KURT L. SELIGMANN

September 17, 1949

Dear Meyer:

Thank you for your post card. Glad to know you in New York where one can get a hold of you. It is true that we have not seen one another for a long time. When we returned from Paris we did not stay in New York, but went to the country. And before you had made up your mind about visiting us here, vacations came and you left for your Vermont house.

I had, after the trip a moment of hesitation. In Paris, there had been beeps of abstractions and in one or two paintings I strove at simplification. Now I find these paintings boring, belonging into the epee of abstraction-creation of honorable memory, and unnecessary - at least for me. It is not my fault that Paris should rechew that old stuff all over and that the abstractness of the academy of the avant-garde, influenced by painters who do not want to get old, should bring out spontaneities in the third edition. (The second edition was in the Paris)

So I went back to my usual work, with a pleasure that is hard to describe. I do not know whether I told you that we saw Leger several times - in Paris. He too, has an abstract spell. In fact, for the abstract show at Mpeght Leger drew the title page of the catalogue in three colours, very dark rough, and lacking vigor. Leger told me that the Germans are very fond of abstractions. When they come to visit him and see a painting with some "rappel a la ress室" they hide their faces begging: "non, pas ce!" My impression of Paris was ghostly, the ten years 1939 to 1949 seemed to be lacking, joggled away. And the discussions which I had with certain friends were annexes to similar discussions in 1939.

Besides that, I was well treated - I'dat bought a painting of mine for the museum. The price was friendly as a whole. Many old comrades turned up, and at the goodbye evening at Helion's there were some hundred people of every political and aesthetic camp.

Arlette is well and still taking care of her flowers, though an early frost may stop her activities at once. I am working in the studio, and we shall not return to New York before mid-November. Why don't you and Lillian visit us here ?

Cordially

THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS

SAVE THE DATE
BUY U.S. BONDS OR
PAYROLL BONDS

March 8, 1951

Dear Kurt,

Here is the information about
teachers' credit in the New York school system.
A summer course (or a course during the fall and
spring in the city) cannot be offered for credit
unless the course is recognized by a college or
museum, and the teacher is sponsored as a member
of the college or museum staff. This is a new
ruling which cancels the previous arrangements.
For further information you might phone Dr.
Leuchs, Main 4-2800, who is in charge of the
In-Service course credits at the Board of Educ-
ation, 110 Livingston Street, Brooklyn. I have
all these details from Teddy Shaw.

It would be too much trouble, perhaps,
to try to find a college or museum to sponsor
your course; but I suspect that a number of col-
egees will take advantage of this new ruling and
offer summer courses in art in the country. Why
not speak to Miss Clara Mayer, dean of the New
School, about this? You can mention my name,
of course. But the New School, like any college,
would want a share of the fees. You would have
to estimate the relative income, with and without
the support of a college.

Best luck, dear Kurt; come to see us
soon.

S.Londonderry, Vermont

July 12, 1950

Dear Kurt,

There are not many places around here for summer visitors. Mrs.Dimock (now Mrs.Rhodes) has left Bondville and her house is for sale. The Londonderry Inn (in S.Londonderry) MAXX takes guests, but MAXX is already fully booked for August. If you can come in the next two weeks, there are still rooms available, at $42 a week, tout compris. A Mrs.Strout runs a nice inn at Bondville, at the same price, but she has no phone at present and I can't reach her through a neighbor. Since you will be coming by car, I think it would be no risk at all to try a number of places in this neighborhood; you will surely find one that is agreeable. I have heard of a very good house in Townshend (a Miss Thayer's), somewhat primitive, but charming and friendly, and with few people.

Do let me know in advance if you plan to come up. There will be lots to talk about. And we are anxious to see you MAXX under better conditions than we have had in the city these last years- always MAXX on the way to some appointment or to Sugar Loaf.

