Confessions of an Art Addict Page 11

  My cellar was also stacked with all the paintings I had bought during Art of This Century shows, such as those of Baziotes, Motherwell, Still, Virginia Admiral, Pousette-Darte, Laurence Vail, Pegeen, Kenneth Scott, Janet Sobel, Rothko, Hirshfield and Gorky. In 1953, Walter Shaw and Jean Guerin, old friends of mine, who lived in Bordighera, asked me to lend them all these paintings to make an American show there. It was under the auspices of the Commune, and therefore rather official. Cocteau wrote the introduction to the catalogue. I accepted, and went there with Laurence Vail and a friend of mine called Raoul. The luncheon that Walter and Jean gave for Cocteau and for us was very amusing, but the long-drawn-out official dinner party bored Raoul, and he left as soon as it was over. To my surprise, we were all three the guests of the city of Bordighera and were given three lovely rooms in a hotel. Raoul, who was only interested in motor cars (in one of which he was so soon after to meet his untimely death) never took much interest in art, but he was, as Herbert Read called him, quite a ‘philosopher’. Raoul always maintained that I would go down in history, which statement, though quite exaggerated, I found very touching.

  I had a dog named Sir Herbert, after Mr Read (as he then was), though the dog was knighted by me long before Herbert. When I phoned Raoul to tell him about the real Herbert Read’s knighthood he said, ‘Do you mean the dog?’ The same thing always happens in my home when Sir Herbert is my guest. The servants invariably ask, ‘Do you mean the dog or the man?’

  After I left New York, Pollock had a very unsuccessful show at Betty Parsons’ gallery. A few months later my contract with Pollock expired, and he remained with Betty without a contract until 1952, when he went to Sidney Janis’s gallery. Not being in New York, I had no idea what was happening, but soon I began to realize that little by little everything I had done for Pollock was being either minimized or completely forgotten. Catalogues and articles began to appear, ignoring me or speaking of me in inadequate terms, as in the case of Sam Hunter, now curator of the Minneapolis Museum, who referred to me in his introduction to a travelling Pollock show as Pollock’s ‘first dealer’. In the São Paolo catalogue and in the New York catalogue of the Museum of Modern Art, Sweeney’s introduction to my first Pollock show was attributed to my uncle’s museum (where I knew Pollock had merely worked as a carpenter). In the biographies in the Sao Paolo catalogue I was completely ignored. Everyone gave credit to the Fachetti studio in Paris for Pollock’s first European show, ignoring the ones that were held in Venice by me, and one in Milan, for which I had lent my pictures. Worst of all was an article that appeared in Time magazine, accusing Pollock of having followed up his success at the Biennale by coming to Europe to further his career by showing in the Correr Museum in Venice, and in Milan. Pollock was furious and wrote a letter to deny this, saying he had never left the United States. My name was not mentioned in the article, nor in Pollock’s reply, and my great friend Truman Capote, who was very indignant, said someone should have written another letter with the true facts, but no one did. I complained to Alfred Barr and to Sam Hunter, and Barr did his best to straighten things out, but I was taking no chances, and when Pollock’s pictures were shown in Rome, I was very careful to write all the facts to Carandente, assistant to the museum director. At least in Italy I wished to have things straight.

  The Palazzo Venier dei Leoni

  With Pevsner’s construction

  A few years ago Rudi Blesh, who had exhibited his paintings in Art of This Century, wrote a book about modern art called Modern Art in U.S.A. He knew all about my gallery and wrote the truth as he saw it, and as it was. I believe this made the book very unpopular amongst those who were pretending to have discovered Pollock. Some of the facts I referred to occurred before Pollock’s death and gave me reason to believe that Pollock had been very ungrateful, so when in the summer of 1956 Lee Pollock arrived in France and phoned to ask if I would find her a room in Venice, I said that Venice was absolutely full up. A few days later, I received a cable from Clement Greenberg telling me to break the news of Pollock’s death in a car accident to Lee Pollock, who was supposed to have been with me. Imagine how I felt. Maybe it would have been a fitting end to the Pollock cycle if Lee and I had been together at this moment. But we were not, and that is why.

  Actually, when I went to Rome for the Pollock show in the Modern Art Museum in 1958, I was terribly moved, seeing all the early enormous canvases that for years I had dragged in and out and encouraged, if not forced, people to buy. It certainly had been the most interesting and important time of my life, since 1934, and I think by far my most honourable achievement.

