Weapons displayed in the Met were clearly the product of outstanding artistic skill. Was a Brancusi lost in the carver of Malayan kris handles, his talent confined to ornamenting lethal instruments?

The Met's memorable artifacts are physically durable. They have survived the obsolescence of their functional values. That can't be the future of contemporary magazine ads and chic snop window displays.

I must consider, however, that works of pure art are appreciated, apparently, by few, whereas ordinary people in great numbers benefit by the excellences of design and craftsmanship that are applied to the objects or situations called into being by the mundane demands of regular living. Whether such living is wise or good may not be relevant. I must remember not to sentimentalize over the conditions of art; to bear in mind that art is all gratuitous. Its creation is one of the distinctions of Man as compared with other animals.

In the late afternoon I went to a cocktail party given by Charles Alan. I talked mostly with John Honnsbeen, who told me that poor Reva, although released from mental hospital, is afflicted again with signs of cancer. She had a serious operation for this some years back. Even so, she insists upon having a show of her paintings in January. John, I think, finds Reva too much to cope with.

From Alan's party I walked to the Grolier Club to attend a small dinner upstairs, during which I was engrossed in conversation with Paul Gourary.

Our after dinner speaker was an English bookseller whose father has assembled a notable collection. (Is it of Voltaire?) He himself has collected musical manuscripts. He contends, however, that book collectors are being priced out of the market. Neither his father nor he could afford

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today to assemble their respective holdings. Prices have been pushed up and treasures drained off the market into institutions.

Several club members in rebuttal expressed confidence that new collectors will find new subjects. Our speaker persisted in his gloomy outlook, convinced that book and manuscript collecting no longer offers the opportunities of the past.

From the Grolier Club I went uptown to a late opening of sculptures and paintings by the renowned British artist, Barbara Hepworth, who at one time was married to Ben Nicholson. Her show as a totality appealed to me more than Zorach's, yet none of her pieces really engage my enthusiasm. Her sculpture relates in my mind to her countryman's, Henry Moore, without achieving the impact of his. At the end of a long day with a champagne glass in hand, after the various drinks at Charles Alan's and the clubhouse, I was in no state to evaluate seriously the work of an artist of her quality. Barbara Hepworth was present herself. I did not chance to meet her. I talked to Kay Hillman who seems to be increasingly active as a private dealer, and to Bill Gerdts, again in company with his colleague from the Newark Museum.

October 15, 1959 -- New York

With a vast quantity of cases containing cameras, lenses, stands and arc lights, two men came to the apartment this morning at ten to make a photograph in color of my painting by Georges Mathieu, Hommage to Richard I, Duke of Normandy, for inclusion in a children's encyclopaedia of art. I remember how shocked a girl I knew was when she saw this painting attributed to my collection in an exhibit. Barely five years later it has advanced from a state of outrageous unfamiliarity to being singled out for

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showing to the rising generation as part of the mainstream of art.

After this session with the photographers I went to my studio and began reworking two paintings that Jose criticized. I broke off early to go to the Frick Collection to listen to a lecture on the Bellini family.

I had not realized before (though perhaps years ago I knew it) that the famous Venetian Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430-1516) was the son of a painter, Jacopo, and brother of another, Gentile Bellini. Their sister Nicolosia married Andrea Mantegna.

Here in New York are innumerable couples wherein husband and wife both paint. The only two brother painters of my acquaintance are Bill Ronald and his shy younger brother Jack (Meredith). Ben Nicholson's father was a well known artist, Sir William Nicholson. It is curious how the creative preoccupation flourishes on occasion among relatives.

October 18, 1959 -- New York

Yesterday I "made my rounds," of the galleries in the Saturday fashion of wintertime. It was like paying social calls. I first dropped in to see Catherine Viviano. Two of her sisters were there. I had met none of the Vivianos since last spring and was welcomed like an old friend. Catherine spent part of the summer in England, where she passed a week at St. Ives as guest of the Peter Lanyons, suffered a bad cold, went out to a remote place in Cornwall to see the Alan Davies and was too ill to eat any of the grand dinner Mrs. Davie had prepared.

Catherine says that all the artists in England are filled with jealousy of each other. Lanyon and Davie, although friends, are also rivals. She gave me a pep talk about the new work, not yet arrived here, of her other English painter, Jack Smith, whom I didn't buy last year. She

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also is eager that I should be among early purchasers of another new artist
in her stable, an American, Dan Rice. For the good of my collection she
disires me to buy pictures of these two men. Rice, she says, was recom-
mended to her by Franz Kline.

She also complained that Gimpel, the London dealer for Davie and Lanyon, has been selling their work widely in the past year, but exclusively to Americans. The British didn't, and still don't, buy Lanyon and Davie paintings. What especially gripes her is that Gimpel Fils sells them for less than she can. Her own customers who visit London come back with "bargains" of the artists whom she has to bear the expense of promoting in this country. Consequently she's mad as can be at the Gimpel Brothers. "I don't like art dealers," she proclaimed.

