Olby Olga

About

Olga Olby, born Hrschanovskaia in Chișinău in 1900, was a remarkable Russian-born painter whose artistic career was marked by perseverance and adaptation. After graduating in 1917 and becoming a Romanian citizen in 1918, she studied under the guidance of painter Shneer Kogan. Facing difficulties in obtaining a visa for France, Olga moved to Germany, to Hellerau and then to Berlin, where she attended applied arts courses. In 1924, she managed to obtain a visa for France and settled in Paris, then in Oyonnax, where she married Edouard Beaslay and obtained French citizenship. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Olga developed a significant presence in the Parisian art scene under the name Olga Beasley, exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants from 1926. She had prestigious solo exhibitions, including at the Bernheim Frères Gallery in 1930 and the Worms Gallery in 1938, when she adopted the final pseudonym Olga Olby. Her artistic training was influenced by the modernism of the period, attending courses at Grande Chaumière in André Lhote's studio, which brought her Cubist knowledge, which she balanced with explorations in Impressionism and Fauvism. After her divorce from Beaslay, Olga married Doctor Yves Dommartin and moved to Nièvre, in the commune of Sauvigny-les-Bois, where she continued to create and exhibit. During this period, she also created frescoes in the church of Saing-Léger-de-Vignoux. In 1973, the couple settled in Larmor-Baden in Brittany, where she lived until her death in 1990. Her work has been preserved in French private collections and local institutions, and a commemorative exhibition dedicated to the centenary of her birth was organized in 2000 by the Association of Artists of Decize.