Waving her good arm excitedly in greeting, she instructed me carefully how to park my car. I say her 'good' arm because a few weeks ago Sara had had a bad fall and damaged her shoulder. She has not been able to work since then. To one who had begun to draw before she was five, and who had been at it continuously since then, the interruption has not been taken kindly. But especially now. Gesto Haberie, who runs the gallery at St. Augustine, has just called, asking for an exhibition during the summer.

Her family had come from Moscow just before the First World War, searching for a better life in England. There were nine of them, including two children. When Sarah was born, two years later, there were nine, all living in the same flat in North London. In charge was her goldsmith, watch making Grandfather, a treasured sample of whose work she showed to me. It was a marvel of golden miniaturization. But it was Sarah's young uncle, Boris, whose artistic influence was the most potent.

Boris Luban was a tremendously gifted portraitist and, before he left for the States, he filled their place not only with his own compelling creations, but with splendid copies of the works of the Masters. Sarah was surrounded by pictures, and the talk of painting, as early as she can remember. She was not only surrounded by them, but even before she was five, she was creating them. The whole household knew that Sarah was a talented child, and the school system knew it, too. She won a scholarship to a special high school where a special teacher, a Nan Youngman, widely known and with enormous prestige in the London art world, saw to it that Sarah was admitted to one of London's great art institutions, Chelsea. Sarah never looked back. She taught she painted; art was, and still is, her whole life.

Ibiza entered that life about 1961. Her first words after arriving were, "I can paint here!"

You should know that in those days the island had become a powerful magnet for artists and for creative people in general. There was virtually no tourism, as we know it today. Certainly, no mass tourism. The island's light was magical. Artists were enraptured with it. The Mediterranean sun seduced the most impassive of them. There was the matter of the cost of living. In those days Ibiza was - if you can make yourself believe it - one of the least expensive places in which to live in all of Europe. There was the permissiveness of the social order on the island. People lived free lives in Ibiza. They mostly still do, but in those days that freedom was a peaceful, laid-back, innocent kind of free living, the quality of which was so endearing that no sensitive person could resist its charm. And finally, there was the ineffable beauty of the island itself. Ibiza was blessed by beauty, kissed by beauty, born to beauty. The beaches had not been blighted. The roads had not been built. The main traffic alongside the Montesol was mule and wagon. There were just four policemen, who wore white gloves on duty. Ibiza was a dream. Like many of us in her generation, Sarah Nechamkin fell in love with that dream.

She had heard about the island from good friends who insisted that her eye would be cherished by the light, that her pocketbook would be refreshed by the exchange rate, that her love life would be graced by a prince, and, most importantly, that the landscape, which had become her painterly subject matter supreme, would prove irresistible. In all these prognostications they were proved right. Sarah settled in and soon had an exhibition in Ibiza's leading, most prestigious gallery, up in the Old Town, owned by a legendary Ibiza figure, Ivan Spence.

Now this was a somewhat exceptional matter. Spence - a giant of a man both in physical stature and in artistic principle - had been showing only avant garde painters, almost entirely abstract works. He was only in spitting relationship with landscape painting. And yet, despite the unthinkable, he willingly accepted the landscape paintings of Sarah Nachamkin! Something new was in the art world's air. It had happened like this.

In those happy days Sarah's expat circle included a veritable whirl wind of an English lady who was universally known as Little Mimi. (There was a Big Mimi, too, who looked after everybody's children. Little Mimi looked after everybody!) Now Little Mimi had a good look at Sarah's paintings and said straight out, loud and clear, "You should show these to Ivan....or I will!" And so it was that Ivan Spence saw Sarah's landscapes - done, most unusually, in extempera, a Medieval and vastly superior way of paint-making than conventional methods - and was so taken with them that she had not one, but three, highly successful exhibitions during the next few years.

There was at this time, too, a local bar, patronised it should be said, largely by the locals, who slowly became Sarah's alternative circle. The bar was called La Parra. It was owned by a woman so vast that she was not known to move on her own, and so wise that people flocked to her for advice about their problems. Her name was Catalina, of course, and she always sat like a Buddha in one corner of the premises overlooking patrons, barmen and Pepe Escudera, her superb guitarist. Soon Sarah had become a regular at La Parra. And it was there that she met another Pepe, Pepe Ballesteros. He had become the only waiter that Catalina could trust. It was not long before love blossomed in La Parra, and Sarah and Pepe are still spending their days together on the island they still love. Would that all romantic Ibiza stories had happy endings like this one!

It is only left to say that in time the themes of interiors and of buildings began to impinge on Sarah's landscape preoccupation, and that that emphasis can be seen in many of the paintings shown below. Paul Klee, it would seem, has had much to do with that.

In parting, I'm sure we can all hope for a swift recovery for Sarah's injury and wish her well for all her years to come.

Individual Exhibitions

1961, 1963, 1964 & 1967
Portmeirion, Wales, UK

1968
Sociedad Ebusus, Ibiza

1969, 1971 & 1973
Galeria Ivan Spence, Ibiza

1973
Portmeirion, Wales, UK

1974
Galeria Bolotin, California, USA

1980 & 1981
Galeria Maloney, Ibiza

1982, 1983 & 1986
Galeria Skyros, Ibiza

1990 & 1993
Sa Nostra, Ibiza

1996
Addison-Ross Gallery, London, UK

1999 & 2001
Casino de Ibiza

2000 Galeria Glyn & Webber, Wales, UK

Collective Exhibitions

1949
Suffolk, Galleries, London, UK London Group

1952
Leicester Galleries, London, UK

Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

1953
Yorkshire, UK

1970
Día de la Provincia, Ibiza

1971
XI Salon de Agosto de Ibiza Medalla de Bronce

1972
Exposicion Internacional, Ibiza

1973
Ibizart, 73 Galeria J. Barnes Palma de Mallorca

1994
Broughton House, Cambridge, UK

1997
Pintores de los '60, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Ibiza

Permanent Collections

Department of Education, Yorkshire, UK

Tate Gallery, London, UK

Permanent Collections

Spain
England
Sweden
Belgium
Italy
Germany
USA
India
Wales

All Pictures Courtesy of Sarah Nechamkin

Harold Liebow

haroldliebow@ibizahistoryculture.com