Dec. 29, 1946

Dear Mumford,

Many thanks for your letter. I did not know that you are so far away now from where I am and I am very sorry that I won't be able to see you before the spring. But I am gradually getting accustomed to the idea that America is a big country and people may live in the same region and yet have to rely on post and correspondence.

That, by the way, strikes a familiar note in my mind and reminds me of my own country and so does the snow and the icy roadways. I am staying here over Christmas, in a very remote place, the in a warm house and feel, for the first time in twelve years, the refreshing air of winter. It makes me feel a bit dreamy and not at all disposed to work, apart from the sickening fact that all my works are still in the customs and I am still waiting for a call to New York.

I am looking eagerly for a place to work. This is what bothers me most and this is also the reason why I am so anxiously looking for a place where I could statuch myself in order to be able to work.

I would appreciate it very much if you would write to Wouster and if I could arrange a meeting with him on his return from California, perhaps something may come of it. At any rate, I would be glad to give one or two lectures which I have prepared before leaving England, mainly a general survey about the state of Constructive art and Constructive Design. This may perhaps interest him. It might also be a good reason for my going to Boston to see him. Or if you know of any other places which might be

4
Chicago; besides, I am not think it would be the right thing
for me to do, to take on any job which comes my way, such as
teaching very young students ---a job which any ordinary art
teacher, it seems to me, would do as well.

I do understand what you write about your being so busy with
your book, and am looking forward to seeing it when it is
published; I am sure it will be so actual and inspiring as your
previous books. My wife and I are both looking forward to ses-
ing you both in America next spring. Meanwhile, accept our good
wishes and hearty greetings for the New Year to both of you,

yours ever,

Feb.23,1959

Dear Lewis,

I hope that by now you have established yourself in the new place, so you
will be able to stand some distraction in your calm way—if I tell you that
what I am writing about now is due to the common and well-known phenomena in our
life that when you are feeling unhappy or hurt, the first thing you do or think
about is to cry on the shoulder of somebody who is very near to you.

Now don't take it at once that something very disastrous has happened ---
nothing of that sort! We are all right in our health and everything goes well
except, as you already know, that my lectures are giving me some trouble, But I
have constantly in my mind your assurance that it will be all right in the end,
but what I am going to write to you about has to do with a much more general prob-
lem which has been haunting me for a long time in this country and which seems
now to be growing in its scope and taking much deeper root in American life and
Art than I had at first suspected.

Here is a clipping from last Sunday's NY Times, which tums meointhattthe
letter is not so much her complete omission of any mention of my existence in
America or as an artist—I know that this creature, who happens to be a critic,
hates me for reasons known to herself alone, as the Devil hates the Cross. That
in itself is of no importance to me. I have coped with and survived many a criti-
logy in my life, but what is significant is the particular quasi-casual remark of hers
which I have marked. Please read it attentively. There is more to it than may
appear on the surface.

I don't know whether you have noticed a particular politic which is growing
in this country, generated by sources which I know are not really american-born
themselves, growing because it has fallen on a fertile soil. It is the attitude
of a hidden and dangerous chauvinism of a most abhorrent kind, which, having too
many obstacles generally in the political and social life of the american citizen
to act openly, has found an outlet in the field of art. Since the Americans have
found out that Art can be used successfully as a means of propaganda and can be
an instrument of national pride, the chauvinists have grasped that instrument and
in quite an unobtrusive roundabout way, worked hard for very many years to drag
into it not so much the cultural value of art itself, which they know perfectly
well has, by its own nature, an international character, but the fifth第十六
 propaganda
as a chanel for their unO-american chauvinism which they would like to imbue
in the american people.

Beginning with art, they hope it may also permeat the other aspects of ameri-
can life too. For some years when the american State Dep't was making official
exhibitions of art, those people succeeded in organizing exhibitions under the
fantastic principle that only those artists should be represented to the world as
"American artists" who have made their names in this country and excluded those
artists who have come to America and become naturalized after they were already
mature and prominent abroad. I know for a fact, for instance, from people who
were present at a public gathering in Paris where the representative of a very
important american art institution openly declared that americans are not interest-
ed in showing the work of those great and prominent people who came to America with
reputations already made—we welcome them and we want them to teach our youth
in whatever field they have made their achevements, but we don't intend to use
them as representatives of "American Art".

