PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

October 11th, 1920

Mrs. E. Richardson Cherry,
608 Fargo Avenue,
Houston, Texas.

My dear Mrs. Cherry:

I am so sorry that I just missed your visit to the Societe Anonyme, especially so as I understand that you were a pupil of Walter Shirlaw. As I was one also, that alone would be a bond. To me the spirit of Walter Shirlaw has been one of the greatest inspirations in my life, for he was one of the few great artists America has produced. He did not make replicas of his pupils, but developed their individuality.

Do send us a catalogue of your work, and maybe at the close of it send us two of your modern paintings, which I would like to see, to see if we can enter it into any of our this years' exhibitions. It would interest me especially to see the picture which you and Mr. Hartley worked on together. I am so glad to get news of him, as I have many messages from his Berlin friends, who I saw this summer. Won't you send me his address.

Hoping that we will surely meet when next you pass through New York, believe me,

Sincerely,

P.S.

I crossed on the steamer with such a charming young Russian of Swiss descent who is making his home in Galveston, that I am going to give you his name and address so that maybe you can get in touch with him when you get home again.

March 29th, 1921

My dear Mrs. Richardson Cherry:

Please forgive me for delaying so long
in acknowledging your letter of March 15th. The box
is safely at hand, and has been unpacked, and I have
looked at the six pictures it contained. There is one
of flowers which I hope that we can use. It is not strictly
modern enough, but we might use it in a large exhibition, to show
the tendency and the growth, so I shall hold it for a while longer.

I am sorry that in the long delay which
has occurred in receiving and unpacking the pictures, your earlier
letter giving instructions as to the reframing of the pictures has
been mislaid, a most unusual thing to happen among my papers. As
we cannot receive or unpack any box at our place, I had to have it
sent to George Of, at 274 Madison Avenue, where the pictures are
now. If you will instruct him, he will gladly have whoever you
desire attend to your needs, if you prefer to handle it through
some other dealer.

We have always found Mr. Dunn of
George Of so obliging and reliable, that we do all our work through
him, though I know that many people employ Budworth. I also know
Mr. Dunn will have no objection if you prefer him to send the
pictures to Budworth, because that is my vague recollection of
what you wish to have done. I am also under the impression that
you want to have some of them reframed, which I did not quite

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understand after seeing them, as I thought they were quite
properly framed.

I think you have charming color, and if you could
develop a little more design and a little more abstraction, you would
soon be a Modernist. This is of course, all in the point of view,
for the modern painter does not paint what he sees, but as music
is constructed on a mathematical basis, so the modern painter con-
structs his picture along the same lines. It is the colors in,
juxtaposition to each other, of color within color which has balance
of color, which are to speak to the eye, as sound constructed
speaks in music. I did not feel that this point your pictures as
yet show.

Whatever trouble we have had to take we cannot
charge you for, because it was done by me personally. I have in-
structed George Of to hold your paintings until he receives in-
structions from you, and to send the bill to you of the carting of
the box from our place, etc. It would mean however a great deal to
us if you joined our organization and became a $10 member. This
will entitle you to literature on the subject, and keep you in touch
with what is going on. We are hoping to plan for a large exhibition
to travel throughout the United States next season. This is what we
are working on. Can you help us along these lines at all in
California?

With kind regards, believe me,

Sincerely,

Mrs. E. Richardson Cherry,
2430 Gramercy Park,
Los Angeles, Cal.

April 28, 1923.

My dear Mrs. Cherry,

It would give me great pleasure if you would come for tea next Friday, May 4th, at five o'clock.

I would like to show you a very lovely painting by Walter Shirlaw, which I would be very glad to donate to your museum at Houston, Texas. Of course, it is not one of his most wonderful ones, but it is a good example, and has all the charm which his work possesses for those who love it. This one is an Italian scene, painted when he was living in Italy.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed meeting you the other day, and how much it meant to me to talk over Mr. Shirlaw's ideas in art, for as I told you that afternoon, I feel I owe my whole life as an artist to him, which after all, is my entire life.

Hoping that no other engagement will prevent you from coming, believe me

Sincerely yours,

Mrs. E. Richardson Cherry,
Women's University Club,
New York City.

New York,

March 27, 1924.

My dear Mrs. Cherry,

Thank you so very much for your letter of
March 19th. Let me congratulate you first of all in having
won out with your museum building. I think it is perfectly
splendid and I congratulate you from my heart.

Nothing would give me more pleasure than to
have you present my picture of "Mother and Child" to the
Museum, and I think it is only proper that you should have
the credit, since you have put so much love and thought
into this work. After all, it is the spirit with which you
came to us which made us respond, and only the other day
Anne Goldthwaite told me she had not forgotten her promise
to you, and she was looking forward to sending you a pic-
ture just as soon as it returned from Cleveland or one of
those cities where it is now on exhibition.

I do not know whether I wrote you since the
death of my sister which upset me very much, but we shall
be very glad to give one of the pictures to you for your
Museum, and have it entered as such in the catalogue which
Dr. Brinton is writing for her memorial exhibition which
will open in the Brooklyn Museum next autumn. Please do
not speak of this quite yet, as the definite dates have
not yet been decided on, and until they are I would rather
not make it public. However I thought it would be nice
for you to know, since it will give your Museum quite a
good deal of publicity, as the exhibition is going to be
in various museums and various museums will own her work.

Dr. Brinton considers it the most important
memorial exhibition ever held by an American woman, and he
feels few men have reached her heights. This means a
great deal to me, as I have always valued her work for so
long.

It would give me great pleasure to have the
Sherlaw donated in my name.

2.

I am delighted to think that you are going to have
one of Hilda Bertscher's pictures, as they are charming,
and it is very nice to have Homer St. Gaudens speak at
the opening of the Museum.

We have great plans for the Societe Anonyme. Just
when they will complete themselves, I am not sure, but we
hope to re-open some time next season in our own building,
with the emphasis laid on the museum end.

I have had some very encouraging co-operation in
having Dr. Brinton promise to leave half of his valuable
art library to us, the other half going to the new Pennsyl-
vania Museum in Philadelphia. Besides this, a very valuable
collection of modern paintings will be given to us, either
as a bequest or already during the lifetime of the giver,
who is coming from the West to discuss the matter with me.

This will mean that we will have a very beautiful
permanent exhibit besides our transient exhibitions, so
that the high water marks of modern art can be studied at
any time.

Again congratulating you on your splendid success,
in having a Museum at Houston, believe me, with all good
wishes,

Faithfully yours,