Affectionately,

July 6, 1943

Dear Kurt,

This time I take the precaution to write on the machine; yours
is not the only complaint about my handwriting, - something I cannot under-
stand, since I have had little difficulty in reading my own letters and
notes (unless they are very very old and I have forgotten my original
system of abbreviation). But the word you copied out with such wonderful
accuracy ( which surpasses, that of the most celebrated forgers) is
glycognous - Greek for Sugar Loaf, and invites some serious
reflections on your unconscious motives ( strong repressions about
1) the farm 2) sugar 3) Glück 4) idleness : Loaf = to be idle, etc.),
unless, of course, it may be that you simply didn't recognize the word.

That is good news about the exhibition. It will be a great success
even without your presence there. Do send me a copy of the catalogue when
it arrives in the States. I think it is better for you in the long run
not to be at the show and to have to worry about it. Mothers have to be
present at the birth of their children, but is there any reason why
painters should have to be in the room when their work is first shown
to a strange public ?

Which reminds me - but you must know by this time that Matta has
twin babies. And what is more remarkable, the doctor overlooked the
possibility, and it was the same doctor who missed the twins of "ill"
sister, Sophie, a month ago, at the same hospital; and in both cases
Dr. (Claude Heaton, a great art-lover and collector of old prints)
profound student of the history of obstetric illustrations) was re-
by Lillian.... So you see how much the Matta twins must mean to our
Have you had news of them ?

Nothing new to report here. A week of great heat, then rain and
cool days, now heat returning, but less intense. Ernest, as aggressive
and ironical as usual (strike while the irony is hot), collects post-marks
(the little circular place and date marks on letters) if you haven't
noticed them), and one reason he wrote you was to obtain a post-mark
of Sugar Loaf (Miriam has the first one 1). Otherwise, work, some un-
successful fishing, a little painting and reading, a long article for the
Review of Religion, another for a *xxx* yearbook of Islamic Studies(folk-
lore problem) and finishing the work on modern art. Yes, and we saw a
bear in the meadow early one morning, plenty of woodchucks, chipmunks,
rabbits, deer, and rather long snakes. The river is as beautiful as ever,
the hills are becoming overgrown with pines, we walk very little and I
have not yet in five weeks gotten as far as my neighbor Williams' house,
although I have walked to the village (on the other side).... The newspapers
very depressing; no doubt there will be a victory, but *km* everything that
throws light on the political and economic aftermath is gruesome already.

Hi

August 26

Dear Kurt,

Sorry we didn't see you again before you left. The last few
days here have been marvellous, perfect for long walks, and boccia
and steak picnics by the river. The evenings are hauntingly beautiful
in the hours around and after sundown. And your powerful breakwater
still stands up against the endless torrent of the Winhall like a
force of nature. Come again soon and see your giant work !

Our plans for returning to the city are still vague. The children
don't have to go back to school until about Sept.20 and we may stay on
until then. But I imagine I will have to be in the city a week before
that to look after the renting of the apartment above us.

I hope you and Arlette (Jim Farrell still asks me to give his
regards to Kurt and Arlene) are well and able to work better after the
weeks in Vermont. Let me hear from you soon. And please give our regards
to the Reises whom we were glad to meet.

Our love to both of you.

Meyer Schapiro
Londonderry, Vt.

80 West 40th Street
New York, New York

June 20, 1941

Dear Meyer,

Thank you very much for your postcard (not less
legible than your other writings -- in fact, I can
read it better than your last letter).

I am very sorry you had such bad luck when lifting
trunks and that now you have to stay in bed instead
of doing all the wonderful things you had planned. I
hope you recover soon.

Mrs. Smiley sent me the extremely complimentary
letter you wrote her regarding my activity at Briar-
cliff. I understand you were astonished over her
sudden effusion of praise. It was not because I in-
tend to leave Briarcliff, but because she is leaving,
and evidently expects me to write something similar
to her in return. I hesitate to do this though, be-
cause, although I know her as a most friendly and frank
person, I really know very little about her work.
What you think about it?

