Guitar

“Then, there were toasts for everyone there and far. Uncle Zhora beamed with pleasure. Toward the end of the feast, he took out his guitar and sang a wonderful old romance with his wife. Everyone sang along and clapped their hands ”(from the memoirs of Valentin Vorobyov).

Almost everyone who has been to Costakis apartment and stayed up late at the hospitable table will definitely remember the guitar and romances. The owner of the house lovingly accompanied his wife Zinaida, who by nature had a wonderful mezzo-soprano. It was with the guitar that George Costakis was captured in numerous photographs. In each of his hobbies, he strove for perfection. So it was with the guitar as well - in the late 1930ies, he took guitar lessons from a famous musician and teacher Alexander Ivanov-Kramskoy. The Collection also contained several paintings depicting a guitar (one of the favorite images among European modernists): the most famous is “Guitar” by Nadezhda Udaltsova (1914).