Author, artist to unveil book.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

ALBERT LEONG and Ernst Neizvestny have lived far different lives.

Leong, 66, is a University of Oregon professor emeritus of Slavic languages, born of Chinese immigrants. He lives in Pleasant Hill.

Neizvestny, 76, is considered the greatest living Russian sculptor. He lives in New York City.

On Saturday, their journeys are expected to meet in a most unlikely spot: Tsunami Books in Eugene, where Leong will discuss and sign his new book about Neizvestny that he spent 10 years writing.

This is a story about two men, friendship, life, death and honor.

It began in the early 1980s when Leong read a book called "Art and Revolution" about Neizvestny (pronounced ne-iz-VEST-ny). The professor was captivated by the man - "how tough and unbending he was, and how he survived and triumphed as an artist in the repressive Soviet system."

Neizvestny grew up in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin's reign of terror, a time when millions were marched off to death or labor camps, a time when the landscape of artistic freedom was as stark as a Siberian winter.

After he was drafted, Neizvestny was so badly wounded in World War II that his parents were notified of his death. But he recovered and, after the war, rebelled against Stalinist indoctrination. His art flew in the face of all the Soviet empire stood for; he dared, for example, to show the stark, bloodied-body side of war.

In the Soviet Union, artists were to be used by the state to bolster the totalitarian image, not to appease their own fanciful whims. Government agents threatened Neizvestny, beat him and forced him to stop sculpting.

"Sheer guts and imagination kept him alive," wrote Leong.

Finally, in 1976, the government gave Neizvestny an ultimatum: Leave the Soviet Union or be placed in a gulag, a slave-labor camp. Neizvestny left his wife, daughter, mother and sister and moved to New York, penniless.

LEONG MET Neizvestny in 1982 at a conference in California, which only deepened his appreciation for the man he'd read about. Leong, all 5-foot-4 of him, walked up to the stranger and invited him to Oregon.

Neizvestny, by then making a good living from his art, came for a week the next year. He gave three lectures to packed UO classes. Then the two hit the road in Leong's VW camper, Neizvestny speaking and Leong interpreting for him around the state. (It was, most certainly, the first time a world-renowned Soviet artist had eaten in a Pendleton diner.)

The two men's friendship deepened even as they went their separate ways. In 1989, Neizvestny returned in triumph to his country, invited back by Mikhail Gorbachev to design the first major gulag monuments to the victims of Stalinist repression.

Three years later, Leong began "Centaur," its name taken from the book's central metaphor, a half-horse, half-human creature of the ancient world.

Leong traveled the world to gather information on Neizvestny. He retired from UO in 2000 and went about finishing the book. Then, last December, came news that hit with hurricane force: Leong had advanced pancreatic cancer. He had about six months to live.

Chemotherapy and radiation might extend that time, doctors said, but were long shots. Meanwhile, their side effects would prevent Leong from editing the book's galley proofs. He agonized over the decision. Ultimately, he chose to forgo treatment. He would finish the book.

His publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, planned on releasing "Centaur" in August. But after hearing about Leong's prognosis, the publishing house pushed up the date. "This is a life's work for him," says editor Mary Carpenter of Rowman & Littlefield. "We wanted him to be able to see it."

Neizvestny invited his friend to New York for the book's release, but Leong's health precluded such a trip. So, instead, at 3 p.m. Saturday, at Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St., Leong is scheduled to read and discuss the book. And there to honor Leong with a sculpture he made especially for the author will be Ernst Neizvestny.

It may well be their last meeting. It may also be their finest.

TO THE TOP

Bob Welch's two-part series on climbing a crane at Autzen Stadium last week triggered a plea for "pictures please!" Go to www.registerguard.com/standingdocs/welch_cranepics.0623.html for six photos of Welch's "climb into less thick air."