  At this point I must go back to certain events that occurred in 1948, in order to lead up to the Museum of Modern Art in Rome. After I accepted Count Zorzi’s invitation to the Biennale, I went to Capri for the winter. In the spring, Italy was to have a general election, and everyone was terrified that it would go Communist and that Tito would immediately walk into Italy. The atmosphere in Capri was very hysterical and some of my friends made me so nervous that I began to regret my promise to the Biennale. I thought the collection was safer in storage in New York. However, I decided to consult the head of the United States Information Service (USIS) in Naples. He sent me on to Rome to Dr Morey, who was the cultural attaché at the United States Embassy. What a charming and distinguished man he was! He immediately reassured me so much (being convinced himself that Italy would not go Communist) that I decided to let the Biennale have my pictures. Not only that, he also sent me to Dr Palma Bucarelli, the director of the Modern Museum in Rome, to arrange to show my collection there, under the auspices of the United States Government, after the Biennale. Dr Palma Bucarelli accepted with joy, as the United States was to pay all the expenses. Unfortunately when the time came the Government had withdrawn a greater part of the funds from the new budget of USIS, and the project had to be relinquished.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CEYLON, INDIA AND VENICE AGAIN

  In the fall of 1954, after Raoul’s death, I decided to get out of Italy and try to think of something else. Paul Bowles had invited me to Ceylon, where he had bought a little island. It was the southern-most inhabited spot in the Indian Ocean, fantastically beautiful and luxuriant, with every conceivable flower and exotic plant from the east. The house resembled the Taj Mahal, as it was built in octagonal form. We all lived there together in separate rooms divided by curtains, we being Paul, his wife Jany, Ahmed, a young Arab primitive painter of great talent, and an Arab chauffeur, who seemed rather sad without the Jaguar car, which had been left behind in Tangiers, Paul’s other home.

  In order to get to the island one had to pick up one’s skirts and wade through the Indian Ocean. There was no bridge or boat. The waves usually wet one’s bottom, even though the distance one walked could be done in one minute and a half. It was terribly unpleasant to go about all day with a wet bottom, but there was no other way. The beauty of the surroundings made up for all the inconveniences, which were many. There was no water on the island and the servants had to carry it over on their heads. This made bathing, apart from sea-bathing, virtually impossible. But there was a raft just below the house and the swimming was superb. The beach opposite was skirted with coconut palms, and there were narrow fishing craft with beautiful Singalese fishermen riding them astride. It was another dream world, so different from Venice.

  As Ceylon was such a small island, I was received with enthusiasm and written up in the papers as a great art authority and asked to broadcast. I was even consulted by the wife of the chief of police, who begged me to tell her if her twelve-year-old son should be encouraged to paint. His father very much disapproved of his artistic child’s pursuits, which were fostered by the adoring mother. Actually, the child was an infant prodigy, and I had to admit it to the father, with the reservation that often children who began painting well lose all their freshness when they grow up.

  Reading from my diary I find the following entry: ‘Yesterday I was invited to go and see the pai
ntings of a child genius, son of the chief of police. His father does not want him to paint, except as a hobby, the mother is fostering the child’s genius. An angelic little creature of twelve, who showed me all his pets, dogs, puppies and white mice. His paintings are as mature as a man of twenty-five. He has an extraordinary talent amounting to genius. His style is not formed, sometimes it resembles Matisse or Bonnard, but he has great force and sense of colour and design. A direct, simple and pure approach, and at the same time quite sophisticated. His mother was a beautifully dressed little elegant Singalese, with oriental jewellery and wearing an occidentalized sari. The house was a little gem, all opening on to lovely cinnamon gardens. My infant prodigy had exquisite hands. He showed me all his art books, Egyptian, Japanese, Dufy, Picasso, etc. The child had wonderful taste and perception in pointing out details. The mother spends all her money on his paints and art books.

  ‘The was another infant prodigy, a cellist, a protégé of Casals. He belonged to a very distinguished family and his uncle, Darangale, is one of the best painters of Ceylon, but I fear too much influenced by Tchelichef. This infant prodigy was much older, about sixteen, and already well known as a cellist. He also had an adoring mother, who lived only to further his career. But she seemed as worried as the wife of the chief of police. Neither of these ladies seemed to be entirely convinced that they were doing the right thing.’

