Don Quixote collection looks for a home

EL PASO-The largest personal collection of Don Quixote art in the world, owned by El Pasoan Albert Askenazi, is looking for a long-term home.

As of now, many of the 850 items in his collection are displayed in temporary exhibits at various institutions. The rest are housed in climate-controlled storage units where no one sees them.

We want to partner with a company, institution or corporation so that the pieces can be properly displayed, rotated and enjoyed by all, said Askenazi, who began collecting in 1971, when a group of friends gave him a small statue.

I always take it with me when I speak at functions or attend exhibits. It is very special to me, he said.

Now, 38 years later, the collection includes tapestries, figurines of porcelain and pottery, sculptures, records, movies, music and 180 books, 63 in different languages.

The largest statue is 80-inches tall; the smallest, carved on top of a toothpick.

For his birthday this year, Askenazi's wife Shirleen commissioned a piece by Ona Fern, who carved out a gourd and constructed inside it a scene from Man of La Mancha, a play about Quixote.

Parts of the collection have been exhibited at the State University of New York at Geneseo near Rochester, as well as in El Paso, Austin, Dallas and Juarez.

Askenazi regularly gives talks at libraries, museums, institutes and in classrooms to expand the public knowledge of the classic tale.

Don Quixote de la Mancha, written in the early 1600s by Miguel de Cervantes, spoofs stories of chivalry that were popular at the time. It recounts the adventures of a poor farmer who, obsessed with knights, sets out on his own impossible journey.

According to Matthew Desing, a professor of medieval Spanish literature at the University of Texas at El Paso, it is one of the most influential works in world literature.

Prison art

After one of Askenazi's talk about Don Quixote, a student called to tell him about a relative who was serving time in CERESO, Juarez state prison.

The prisoner was a sculptor, Askenazi said. I had never been inside a prison so I was scared, but I wanted to commission a piece from him. I took a friend with me.

He did't tell me he was going, added Shirleen, who manages her husband's collection.

The prisoner, who normally makes statues of the Virgin Mary, agreed to carve a piece from pine.

He wasn't allowed any sharp tools or nails, so he chiseled the pine using 4x4 studs and pinned parts of it together with wooden pegs.

The piece is one of Askenazi's largest, and depicts Don Quixote sitting on a tree stump, his body curved. When it was finished, Askenazi asked the artist to sign it.

He didn't want to, but finally he agreed and signed the bottom of one foot, he said.

The collector wanted to express his appreciation and learned from the guard that the sculptor could read. Askenazi took the prisoner's hands in his as he presented the novel to him.

I told him that Cervantes wrote the famous book while he, too, was in prison. I wanted to give him hope and encouragement.

Reading the Don

Askenazi's interest in Don Quixote began at age 14 while he was in middle school in Mexico.

The book was assigned reading but because it is over a thousand pages, most of the students didn't read the whole thing. I read it and loved it, he remembered.

He read it again at age 18, and a third time at age 26, and his interest became a passion. He still reads portions of it regularly.

I identify with Don Quixote, Askenazi explained. Whenever I have a problem, I try to imagine what he would have done in the situation. He believed that by improving himself, he could improve his community and the world, and I hope to do the same.

Among his collection are pieces he has commissioned, including the only Braille version of the book in the world. I called the national Institute for the Blind in Washington, D.C., and asked if they could do it. They thought I meant one chapter, but I wanted the entire book It took them nine months to complete it, and it is over 1,300 pages in 14 volumes.

Whenever Askenazi commissions a painting, he asks the artist to depict Don Quixote smiling.

In so many pieces he look sad, but really, he was a happy man.

Three years ago Askenazi acquired a copy of the novel, sponsored by the Peruvian government, in Quechua, the language of the Incas.

In 2005 he obtained a unique volume, in which chapter one has been translated into seven languages: Chinese, Castilian, Catalan, French, English, Dutch and Italian.

Askenazi says the book has been selected as the No. 1 novel in the world by many language academies, and translated into more languages than any book other than the Bible.

Many consider it the first novel ever written and the first to use ordinary people as characters,� said retired UTEP professor and Golden Age specialist Alberto Bagby.

Although many think of Quixote as the idealist and his sidekick Sancho Panza as the realist, both characters are a mixture of idealism and realism, each acquiring characteristics of the other as they age, Bagby said.

In November, the Askenazis attended an international convention and ceremony at the Museo Iconografico del Quijote in Guanajuato, Mexico.

People from all over the world interested in Quixote came to honor the founder of the museum, Eulalio Ferrer, who recently died, Askenazi said. He sent 36 pieces from his own collection to be on display.

Askenazi's aspiration is someday to devote himself fully to the collection.

It is ironic that Cervantes and Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest writer in English, were contemporaries and died on the same day, April 23, 1616, Askenazi said. I think God wanted them both for himself.