Denver Sculpture Connected to A Mad Russian Monk?? - text
In my second-ever video, I showed you my favorite artworks in this area of Denver. One of the pieces I showed at the beginning but didn’t mention is this one. According to the plaque, it’s titled Infinite Energy, the artist was named Victor M. Contreras, and it was installed in 1980. [onscreen: the dedicatee on the plaque is not a public figure, as far as I can tell, which is why I don’t mention them at all.] Denver Public Art has a little more information on their website, but it’s not much. At the time, I marked the piece as one to look into, to see if there was anything interesting to talk about there. When I started that research journey, I was not expecting where it sent me. Let me show you what I found.
Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Neither the artist nor the sculpture have a wikipedia page, but that isn’t totally out of the ordinary. Searching the artist’s name brings up a handful of pages, including some more wild-sounding stories, but at this point I’m not sure which articles are talking about the same person. There’s a painter and a potter with the same name, but they don’t seem to be the same man as the sculptor. The first definite connection I found is the Storm King Art Center website, which shows another sculpture by Victor Contreras called Infinite Flight – and that’s definitely the same artist. This page even seems to quote the same thing as the Denver Public Art page – the exact same thing, oddly, even though these two pages are talking about different art pieces and neither one is citing a source. Another site has his full name, Victor Manuel Contreras, referencing the Infinite Energy sculpture, although incorrectly implying that it’s in Storm King Art Center, it seems like to me anyway, but hey, there’s that same text! I’m still not sure what the source of this quote is, and it’s unclear if it’s talking about Infinite Energy in Denver, or Infinite Flight in Mountainville, New York. These are the only three sites I can find that have that text, so maybe some of them are referencing each other? I still have no idea what the source of this quote is, but I figured out the source of the trouble I was having. With his full name to search with, I quickly confirmed what I’d been beginning to suspect; that the thing keeping me from the information I wanted on Contreras was in fact a language barrier. There are a handful of articles in Spanish about his recent passing in Cuernavaca, Mexico, several articles on his artworks, and even a few interviews. And finally the last piece: Victor Manuel Contreras does have a wikipedia page, in French. This was the first page on Contreras I found that mentioned both his sculptures, and the more crazy-sounding stories I was seeing, confirming it was indeed the same man. I’d figured as much at this point, unless it was just another Victor Manuel Contreras with the same face, age, heritage, and art style, but it’s nice to have it spelled out for sure. So let’s have a look at those titillating stories – these two salacious articles in specific: “Secrets of an Exiled Prince” from the Moscow Times, and “From Mexico, With Love: Russian art and Rasputin” from the Financial Times. These articles detail the personal relationship between the artist Contreras and the Russian Prince Felix Yusupov [onscreen: Юсу́пов], who was living in Paris when the two men met, the prince in his seventies and the artist still a teenager. Yusupov’s wife, Irina Alexandrovna, was the only biological niece of Tsar Nicolas II. The royal couple were living in Paris instead of Saint Petersburg, and it was not just because the Tsar had been violently deposed a few decades earlier. In Russia their residence had been Moika Palace, and both Moika Palace and the Prince Yusupov are now best known for being at the center of the murder of Grigori Rasputin, because the Prince planned this mythologized craziest assassination plot and carried it out in the cellar of their opulent residence. Yusupov’s memoir is the reason we have the insane story of Rasputin being unkillable. Decades later, in exile in Paris but still living lavishly, the royal couple met and befriended this young Mexican artist, and they stayed close for years. Which is why when Victor Manuel Contreras died in 2023, he had a 16th-century villa in Mexico crammed full of art like someone who robbed museums and kept all the art so that they wouldn’t get caught, except he actually owned it all, because it was given to him by Russian aristocrats.
Also, no one seems to be able to tell me how tall Infinite Energy is. It’s bothering me a little. I like to know that kind of thing.
So to start with, obviously an artist who died in 2023 was not there for the fall of the Russian aristocracy in the nineteen-teens. Yusupov was involved in Rasputin’s death when he was 29 and in St. Petersburg, and he didn’t meet Contreras until he was 71 and in Paris.
