did he have of this world?
Lorand Sarna: Not Much. He mentioned Carmel Snow, but nothing specific. When in Paris in the ‘80s he mentioned the lack of attention the photographers of the day gave to the use of light. He considered light to be his specialty as a photographer. He often would mention to me how ugly the people he saw on the streets were. He found it disgusting and I found it strange. I guess beauty can truly be an addiction. When he was in Paris he was busy with these new lenses someone invented that elongated the image, the model, and faded the colours. One of the photos in your previous post was made with these lenses. He was quite passionate about it but he said people weren’t buying into this style.
One of the most famous pictures he took was a photograph of Lauren Bacall: which is your favourite photograph taken by your father?
Lorand Sarna: My favourite one was a photo he made of my mom and a man smoking cigarettes. The photo got first place at the Art Directors Club in New York in a competition for best advertising photos, I think it was around 1950.
Your father also worked on advertising campaigns for clients such as Ford, Elizabeth Arden and Triumph: do you think he ever sold out or compromised doing this kind of work?
Lorand Sarna: Very few artists don’t sell out or compromise in their work. In his heart my father was a painter. In the beginning his drawings sold and he was able to escape the Holocaust and move to New York during the war with the money he had made selling them. When he realised his drawings weren't selling anymore he asked Ms Snow why she wasn’t using him any more. She explained him people wanted photos. So he said: “I’ll be back in 6 months when I have learnt photography". In his later days he tried to sell portraits to the French aristocracy but didn’t work. I asked him once why he couldn’t just be an artist and he replied: "I am not a saint!". He made beautiful paintings but would never sell them because he was too attached to them, he found them too beautiful to give them up. He put the prices too high as he wasn't willing to go through the struggles artists go through. He loved the good life, the chic life.
Do you still own any paintings, illustrations or photographs by your father and would you like to see them one day showcased in a museum or gallery dedicating an exhibition to your father?
Lorand Sarna: Most of his work is – illegally – in the possession of his old art director who used to be based in Switzerland. I’m not even sure she is still alive at the moment. I have a few paintings but not his best stuff, yet I would love to lend anything I have.
Images courtesy of Lorand Sarna.
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