I went across the street next to call on one whom I suspect she especially resents, Sidney Janis. He is showing a series of drawings by Arshile Gorky done in 1944. Janis said he used to see Gorky "once a week, twice a month" at that time, but he then perceived only the resemblance to European work and not the "prophecy" in these drawings. Gorky's fellow artists in the 1940s, who admired him as a great draftsman, were disappointed in the "roughness" of these 1944 drawings. They thought he was losing his skill. Fifteen years later, after the abstract expressionist blaze-up, this criticized "roughness" can be viewed as a foretaste of what was to be the new freedom.

Janis complained that Gorky's widow plans after this exhibit to hang onto the balance of his work that she still owns. Mrs. Pollock for her part will release no more than one or two Pollocks a year. Thus he has, in effect, lost from his gallery two of its major artists. He won't have anything to sell.

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At Fine Arts Associates I cherished a new David Smith sculpture. I seldom take enthusiastically to his work. This I did respond to promptly. It costs $3,800, so I didn't buy it anymore than I'd bought the Alan Davie's Fish God at Viviano's or a large Birolli that I also liked.

My abstentions evaporated however, when my eye was attracted to collages at the Martin Widdifield Gallery that a sculptor called George Sugarman has created. They were priced at $150, a low sum nowadays. Two appealed to me strongly. I settled for a sprawling abstract sculptural form of yellow against a field of black.

During the remainder of my tour I was presented by dealers to three artists, Don Fink, Peter Golfinopoulis and Kimber Smith. In the presence of an artist's work, when not particularly pleased by it, what remarks does one make to its creator?

I got home in time to receive a pre-arranged visit from that exigent young painter, Lauren Libow, who had telephoned and asked to see me. He has been fired for "unsuitable behavior" and the "wrong attitude" from his Museum of Modern Art job. I feared he was coming to ask me for a loan. That perhaps awaits. We had drinks and a pleasant talk. I took him out for a hamburger and cake before going on to my evening engagement at Dennis Osborne's. He was astute enough to ask for no help. He is plunging ahead painting, having bought on credit the materials. He told me of experiences of his in Paris when he was so out of pocket that he had to sleep in a park and lacked food. He is young; he still dares. He will demand support from others as his right.

The reverse of his picture is Dennis Osborne. Lebow, Jewish, penniless, determined to paint, single. Dennis Osborne, married to a Uruguayan lady who appears to have money, very decidedly not Jewish, accustomed to

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moving amidst wealthy people. He has never tried to paint. He said he
couldn't. But Dennis is keen on the trail of pictures. He is one of those
collectors who seems to be also a private speculative dealer. He seeks to
turn a profit on out-of-the-way purchases. He showed us a stock of pic-
tures, a miscellany. Virginia, who was present, agrees with me that most
are mediocre: dull pictures done by men who have to be looked up in
reference books or else are contemporaries of little apparent importance.
Yet he has a drawing by Bernard Buffet that did kindle me and shows why
Buffet, before he began to overproduce and to cheapen his art, aroused the
loftiest expectations -- long since utterly dashed as far as I'm concerned.

October 18, 1959 -- New York

Vernon and I, having lunched at the Museum of Modern Art, went through
the galleries containing "The New Images of Man" exhibit. When we later
passed through the rooms below containing the permanent collection, I
realized decisively now much better art are the Van Goghs, Cezannes,
Matisse's, Picassos, etc. than are the concoctions of the new boys, put on
display because of their fresh angle of distorting human figures.

After several looks, I am decreasingly impressed by the assortment
piloted by Peter Selz. I like my own pictures still. I am thrilled by
Francis Bacon's Study for Portrait of van Gogh, by some of the Giacomettis,
the Dubuffets, by Cesar's welded iron Torso, and I like some other things.
One is an intriguing small bronze of a seated nude man by Leonard Baskin.
Pollock's black and white paintings rate well with me, but I dislike a
large quantity of other items.

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October 20, 1959 -- From RBB to his mother

Yesterday was busy because of the visit to me in the morning of Harvard Arnason, director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and my jaunt uptown to a warehouse on West 107th Street to see the paintings brought together that I'd selected for the AFA's exhibit "The Artist as Collector."

Five or six pictures are in this show for which I am not directly responsible. I never saw them in advance. Nevertheless, the exhibit does not seem to me disgracefully bad. Virginia, Peg Cogswell and Anne Kobin all said nice things about it. I'm glad to have got it done. It took so long. The paintings are being shipped out today, I believe, for their first place of exhibition.

Mr. Arnason's curatorial assistants, Martin Friedman and Forrest Selvig, have previously been to my apartment but this was Mr. Arnason's first visit. He has been out of the country for seven months on a cultural mission in Afghanistan. Hence the delay in my hearing anything conclusive from the museum during the past couple of months.