Actually, real quick, there’s a different section of Yusupov’s wikipedia page that’s interesting, another connection to Rasputin and still well before he’d met Contreras. You know the disclaimer that appears in pretty much all movies and TV that goes like, any similarity to any real persons living or dead is coincidental? That’s the result of a lawsuit between MGM and Irina Alexandrovna, Yusupov’s wife. A movie MGM made about Rasputin had a character that Alexandrovna felt was based on her in a defamatory way, and a jury agreed with her, so the disclaimer was added to future productions to ward off similar lawsuits. I briefly wondered “was she even there during the assassination?” and in checking that I found this gem off her wikipedia. Learning is fun.
But back to the link between our sculptor and a pair of dethroned royalty. I’m relying on single sources and web translations, so take this all with a grain of salt, and maybe look into it yourself, especially if you speak a language other than English, maybe you can find things I didn’t. But here’s what I’ve pieced together.
Victor Manuel was a student in Paris in 1958 when he met Countess Ksenia Sheremetyeva, who invited him to lunch with her grandparents, Prince Felix Yusupov and Princess Irina Alexandrovna. Victor Manuel was 17 at that time, and had no idea who they were, he says, he was simply basking in the royal treatment he received at their table. The young artist really hit it off with the exiled royal couple, and he lived in their home in the 16th arrondissement of Paris for the next five years. There’s some speculation about the nature of this relationship because the prince had a particular reputation; [onscreen: some places online declare he was bisexual; impossible to say of course but I don’t think he was queer, just very flamboyant and maybe a little flirtatious as his way of being charming and charismatic; he wrote about cross-dressing in his youth for fun so that’s the kind of person he was, but also I think people still assume that you can’t have one without the other, like how even today people think all drag queens are gay men] Contreras does call both the prince and the princess beautiful, and says he fell under the prince’s spell and that they “fell in love”, but he also says it was always platonic, that the relationship was like an adopted son and father, and that the couple called him “the son who fell to us from heaven”. More interestingly, he tells us that Yusupov had powers, the ability to heal or to see the future, not unlike Rasputin. Contreras’s story here is that when Yusupov met Rasputin, he also sensed Yusupov’s powers, and the two of them had a shining moment where Rasputin tried to get Yusupov to join his unholy crusade and Yusupov was repulsed by seeing these powers used for evil. That was why he had to kill Rasputin, because he could see through his wicked magic; and Yusupov asserted the same while he was alive, saying that “the revolution happened because I didn’t kill him in time to stop it”. I was a little confused by these statements, so I looked into it a bit to see if it had any basis in reality, and no it really doesn’t. It's complete magical mystical thinking, but that does make sense for this pair of dueling mystics. When asked about Rasputin’s death, Contreras said that Yusupov never talked about that night, except for once; after a dinner when everyone else had left the table. But he doesn’t elaborate further. Yusupov told the story of Rasputin’s death in his own memoir, and it was the thrilling version you’ve probably heard, where Rasputin was poisoned, shot in the heart, shot in the head, beaten, and thrown in a river, only dying of hypothermia. But his account doesn’t totally line up with historical facts, so Contreras does seem to be implying that Yusupov at some point told him some truth about the murder that was left out of Yusupov’s own telling.
As for all the artworks and artifacts that Contreras had in his villa, he was hoping to open a museum to show the collection, but that never happened, so I’m not sure what all he had. The Moscow Times talks about a pearl-encrusted robe with a worn-off sable trim, photographs, personal papers, a cobalt-blue and red chandelier that Contreras says is from the basement where Rasputin was killed, and 14 portraits of the Yusupovs, one by Ilya Repin and another by Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. The Financial Times talks about paintings, letters, documents, personal effects, the red and cobalt-blue chandelier which it says was made by Tiffany, photographs, religious icons, and it says Contreras had even more items stored in a bank. The only photos in The Moscow Times are very poorly archived, with one grainy contemporary photo of Contreras, and three older photos that are very grainy and cropped oddly, two of Contreras with his artwork, and one of a young Contreras with the Prince Yusupov. But there are no pictures of the villa or any of the items within, and there are no photos in the Financial Times article. There’s no indication as to when or how anything came to be in Mexico, and what happened to all of those pieces now that Contreras has died is also unclear to me. There are some clues – we’ll come back to that in a minute.
