Crocodile Gena temporarily registered in the Underground Museum: an exhibition of heroes by Leonid Shvartsman opened

The cartoonist lived for a century and several eras

A dedicated exhibition “The Multiverse of Leonid Shvartsman. How famous heroes were created.” The legendary artist and animation director lived to be 101 years old. Yuri Norshtein called him the king of the character. That’s right: Shvartsman created Cheburashka, the crocodile Gena, the Snow Queen, and a total of more than 300 animated characters.

He passed away in 2022. And Leonid Shvartsman was born in Minsk, lived there on Rakovskaya Street in the old Nemiga district. The exhibition presents his paintings from the series “Old Minsk. Memories of Childhood” (cardboard, gouache). The houses in his animation towns also come from there, from the times of distant childhood. The pioneers in the cartoon about Cheburashka march in front of a house on Rakovskaya Street, which still stands today. Shvartsman himself did not even think about Minsk when he painted the streets and buildings against which the story of Cheburashka and Gena the Crocodile unfolds. “He appeared in cartoons himself, of his own free will. From my memory,” he wrote about his hometown.

Leonid Shvartsman lived a whole century and several eras. He was born under Lenin, lived during the times of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin. During the war, he learned to be a turner, worked at the Kirov plant in Leningrad, and was evacuated to Chelyabinsk to a tank plant. After the war, he entered the art department of the All-Union Institute of Cinematography. His entire subsequent life was connected with Moscow.

I have been associated with Soyuzmultfilm for more than 50 years, starting in 1948. Schwartzman worked on “The Scarlet Flower”, “The Snow Queen”, “Golden Antelope” with director Lev Atamanov, on “Mitten”, “The Lost Granddaughter”, films about Crocodile Gena and Cheburashka with Roman Kachanov. How director Leonid Aronovich created “A Kitten Named Woof”, a cycle about monkeys – “Monkeys Forward!”, “Monkeys at the Opera”, “How the Monkeys Had Dinner”…

Colleagues called him Lelya. Apparently this is a child’s name. Yuri Norshtein did so, young people didn’t dare, only behind their backs. Leonid Aronovich retained his childhood until the end of his days, as befits a real animator.

Entering the exhibition feels like entering a grotto – stonework, a darkened, mysterious space. It displays authentic items and works of the master, as well as modern multimedia stands. Adults and children spend most of their time in front of Schwartzman’s office. He’s behind glass. There are drawings and sketches on the walls. A table, a chair… On the table there is a lamp, paints, pencils, a magnifying glass, glasses in a case, now a retro telephone with a rotating disk, a “Nicky” figurine, which was presented by colleagues in the year of his 100th anniversary, an award from the Audrey Hepburn Foundation “ Hollywood for Children” 1997… The original Crocodile Gena, who became the progenitor of the dynasty, is displayed on the shelf. Copies were made from it. Leonid Shvartsman perceived him as a man, a handsome gentleman in a white shirtfront and bow tie.

At the table there is a box with oranges, and in them is a Cheburashka from the Shvartsman collection, but not the very first and original one.

Nearby and also behind the glass is the Snow Queen, glistening with shards of “ice,” a sketch of “Gerda and the old woman who knew how to cast magic.” The classic of Japanese animation, Hayao Miyazaki, recalled how, after seeing the Soviet cartoon “The Snow Queen,” he felt a sign from above and decided to take animation seriously.

“Mittens” and its characters have their own territory. Here are sketches of “Walking with a Mitten”, “Boy with a Shepherd”, storyboards, as well as celluloid phases against the background of “Kitten Woof in the Attic Window” – frames drawn on film, with the help of which the characters come to life, move, begin to breathe.

Thanks to the video, visitors will learn how hand-drawn and puppet cartoons are created, and the difference between technologies. Leonid Shvartsman is still young there, but already venerable, creating his own multiverse.