A Study of Sacha Zaliouk

For months, I have searched for a photograph of Sacha. I found several – saturated in ink or with captions that made it hard to tell where he was standing in the photograph. I believed that the clearest picture of him I might ever find would be the shot of his side profile in Eugene Deslaw’s short film (YouTube). Sacha appears at 9:56.

I dedicated a page of this blog to the images that I’ve found (here, and which I will happily update soon) and decided I would continue to research other parts of Sacha’s life as I didn’t think I could find anything else. Then, by chance, I was searching his art in Le Sourire and came across a photograph with a very exciting caption:

Original:

Dans ce concours de modèles, Rolande Coville obtint le premier prix et fut élue Vestale de la Horde. Notre collaborateur Sacha Zaliouk, à droite, interrompt un instant ses méditations pour
saluer l’objectif

Translation:

In this modelling competition, Rolande Coville wins first prize and is elected the Vestal* of La Horde**. Our collaborator, Sacha Zaliouk, pauses his meditations to salute the objective.

This publication was issued on 20 April 1933 (source) and easily offers the clearest image of Sacha that I have seen so far.

I would like to trust the accuracy of the caption and that it is indeed Sacha, because it was a really wonderful, unexpected find – I could not believe that I found a photograph of him when I’d been searching for something entirely different! Now I’ve made it the site icon, since it seems only fair to me that Sacha is shown on a blog dedicated to his life and art!

Given La Horde is mentioned, then I am inclined to think it really is Sacha and I had such luck to find this image of him.

*Vestal – a Vestal Virgin or Vestal – relating to the Roman Goddess Vesta.

** La Horde is evidently La Horde du Montparnasse, the artistic group to which Sacha belonged and which is detailed more in his biography.