I was able to read web-translated versions of articles about Contreras on Mexican sites, and none of this is mentioned whatsoever. On some level I can understand why: connections to Russian royals could come off as a bad look. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sensationalize people who were real and are dead now. But also, none of these respectable articles mention what happened to all the artwork and other historical items that Contreras presumably still had in his possession, and I would really like to know what happened to all of it, and ensure it isn’t forgotten. Both of these primary sources in my native language leave off on a “we’ll see what happens” note, and I’ve had trouble figuring out what did in fact happen. It’s possible I’d have more luck if I spoke Spanish, Russian, or French, huge American L, but I still managed to find some very cool pieces to this puzzle.
The best guess I have for what happened is that all the items that were in his possession have been sold by now to museums and private collectors around the world, and that Contreras started selling pieces after there was no interest in his museum idea. We know Contreras himself wasn’t sure that his home in Cuernavaca was the right place for the museum he was imagining, and given that the Mexican sources I found talking about him are not eager to mention any of this, that’s probably correct – but I think maybe he came to realize that it was not meant to be at all. When I was researching this early last year, Yusupov’s English wikipedia page said Contreras sold some items through Coutau-Begarie in 2016, and while there's no source there, which is probably why that line has been removed now, I was able to find a few at the time. An article on artdaily.cc published in 2016 discusses the auction and some of the items that would be offered. I found a handful of webpages showing items like photographs and handwritten notes being auctioned by Coutau-Begarie or their parent company Drouot, but none of them detail where the items came from, and a majority of them are gone now, just indexed by search engines. There might be more information behind their paywall but I’m not even sure of that. At the time I found one item, a small handwritten receipt of a loan signed by Yusupov, that appeared to be available to purchase while I was looking at it, so it seems like this stuff was still moving through these auction houses. Another article on Drouot’s blog is about a sale of the Russian couple’s items in 2021, but that time being sold by their granddaughter Ksenia; they were aristocrats, I guess they had a dragon’s hoard of stuff.
That’s all I found back then, but since time had passed and I lost all my screenshots, I had to go back over everything, and this time I found a lot more about that 2016 auction. First is a blog post about the auction that I must have missed because it’s in French. It talks about the history of the items and it has an explanation for how so many of the Yusupovs’ items came to be in Mexico: they were bequeathed to Contreras after the prince and princess died, by which point he had already established himself in Mexico, so he brought them all there. This post is also special because it finally includes photos of some of the items! This photo of the prince from 1912 shows him wearing the same robe I mentioned before, and here it is in full color and without the fur trim just like the article described. There’s two other clothing pieces and a rosary, and more fancy little items. But a good chunk of these pictures are of artworks that were not inherited by or made for the Yusupovs – they were made by the Yusupovs. That artdaily article mentioned the auction containing drawings made by the prince, but I’d seen some of the smaller items, it was clear to me they were auctioning off anything that had a signature on it. Finally seeing these, though, made me realize something about the Yusupovs that I hadn’t read about – they were artists. It’s not my cup of tea but these aren’t just scribbles, they’re really good. This made the story of their meeting Contreras make so much more sense to me too, they were meeting a fellow artist.
I found a second juicy research bone too, and this time I have a better excuse for not finding it before, as it wasn’t posted to the Internet Archive until the middle of last year, when I had stopped looking for sources. Someone uploaded a flawless color scan of the entire auction catalog for the 2016 Yusupov collection. We can see, as far as I can tell, every single item that was in this huge auction: photographs, personal and household items, art and decorations, religious items, clothing, and the couple’s own artworks, with more of the grotesques by both of them, but also some impressionist paintings by the princess, and these single panel comics by the prince. The centerfold is of the prince’s robe, and in the front of the catalog, we can see the full picture of Victor Manuel Contreras and Felix Yusupov, still grainy but finally not cropped. Even without being able to read the text, this catalog is an absolute treat to flip through.