This critic, Aline Saarenin, as you may see in her remark, is taking that
principle for granted, altho in her hipocracy, relunctantly. If she had come with
this idea on her own it would not have been worthwhile to be either upset or aroused
(that woman is known amongst many artists as "the viper") anyway), but it is not only
her idea—it is becoming an accepted way in the State Dep't and also in other
official institutions which are concerned with the representation of American Art
and she may already know that this same principle is going to be guding the jury
in their choice for the coming exhibition in Moscow.

Jan.27,1965

Jan.26,1965

Sometimes, my dear Lewis, I am blaming myself that I neglected to excercise my mind diligently in writing down on paper whenever the urge arises to talk to a friend who isn't just at my elbow and with whom I mentally am in actual conversation; how often has it happened with me now!

The furthur one advances in one's years the thinner get the ranks of one's friends. Some one looses, some pass out and in the end one is lucky if one counts one or two. I am in that position now and you, Lewis, are one of the few whom I still have. It is because of that neglect of mine to exercise penmanship when I am talking to you in my thoughts---I am saying so much and I would love to say still more---yet all remains in my head and in my heart and when the mental conversion finishes, it is gone and it is perhaps wasted except in my own experience. But do you know about it?

There is danger to be a mystic if one should believe in thought transference yet I cannot help intuitively believing that there might be something of that sort in human relationship. Your two letters came to me just in the days when I intensively thought about you on my return from abroad. I was really very ill and I was longing to see you---you must have known or felt my feeling.

There was nothing particular I wanted to tell you, really, about me---except to share the sudden realization that my physical constitution is not going to stand at the height of its vigour indefinitely---that standing on a hill one is more aware of the downhill slope than the ascent behind you.

It is not, strangely enough, a depressing feeling--- rather a feeling of acquiescence and calm resignation. But there is a much more pronounced desire not to be alone and concentrated with oneself but to feel more the presence of your friends and beloved ones. I would say a more gregarious feeling and this is something new to me.

And this is why I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed your letters---tho perhaps "enjoyed" is not the right word. It was just something which I wanted and got. You told me something about my unnecessary worries about the exhibition and you said to me there what I myself was thinking all last year. I know it was, on my part, a vain impulse; it was not really necessary to start such a cumbersome enterprise at that stage of my life---but it was an act of inertia---the idea germinating five years ago and it was going on and it became a habit in my thinking and planning and I did not realize all the difficulties which are involved in it.

I think I told you that meantime the Museum of Modern Art in Paris suddenly withdrew their engagement to make my exhibition. This is of course a political act as well as an act of revenge. The French needed somebody to represent the French school of Constructive Art so as not to loose the leadership in the arts of Europe. They found a willing artist to

2

play the role. They knew perfectly well that they are backing
a pseudo-prophet but they did it knowingly and deliberately
for so long and committed themselves so deeply that when the
truth came out in the open the only means of defense left to
them in such a case was to ignore my existence. I have to
laugh---how naive political ambitions can be in hoping that
a political clique can hide the truth or the existence of an
artist just by keeping him out of their official catalogues!

Actually, I was really relieved when I knew about their
withdrawal because it would have been much worse had they
exhibited me in some cellar of theirs and mobilized the whole
pack of wolves of the Paris press against me---which they could
easily have done. But I could not say that it didn't leave
an additional scar in the whole event of my personal grievous
relations with Antoine.

But the elimination of Paris does not change the plan
very much. It is too late now for me to withdraw---too many
Museums are already involved and shedueled and I suppose I
will have to gather my courage and go thru with it.

