In the Days of Roger and Lucia
When Roger and Lucia Wilcox would come to their winter home on Sanibel Island in the 1950s and 1960s, they led a relatively quiet life. People on Sanibel were aware that the couple was well-known in the East Hampton, New York, artists’ world, where they often entertained and organized events. In Long Island, their names were frequently in the newspapers. But Sanibel people respected their privacy. Lucia Anavi was born in Beirut in 1902. Her mother was French, and her father was Lebanese. Early in life, she started to become a gifted painter, sculptor, and cook. So at age 14, she left home to live in Paris. There she became a part of a legendary group of artists, including Piet Mondrian, Picasso, Marc Chagall, Carlos Montoya, Max and Jimmy Ernst, and many more. Some of them encouraged her to go to night school, so she enrolled in the Académie Ronsard. In 1938, she and her partner at the time, Fernand Leger, left Paris for New York at the urging of arts patrons Gerald a