In 1977 Russian artist Vladimir Dashevsky along with his son Gregory (also an artist) presented the Lubavitcher Rebbe with a large portrait of him for his birthday. Although I no longer recall the exact relationship, Vladimir was a cousin of mine (through my grandfather Shaya Lipson.)
Jewish Educational Media (JEM) preserved a video of this presentation in 770, below. As Gregory lifted the portrait high and showed it to the crowds, the Rebbe showed his wonderful sense of humor, signaling for them to put it down and saying “They see the original!”
The Rebbe then encouraged the Dashevskys to grow in their Yiddishkeit, explaining that they originally didn’t know how to paint, so growing in Jewish knowledge and observance is the same…
A couple of years after this presentation, we visited Vladimir in his home in Brighton Beach. His English wasn’t great, and our Russian was non-existent, but we had a nice visit. In honor of our relationship he gave us an original drawing of the Rebbe, which we of course still have:
Over the next few years, the Rebbe encouraged them to specialize in painting Jewish themes, which they did. One well-known example::