Max Raphaël's last letter, which I have not yet com-
pletely deciphered, ends with "I hope to see you soon."
As you know from my telegram, he is arriving tomorrow
(Saturday) so that, by the time you receive this letter
he will be here. Mrs. Oppenheim is accommodating him
when he arrives. I am enclosing the receipts from
the money you sent over. I believe it arrived in time
for him to receive it.

We will be pleased to spend a couple of days with you
at S. Londonderry. Let me know when it is most con-
venient for you.

Très amicalement,

South Londonderry, Vt

July 16, 1941

Dear Kurt,

I have just heard from my brother-in-law, Solomon Sklar, that his law firm *dreszkandim* has had experience in "clearing frozen funds" for use in this country (isnt the phrase fantastic and Rimbaudesque ?). But he is on his vacation now and wont be back until August 1. In the meantime, if you are anxious to "clear frozen funds" during this hot weather, one of his partners, Mr. Sidney Weinstein, who has done some of this work, will be glad to see you.

Strange emptiness here for two hours after you left. When it rained, your curved barrier was submerged by the river, to remind us of your own disappearance; now it is up again, higher than ever, a monument to your disinterested and heroic devotion to Arlette and to the eternal struggle against Nature..... We climb the South hill and cross through the woods to Williams' (not Williams Shakespeare) meadow to pick blueberries, which we find later in every dessert. Ernest "boils and broils" us alive, threatens to devour us three times a day, and has forgotten none of the lessons of the celebrated Swiss monster, Hitzli Butzli, whom he regrets as a *fauthfervaxating* Christian regrets the departure of a guiding saint.

Otherwise, nothing new under the sun, except the earth which changes its position every moment, bringing us new flowers for Ernest to name and misname. The Farrells will be up here this weekend, another contribution of the turning of the earth...

I prepared some plates for etching for the Shaws and myself, but they arrived so late from a trip with Lillian to the Marché aux Puces of Brattleboro, that they had to take the plates back with them to Pike's Falls. My own I finished and etched and dedicated to you and Arlette; but it is very disappointing; nothing succeeds without your presence, dear Hitzli.

Affectionate greetings from house to house.

S. Londonderry, Vt.

June 4, 1942

Dear Kurt,

Already settled down here after several days of moving furniture, cleaning up, and establishing the domestic routine without a maid. It has been raining almost without interruption since we arrived, but it is so good to be without a subway, that we cherish all the discomforts of home and weather, as the theologians cherish the evil in god's world as part of a harmonious pattern of darkness and light. The river, swollen with the rains, makes a marvellous rushing noise that we sometimes mistake for a fleet of trucks rolling by towards an imaginary battle-front (or perhaps the borborygmes of the invisible macro-monster that we unknowingly inhabit and whose existence we shall never be able to verify). In the intervals between rains, we have had two outdoor picnics with steak-fires, one on the top of the hill, the other in the cave behind the barn which Ernest has dug out last summer with his infinite, sadistic patience; picnics which reenact the prime moments of religious heroes, as ascensions to heaven and descents into hell, each time accompanied by sacrificial burnings and a collective eating of animal flesh.

Mrs. Dimock was here yesterday and spoke very warmly of the Seligmanna and their friends. She will arrange to meet visitors at the Manchester station, if they come for at least a week. Perhaps her farm will in time become a permanent French colony; it is possible that some French people will be coming up next week. We are trying to induce the Shaws to stay with us a while, since they find it too inconvenient to open their own place, with the present restrictions on tires and gas, and their distance from the nearest village. No news from Joe, except indirectly; he is still in the city and awaiting a call to army medical work.

I hope you are back to work and not discouraged by the remote prospects of the draft. If it comes to the worst, you will be an interpreter or translator. In the meantime, you have plenty to do and I earnestly urge you to do it with all the energy and enthusiasm that you certainly possess once you get started on a fresh idea. The war may be over in the West by next spring; it is as pointless to worry about the gigantic catastrophe over which you have no control as it is over the tiny disturbances of VVV. Excuse all this moralizing at a distance, to which I am prompted by the way your melancholy and nervousness the last two times I saw you. I hope I will see you again soon and in a happier mood.