I brought out practically every picture I have stashed away. Going through the lot lasted from shortly before eleven until twenty to two.

Mr. Arnason asks me to show virtually the whole of my collection, small pictures as well as large, and designates January 1961 for the occasion. It is flattering, in my opinion, to be asked to exhibit the whole business. As you know, I have assembled these works of art not primarily as decorative accessories for my residence, but as an exercise of the mind and judgment seeking to rise to the challenge offered by current creativity. To have people as knowledgeable as the professional staff of the Walker Art Center, one of the country's most active originators of

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shows of modern art, select my collection for presentation in its entirety
is a development that surprises and pleases me greatly.

The Walker Art Center prepares quite handsome illustrated catalogues
and will produce one of my collection that will be much more significant as
a record that the list printed for our museum in Providence

Must dash off now, as I'm going tonight to the Guggenheim opening.

October 22, 1959 -- New York

Monday was a particularly busy and significant day for me. Sometime
before eleven H. Harvard Arnason arrived to talk with me about the promised
exhibit of my collection in the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Probably
I have previously commented here on that invitation. It originated last
summer with his assistant, Martin Friedman, who was in charge while Mr.
Arnason was abroad.

Arnason himself, until Monday morning, had not seen my pictures.
During his visit I fetched out everything in the apartment. This task
lasted nearly three hours. When I dashed off at twenty to two for my next
appointment, the place looked like moving day with canvases standing around
all over the place, leaning against chairs, etc. Late Monday night and
again on Tuesday morning I devoted hours (partly consumed in rehanging) to
put things away again.

Before Mr. Arnason came I gave considerable thought to the character
of the proposed exhibit. Minneapolis has residents better acquainted with
recent European and American painting via other shows organized by the
Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts than was the Provi-
dence public. Besides, I don't like to repeat myself. The catalogue of my
Providence show suggested, perhaps, that I am an "across the board" collec-

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tor: 56 different artists, one work each.

Actually, I have gone in more heavily for certain artists than for
others. This time, I was thinking, it would be desirable to show all my
Hofmanns and Ronalds, both my Alan Davies, Marca-Rellis, Soulages and any
others whom I have represented reasonably well with more than one item. To
make this possible, in terms of gallery space, I was deciding in my own
mind to omit good individual paintings by outstanding artists in those
instances where my example is not especially important in relation to the
total *oeuvre* of the artist. In other words, although I would certainly
include Wanamaker Block because it is unquestionably one of Kline's most
remarkable achievements to date, I might pass by my paintings by Burri and
Matta, good small works though they are, in order to make room for more
decisive representations of Hofmann, Ronald, etc. This conception I was
beginning to express to Harvard Arnason when he astonished me by suggesting
that the whole, or virtually the whole, of my collection be displayed. The
Walker Art Center has the wall space. This degree of completeness I had
never dreamed of. I felt truly honored and pleased that, familiar as he is
with the art of this period, he judges my various decisions to be worthy
of documentation in their totality.

When it comes right down to it, I have been collecting for several
years with a vision, not of perfection nor completion, but of the best-
rounded representation of the art of the present that is possible within my
means and my opportunities. My opportunities have been confined largely to
the New York art market. My financial resources compel me to eliminate the
high priced successes -- the Picassos and De Koonings. Taking these con-
siderations into account, I have been acquiring with the idea that my
collection should become a significant demonstration of what the best

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contemporary artists are accomplishing. I was therefore thrilled that a
professional like Arnason, after examining my complete personal catalogue
and looking at the objects I own, should react to my efforts so affirma-
tively.

The Walker Art Center publishes excellent catalogues. They are more
substantive and illustrated than the "check-list" Maxon put out last spring
at R.I.S.D.

From my session with Mr. Arnason, I had to dash uptown by taxi to the
Hahn Bros. warehouse on West 107th Street to see assembled the "Artists as
Collector" items. I was a bit fearful. Coming out as I entered were Peg
Cogswell and Anne Kobin, who spoke praise. Their words were reassuring,
and indeed the pictures looked well enough.

Several were unfamiliar to me. Motherwell sent neither the collage by
himself nor the drawing by his wife, Helen Frankenthaler, that I had
selected. The substitutes aren't as good. He also replaced an Arp by a
Picabia. Ossorio's own painting was a stranger to me, as was his David
Budd. I found myself liking the latter. It is all blue but alive.

Roy Moyer and Elaine Taylor were present sticking identifying papers
on the pictures. Carpenters created a fearful din. Virginia arrived late.
The noise drove her to distraction, as it did me. Hammering, pounding,
shouting.

In late afternoon, as a change of themes, I heard a lecture on
Voltaire at the Morgan Library. The speaker, Theodore Bestermann, has the
habit of swallowing his words and dropping his voice. Mother finds that
irritating. I had difficulty catching his meaning myself.

Still another lecture ended the day: Leo Steinberg talking about the
Bolognese painters, the three Carracci, of whom Annibale was the best. It

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