I have decided, however, not to commit myself personally
into that enterprise so that it should affect my health.
I will try to suppress any sign in myself of vanity or for
what is commonly known as "hunting success". I hope the
exhibition will pass off with as little noise as possible and
I will try not to expect anything different or additional in
the judgement of people about my work and will be calm to any
criticism which may come from the side of contemporary critics
of the daily press. Knowing well how deep the mental baggage
of the contemporary press has sunk, I don't expect my task of
being calm will be too difficult.

Now my breathing is getting a little bit difficult as I
am not yet quite recovered, so I will end for today and I will
dictate a little bit more to you---perhaps tomorrow.

Jan. 28th.

I have yesterday received a letter which I really did not
read properly at first---but I read it again to-day. It comes
from the Inst. of Arts and Letters, informing me that at yester-
day's meeting my election to the Inst. was announced. They ask
whether I will accept.

Well, Lewis, I don't have in these United States many friends
and except you, none intime. And I cannot hide from you the
contradictory feelings that message evoked in me. I am asking
myself---why did you do it? I know, without any doubt whatso-
ever, that if you were not in the position you now are in the
Academy, I would never, up to my death, be either proposed or
elected by anybody of the whole two hundred and fifty members.

One of my hidden griefs during my life in this country--
which I adopted deliberately and consideredly as the only one
of all I have lived in during my exile where I would not feel
a stranger---was the feeling of extreme lonesomeness in my
professional life. I was teaching in the Universities, I was
making public appearances at exhibitions and conferences and
lectures---I could not say that I was inactive these nearly
twenty years of my sojurn here---and yet, in the world of art,
in that world which should be the main canvas for my personal-
ity, I never felt anything else and have been treated as a
strange, a foreign, body.

3

I try to think intensely and find out, in this professional world where I belong---do I have one single friend? When I think about England, I find several in my mind---which means a great deal. I find none here. Is it my fault? I know it is not---I long for friends but you are the only one---you alone stand out as a monument in my view---but then you are not of my profession. I am having in mind pictorial arts; painters, sculptors, architects, art historians, museum men, critics and so on, young and old---truthfully I can tell you---none. Very often the realization of that fact depressed me. But it was going on too long and one learns to live with an old wound without complaining.

Now this message of yesterday has stirred up the bitterness from the bottom and mixed it up with the good things I have experienced in this country---with good news and, more intelligence, vigour and courage in the material world as well as in the mental world of this country which I admire more and more and particularly when I begin to know its youth more and learn to forgive the mistakes and misbehaviour of that country, understanding that all the mistakes are due to the eagerness of its leaders to build up a new culture and perhaps a new civilization.

Every time I come back from abroad, I see more of what is positive here and learn to value the unsophisticated human response of the average man and it is easier for me to neglect and forget my lonliness in the field of art.

And now, Lewis, you have taken me by the scruff of the neck and put me back into that whirlpool---perhaps you are right---why should I be different---perhaps it is more the other side of vanity and pride to shine by ansence.

When one is young one is contemptuous of the society which one intends to change and in the desire to preserve one's youth, one does not dare to shed its prejudices. I don't know whether I would not have hesitated to accept if I did not know that it is to you I would be refusing---if I refused---if I would not know that it is our friendship that prompted you to decide that I ought to be one of the crowd, an American artist amongst American artists. It is your esteem that I accept.

I remember many years ago an English friend of mine, (and you know whom I am talking about), wrote to me apologetically that he has been given a knighthood by the Queen and been proposed by nobody else but Prime Minister Churchill---he, an anarchist, given a knighthood by a Tory. He asked me---what shall he do? And I remember that without any hesitation I wrote to him asking him who are we to pay with contempt to the people of our own country who do not have any other way of expressing their esteem than by that kind of naive pageantry of a Queen's knighthood? Remembering that, I use it for myself and this is how I feel.

Shall I thank you, Lewis? That would be silly. But I must tell you that that act of yours is to me only a kind of certificate, an expression made public of your attitude to me and to my work, which never was a secret to me, as mine, to yours is, I hope, no secret to you.