- Linda Lusardi’s mother Lilian sadly passed away on September 10, aged 90
- Linda discovered amazing artwork from mum’s youth that she didn’t know about
Linda Lusardi has movingly told of the death of her mother – and urged people to learn as much as possible about their elderly relatives while they still have the chance.
The eighties modelling icon, 65, revealed that her mother Lilian had passed away on September 10 at the age of 90.
Linda has since been going through her mother’s belongings and found a drawer full of artwork from her youth – which led her to discover her life as an art student that Linda had never even know about.
She tearfully she told MailOnline: ‘You don’t realise it’s just so final when someone’s gone. You should always do the things you want to do with them before they go.’
Linda explained her discovery: ‘My mum was a very kind, quiet, intelligent lady who wasn’t one for self-praise at all.
‘I knew she’d done some paintings in the past but then I discovered in a bottom drawer a whole folder of her college work.
‘I didn’t even know she’d gone to art college. Some of her drawings and paintings are just amazing and I never realised what an accomplished artist she was.’
Some of the pieces are dated 1948 when her mother, who was born Lilian Glassman and grew up around north London, would have been around 16 years-old and they have been graded by her tutors.
‘Her level of talent at 16 years old was just unbelievable. It’s just weird that you’ve known someone all your life and that there’s things about them that they’ve never told you.’
But Linda doesn’t know what art school her mother attended and hopes that someone might be able to shed some light on this period of her mother’s life.
And, apart from watching programmes like Portrait Artist of the Year and Antiques Roadshow, her mother kept her love for art something of a secret.
Ms Lusardi added: ‘She used to draw pictures for my children, and they’d colour them in and would go “oh my God, that’s really good mum”.
‘Unbeknownst to me she had a talent… she met my father and had children and in those days, women gave up any kind of aspirations to do anything else, so her dreams of becoming an artist of any kind of note went out the window.’
Ms Lusardi said she wished she had found the drawer while her mother was still alive but thinks she would have dismissed her own efforts.
She said: ‘She was very critical of herself. I remember when we moved her to be near to me, she had quite a few oil paintings that she put into an auction room because she said all the proportions were wrong. She was never very happy with her work whereas us non-artists look at them and say, “oh my goodness, they’re amazing”.
Linda has discovered other treasures while going through her mother’s belongings.
She said: ‘I’ve learned a lot about her through the things she kept. She had absolutely everything I’ve ever done, every show she came to, she kept the programme and has written a little bit about her evening.’
As for the artwork, pieces have been distributed around the family and Linda is going to get some of them framed and put up around her house.
‘There are ones she’s done of her grandmother’s house and my grandmother when she was younger.
‘The house is the same, I can remember the butler’s sink and all the things that are in her paintings.’
Linda’s children did interview her father, Nello, who died in 2017, and mother about ten or fifteen years ago and her mother mentioned she had gone to college but didn’t reveal it was art college.
‘The kids wrote the questions, I think Lucy and Jack were about eight or ten then, and I’m so glad I’ve got that because they’re both gone now.