Having this full list, however, also means that I know what wasn’t in that 2016 auction. I still have yet to find any further mention of the portraits by Ilya Repin and Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky, or the red and cobalt-blue Tiffany chandelier. This [Moscow Times] says a reproduction is now in the basement of Moika Palace but the two different chandeliers that appear in color photos look like this, and they both look different to the one in this black and white photo, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s the red and blue one. I also haven’t seen anything about any documents that would change what we know about Rasputin’s death or Yusupov’s involvement. It’s possible that more items are in storage at an auction house, or in storage where Contreras left them. I only have guesses right now, and the vague hope that Contreras’s estate is being taken care of the way he wanted.
Speaking of what he wanted, while I did deliberately zoom in on a particular part of his life that I found intriguing, there’s obviously a lot more to Contreras than a sculpture in Denver and a connection to infamous Russians, and it’s also amazing. He has a lot of sculptures on display in Mexico. His most famous piece is probably either La Paloma de la Paz, or Quetzalcóatl, both in Cuernavaca, and both in the middle of roundabouts. Quetzalcóatl is four and half meters tall, or almost 15 feet, and I couldn’t find a height for La Paloma but it looks similar. Besides using the same materials as Infinite Energy, you can see the same swirling kind of shape in Quetzalcóatl, and they all share the quirk of looking worse at certain angles, which is unfortunate for the locations. I think La Paloma in particular works better in the tabletop size. Another of his famous works is an absolutely massive fountain on the Plaza Tapatia in Guadalajara called Inmolación de Quetzalcóatl. It looks strikingly immense even just from pictures, I would bet it’s unreal in person. That center spire is 25 meters tall, that is 82 feet, that’s enormous. The whole thing is so massive that there’s another piece to it nearby, la cabeza de Quetzalcóatl, which was supposed to be part of the fountain’s centerpiece but made it too heavy. Plaza Tapatia is actually a huge pedestrian bridge and the bridge couldn’t support the entire thing, so this serpent head is 45 meters away from the rest of the sculpture. I know there are a lot more but tracking them down got a little more difficult from here, and I think there’s some local history connected to the locations, but I’ve already done too much research on this one so I’ll keep it short. I found two pairs of sculptures in Chilpancingo that are much more human in theme: these two are Los monumentos a la Madre y a los Niños Héroes, and they’re at either ends of this park [Alameda Central Francisco Granados Maldonado]. I didn’t find any measurements, but I think they look similar in size to Infinite Energy. I like the very different shapes and environments, Niños is atop a plinth and looks pointy and like it’s made of strings, while Madre is amidst the foliage and looks more yonic and heavy. These two are El canto al trabajo and Proyección del hombre hacia el futuro, and I think they may have moved at some point but I found them on the outside of this building [Palacio de la Cultura Ignacio Manuel Altamirano]. Canto is 13 feet tall, and more than 51 feet wide, and apparently the figures depict agriculture, handicrafts, fishing, and mining. Proyección is the show stealer, at 72 feet high, it pokes out over the top of the building it’s attached to, and has the dramatic image of a human trying to burst into the future. Contreras has been remembered not just for his sculptures but his personality too. He was obviously a charismatic young man to have gotten acquainted with royals when he was young, and it sounds like he remained charming and friendly throughout his life. The municipal president of Cuernavaca described Contreras as a benefactor, and this local historian talks about his sense of humor, which definitely came through in the quotes I’d seen, like “My favorite topic is myself, of course!” He was very clearly well loved by his community and well remembered now that he’s gone.
There’s always details about the past that I’m going to be left wondering about, but after diving into all this history and mystery, running into language barriers and paywalls, unable to find the definitive answers I’d been hoping for, I had to pull back and remember this started because I just wanted to know more about this sculpture near me. I found out the artist lived a wild life, had some friends with even more unbelievable life stories, made some incredible artwork, and now is missed by his community. That sounds like the kind of fulfilling life I want for myself too.