Love from house to house.

Kurt Seligmann
80 West 40th Street
New York City

June 16, 1942

Dr. Meyer Schapiro
South Londonderry
Vermont

Cher Meyer:

Merci pour votre si gentille lettre que j'apprécie
doublement sachant que vous êtes en plein travail d'installa-
tion, et comme vous n'avez pas d'aide, Lillian et vous devez
avoir assez de travail. Il doit faire beau et frais chez
vous, et le torrent avec ses roulement et mugissement doit
vous suggérer des paysages alpestres romantiques aux glaciers,
tempêtes, arbres arrachés, et toute cette terreur d'une
nature hostile agréable à dépeindre.

Nous étions à Sugarloaf pour le weekend. Nous avons
récolté les radis, salades et asperges, récolté injustement
ce que les autres ont sémé pour nous. J'ai passé mon temps
à arracher de vieux papiers peints dont l'aspect signifiait
caffard. Il fait très sombre dans notre maison. Les deux
erables nous ont enveloppés de leur verdure. Je veux peindre
les murs en blanc (le chemin-de-fer ne me dérange plus, et
les grenouilles se sont tues). Les prés sont pleins de
lucioles en fête. Cela me rappelle mon premier printemps de
liberté à Florence. La grange est réparés, et notre prochain
souci est le foin que j'ai l'intention de vendre "standing".

Quant à la peinture, j'ai préparé des toiles et des
verres en quantité, et j'ai fait une série de dessins que je
vais transformés en peinture. De ce côté là, ça va beaucoup
mieux, et je me promets du mois de juillet, mois de ma
naissance, du cancer et du lion qui a toujours été mon meilleur
mois de travail.

Ilse Falk (une lionne aussi) a traduit votre article
pour Monotaure (note of the printer: that is, I made the rough
translation, most of the finesses are by Mr. Seligmann!).
Je l'ai envoyé à Breton pour une vérification finale, c'est à
dire mise en français impeccable. Il va probablement l'en-
voyer sous peu, pour votre bon à tirer.

Quant à la guerre et ses effets je finirai bientôt
par accepter ce que je ne puis changer, c'est à dire, je serai
bientôt suffisamment abruti pour m'habituer à une situation
jadis intolérable. Quant à la durée de la guerre, je suis
moins optimiste que vous. J'ai rencontré un jeune diplomat
américain du suá, qui a quitté l'Allemagne il y a peu de temps.

Il me dit que le moral en Allemagne est excellent, que les
Allemands pour la grande majorité sont décidés à gagner
cette guerre, durera-t-elle dix ans, et que l'on peut y
obtenir toutes les choses nécessaires, et en abondance.
J'espère de vous voir bientôt. Mes amitiés à
Lillian et les enfants.

Très amicalement,

P.S. J'ai reçu deux volumes monumentaux: Kircher, Oedipus
Aegyptiacus. J'ai de quoi lire pour les prochaines années.

S. Londonderry, Vt.

June 11, 1943

Dear Kurt,

I am waiting every day for a letter from you telling me how lovely
it is in Sugar Loaf, how you have resumed work, and how in spite of all the
little distractions and accidents, you are very pleased to be in the country
rather than in a hot bus on the dusty road to Mejico. Perhaps you are even pla-
ning to catch fish like Ernest, who has transferred to this sport all the
zeal and thoroughness which he once gave to finding flowers and insects or
collecting stamps. Our place is as beautiful as ever, although noisier now
that Ernest is growing up; and even the rainy days are something to treasure
for the fine greyness and the softness of the ground- I should have told you
before that we have a garden planted by Miriam and myself, but it is something
one shouldn't speak about when not even a single plant has burst through the
soil. We have not yet had time to explore the woods or climb to the pine
hill for lady slippers; maybe this afternoon, with an axe and shears to make
a good path for the rest of the summer.

Let me know what is happening to you and Arlette, and if you
also some little thumbnail sketches of the large pictures on which
working, I shall be delighted. I have heard nothing further about my
colleges, beyond the fact that the budgets for some art departments
shrinking. When I do hear something, you can be sure that I will have
in mind.

