The Legend of Blue.
The life and work of André Laban—an engineer on Cousteau’s team, cinematographer, aquanaut, underwater painter, and guest of honour at the Cinema in Provence opening reception.
In anticipation of the exhibition “Cinema in Provence,” of which André Laban will be an honored participant, we have gathered some fascinating facts about this remarkable man, whose multifaceted talent left an immense mark on the science and art of the twentieth century.
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When Cousteau asked what he could do, Laban replied: “Nothing, to be honest — but I can fix all sorts of things, restore them, tinker around.” Those words marked the beginning of a two-week internship and then of an absorbing career with the Calypso team that would last twenty-one years. Aboard the ship, Laban was given creative assignments to design housings for every kind of underwater filming. The 35 mm film camera boxes he developed were used in the making of The Silent World, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar in Hollywood.
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André Laban also invented the famous underwater scooters and, together with Jean Mollard, created the portable submarine Diving Saucer. In addition, for many years he piloted single-seat submersibles, diving in them to depths of five hundred meters.
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In 1965, several bold members of Cousteau’s team spent a month in a spherical “underwater house” at a depth of one hundred meters. And it was at that depth that André Laban fell finally and irrevocably in love with the blue of the ocean. André realized that only painting could convey the full palette of blue that belongs to the underwater world. And he began to paint. From life, underwater.
The process is as wondrous and mesmerizing as the underwater world itself. The artist lays his canvas on the rocks and sand, takes out his paints and tools — and begins to create. Naturally, Laban first coats the canvas with a special solution he has prepared.
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Ekaterina Abrosimova, publisher of André Laban’s book The Attraction of Blue, says that the most heartfelt pages are the artist’s reflections on the color blue, the color of pure water: “On the Calypso I discovered a world that is not silent at all…. It is fluid, dense, and blue … It is a world of infinity, and that is why I paint my pictures underwater.”
The book The Attraction of Blue in Russian will be available at the vernissage on April 29.
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André Laban’s boundless love for the underwater depths is reflected even in the title of the film made about him, The Legend of the Color Blue — A Sketch for a Portrait of André Laban.
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At the vernissage of the Kvartira S gallery exhibition “Cinema in Provence,” André Laban will appear as an honored participant and personally present his underwater paintings to the guests.
