Peter Max, a 74-year-old renowned artist
in the United States, is searching for a Shanghai "nanny" who took care
of him and taught him to draw pictures when he took shelter as a Jewish
refugee in the city some 65 years ago.
"When I was three years old, a
nine-year-old young girl came to my home in Shanghai as she was hired by
my mother to be my babysitter," said Max from New York during a video
conference held yesterday at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum.
"My nanny was only six years older than
me, and I always treated her as a sister. I still remember how she held
my hands, drawing circles and circles on papers to teach me to draw
pictures," said Max.
The little girl had the techniques to teach him because her father was a painter, Max added.
Max was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1938
and was taken by his family to Shanghai to take shelter as refugees
from the Nazis two years later. Max left Shanghai in 1949, but he has
never forgotten the days he spent with his little nanny.
Max recalled that his nanny would take
him outside to draw under the sun and draw the sky full of stars at
night, which made him a "good artist" since he was a very young boy.
The nanny taught him to use multiple
colors to draw the sun, the sky and the moon, which helped him grow into
a world-famous artist noted for using bold and harmonious infusion of
color, particularly as a pop artist in the 1960s.
The Shanghai girl would throw away the
paintings after the boy finished and ask him to draw another one so he
could develop his skills, Max recalled.
"But unfortunately I can't find even one
of her pictures in the albums and I didn't know her name," said Max. "I
always called her 'Umba' but I don't know whether it was her real name
or just a nickname. If she is still alive, she should be over 80."
He said he used to live on "Tangshan
Road" in Shanghai, a road on which an Indian temple and a Chinese temple
were located on the two sides.
Officials with the Shanghai Jewish
Refugees Museum said they would help the artist try to find his nanny.
They are starting to look for a woman called Weng Bo on Zhoushan Road,
and Max said he would visit Shanghai in October to look for his nanny
and hold an art exhibition.
Max was among 30,000 Jewish refugees who
fled to the city from their homelands from 1933-1941. About 18,000 of
them settled in the "designated area for stateless refugees" in the
city's Tilanqiao area in Hongkou District to live with local residents.
Dubbed a cultural icon in the US, Max
has painted many portraits for celebrities in music, sports and
politics. In the conference, he displayed portraits for US President
Barack Obama.
SOURCE: Shanghai Daily, April 20, 2012
Other images (the Max Collector files):