A historical question on which I imagine you can help me. I re-
hearing and reading around 1935 and 1936 that Surrealism was not interest-
in art, but produced paintings only as psychological documents for scientif-
investigation. Dali justified his work then as hand-painted photographs of
his psychic interior, without aesthetic importance, or with only an accidental
aesthetic importance. I think Breton also wrote in this vein. Could you tell
me when this idea was first broached in your circles ? was it already current
around 1932 or 1933 ? was it personal to Breton or Dali ? or Ernst ? has
was it a temporary revival of Dadaism ? I noticed that anti-surrealists also
talked this way, one writer maintaining that art as a technique or expression
to be exhausted and that artists should convert themselves into experimental
objects for the production of clinical psychic material. Anything you can
tell me about this will interest me a great deal.

Have you had any news about Matta's wife ? she was expecting the baby
in the first week in June and was being cared for by a doctor whom Lillian
had recommended. We have heard nothing about her since the end of May.

Our love to you and Arlette. Perhaps we will meet sooner than we
imagine.

S.Londonderry, Vt

July 25,1941

Dear Kurt,

I had delayed answering your letter because I expected
to see you any day and was sure that a letter would not reach
you in time. However, I have just learned from Mrs.Dimock that
you arent coming up until next week. It has been so hot here
(for Vermont) the last two or three days that I hoped you would
manage to leave New York in time.

Thanks from all of us for the looking after our films and
for sending us your own wonderful photographs. Dont forget to bring
the bill for our films and prints.

Your great dam is still standing, in spite of a violent
rainstorm last week which raised the river level well above
the dam. In the middle of a picnic after the rain, the water
rose up to the fire and drove us all to the road; it was a
wonderful sight, a real flood swelling up and out before our
eyes. Jim Farrell was with us; but like Ernest he managed to
finish his steak while running through the woods.

We all look forward to seeing you again very soon; perhaps
we will come over to the Dimocks ourselves for a swim.

Love from house to house.

July 11, 1942

Dear Kurt,

When shall we see you and Arlette ? I have had to put off return-
ing to New York for some weeks, but I should be sorry to arrive just when
you are away, or to learn that you came up to Rawsonville when I had left...
I had a card from Becky Reis about my copy of VVV which reached me safely
in spite of the wrong address. The children tore it from my hands and have
already read most of it and explored the pictures. Since they know so many
of the contributors, they feel it is addressed to them. I had to explain
at length the statistical chart of preferences in monsters and myths, a game
they want to play as well. I haven't read the whole issue yet, but plucked the
berries here and there (yours among the first) in a delicious, uncritical
indolence. Here is my signboard of condensed headlines (like the London
news bills):

IS DOG MAN'S TRUEST
FRIEND? SURREALIST
SATRAP SAYS NO. NEW
SOCIAL MYTH IMMINENT
BRILLIANT MINDS CAIRO
NEW YORK RIO DISCUSS
PROBLEM. SAVANT CONJE
CTURES STRAIGHT ALBU
MEN MEN. SPHINX STILL
FAVORITE BLOODY NUN
LAST................

Do you know the secret of the "straight albumines" ? I will give you
a hint : this man, who hunts the transparent whales in whose invisible entrails
we live, tells time by a clock of which the hands turn leftward :12,11,10...
2,1,12,11,10...; however, he is so formed that he can never see us inside the
transparent whale (formed like one-way glass), but in his physical equations
he allows for our existence by adding an X on both sides for the possible
unknown (like the pious Jews who say : "there are ten people present, not
counting the invisible spirits, known only to God and the angels"). There is in the translation the awful implication that you and I have crooked
or curved albumins; this is too ghastly for words. This is the issue on which
surrealism may well fall; it is an assault on the "construction de l'homme".

My best to you and Arlette. Since we hear nothing from Joe, do tell
us if he is alive and still ununiformed, if you see him.