Alexandre ("Alosha") Alexeïeff and Claire Parker (A Night on Bald Mountain [1933], The Nose [1963], Pictures at an Exhibition [1972], etc.), loved to introduce themselves as "the artist and the animator," i.e., he was the one who created the images and she choreographed them.

I knew them both for the last 11 years of their life together; and although I became very close friends, I still feel it is almost impossible to know which of them did what.

Their working relationship was very much like their personal relationship: happy, loving, creative and, above all else, inextricably linked. I witnessed Alosha (a nickname based on his family name, not his first name) proposing certain movements to Claire, which she faithfully executed; and I saw her discussing (and, on that occasion, rejecting) the development of a scene he had conceived.

Discreet Yes, Shy No
In fact, she always maintained that, "Between us, he's the genius." I know that she did not say this out of either love or because she was shy. Although she loved Alosha very much, she was also very frank; and she certainly wasn't shy. (Discreet, yes; shy, no.) But Alosha's genius could not have been expressed without Claire. For it was she who allowed his creativity to lourish. Initially, in a very practical way with money, and later giving him energy, confidence and inspiration.

Claire Parker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, nearly 90 years ago, on August 31, and died in Paris on October 3, 1981. Her family was rich, prominent and cultivated, and did not discriminate against her because she was a woman.

Claire had the freedom to travel anywhere, read what she wanted and associate with who she liked. (As a teenager, her father decided to introduce her to the perils of whiskey and got drunk.) In her twenties, like many other American artists, writers and intellectuals of her generation, she left for Paris.

In Paris, she had the urge to create, but didn't know exactly what to do. Her current beau , a Mexican lawyer also living in Paris, gave her some books illustrated by a Monsieur Alexeïeff. She was immediately struck by these illustrations and promptly wrote to the publisher asking to meet the artist, so she could study with him. "I figured I would meet an old, dignified man with a white beard," Claire recalled with a giggle, "but [instead] I saw this tall, brown, handsome, aristocratic 30 year old guy. Our first lesson ended on the banks of the Seine, hand in hand; and there was never a second one."