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22 Aug


Helena Rubenstein, daughter of Horace Rubenstein and Augusta Silberfeld Rubenstein, was born at Crakow, Poland, on 25 December 1871. She briefly studied medicine in Switzerland and emigrated to Australia in 1902. Helena married first on 7 June 1908 in Sydney, American journalist Edward Morganbesser Titus, by whom she had two sons, Roy and Horace.

In Australia she noted that the weather caused women’s faces to appear rough and red. She opened a shop in Melbourne where she dispensed her own facial cream and taught women how to care for their skin. In 1908 her sister joined her and assumed management of the shop while Helena went to London with $100,000 to found what would become an international business. In 1911 at a London gallery opening of the sculptor Elie Nadelman, she purchased the entire exhibition to display in her international salons.

Helena and her first husband lived in Paris until World War I necessitated their move to the United States. She opened salons throughout the country and established the phenominally successful “Day of Beauty” in her shops. Helena and her husband divorced in 1937 and the next year in NYC she married Prince Artchil Gourielli-Tchkonia (sometimes spelled Courielli-Tchkonia), born at Georgia, 18 February 1895, died at New York City 21 November 1955. Prince Artchil, who was 23 years younger than she, had a somewhat tenuous claim to the Princely title as he was born a member of the untitled noble Tchkonia family of Guria and at some point took the title of his grandmother, born Princess Gourielli.

Helena developed a line of male cosmetics in her new husband’s name. Her company was enormously successful and she became extremely wealthy and founded the Helena Rubenstein Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv where her collection of miniature rooms was housed. Salvador Dali painted her portrait in 1943 with her face superimposed upon the side of a cliff. In 1953 she created the Helena Rubenstein Foundation, stating, “My fortune comes from women and should benefit them and their children, to better their quality of life.” She contributed largely to health and medical research issues.

In 1959 she went to Moscow as the official representative of the U. S. cosmetics industry at the National Exhibition. She died in New York City 1 April 1965. Prince Artchil was president of the Georgian Association in America from 1945 to 1947. He died 21 November 1955. Both Helena and Prince Artchil were buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Queens, New York, with his inscribed coat of arms, headed by a princely coronet, atop their graves

 
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