  After five weeks in Ceylon, I set off alone for India. My trip was planned by Thakore Saheb, the Indian Ambassador in Colombo. He had formerly been in Washington and was married to the sister of the Maharajah of Mysore. He must have had a very exaggerated idea about the speed of American travellers, which I grant can be rather racy, as the itinerary he prepared for me would have killed a far stronger person than I was. I had to cut out about half of it, though I managed to visit over twenty cities in forty-eight days. In Colombo I was told by a journalist not to miss the paintings of Jaminy Roy, in Calcutta. When I got to Mysore, where I went to visit the Maharajah, I went to the Art Museum. Faced with a painting that resembled a Brauner, my mind began to wander and I tried to remember the name of the painter whom I was supposed to look up in Calcutta. I was very upset because I did not succeed. I thought I must send a wire to the person in Colombo who had told me about him. Suddenly I looked up at the painting I was standing in front of, and realized that it was a Jaminy Roy.

  When I got to Calcutta the publicity agent of the West Bengal Government, to whom I had a letter of introduction from the Indian Ambassador, took me, upon my request, to visit Jaminy Roy, to whom he presented me as an art critic. In my diary I find the following entry: ‘Went to visit Jaminy Roy, a saintly man of sixty. Lives in a beautiful white modern house, where he shows his paintings. They are all mythological subjects, even the Christian ones. He has exhibited in New York and London, but has never left India.’

  Jaminy Roy paints a lot on a woven papyrus, but I bought a picture for seventy-five rupees (about five guineas) which was on paper, as it was easier to pack. The picture depicts the abduction of Siva by Ravana. The demon King Jataya wanted to stop Ravana, a fight ensued and Jataya, the valiant bird, was killed. This is an episode from Ramayana, the great Hindu mythology. Jaminy Roy had copied a few European painters from reproductions. One was Campigli and another was Van Gogh. His own work resembled Victor Brauner’s, except that all his eyes are shaped like little boats or almonds. He has a primitive quality, like the Arab Ahmed. He does not approve of three-dimensional painting. His is quite flat. I felt he was a wise man and quite unspoilt.

  When I got to New Delhi, exhausted by all my travels, trying to keep up with the itinerary of Thakore Saheb, I was rescued by Paxton Haddow, a lovely girl in the American Embassy, who worked for USIS. She invited me to live with her in a beautiful house, and thus for a while I forgot I was a tourist.

  Pax drove me to Chandigarh, a city which is to take the place of Lahore, the former capital of the Punjab, which belongs to Pakistan, since the division of India. The following entry is in my diary: ‘Went . . . to Chandigarh, where we arrived a few hours after the Prime Minister had held the official opening of the supreme court, the masterpiece of Le Corbusier, a very fine monument, much resembling his apartment house in Marseilles, but of course much less domestic. The whole town of Chandigarh, laid out by Le Corbusier, is an amazing example of modern town planning, all built within his theory of Man’s proportions. The head, the body, the arms must all be represented approximately. It was amazing to see Chandigarh after seeing Fatehpur-Sikri, the dead city near Agra. There are twenty-six sectors in all, with huge highways for fast traffic and roads for pedestrians . . . Few sectors are finished, but those which are contain houses all alike, in straight rows, to be rented by government officials at ten per cent of their salaries. So everybody knows by your house-rent what your salary is. All the people who are judges live in one row, etc., down to the coolies, who have their own houses. As a venture, this is stupendous, but the other buildings, designed by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, are not so nice. Le Corbusier designed some of the official buildings, engineering college, schools (each sector is to have one), hospital, printing office, etc. There are few trees, and the whole effect so far is very desert-like and monotonous. In ten or twenty years it will be interesting to see. Now, everything is makeshift, the schools being used for assembly halls, local dispensaries for hospitals, etc.

  ‘A very charming woman, wife of a judge, accompanied us, and though she knew much less than Pax, who had been there once before, she knew more of the practical side of living in Chandigarh. She had chosen a house that she already regretted, as a huge building was going up opposite, though she had especially chosen the house for its privacy. She lamented her dining-room, which served as a corridor. There was no portico over the entrance to protect her from the rain, which is devastating in Chandigarh. Her garage was behind the house, as were the servant’s quarters; all very bad for the monsoon time, which causes floods. Her house, being one of the first to be built, was already out of date. The new ones had benefited by all the mistakes made in building the others, and were much nicer, as we saw for ourselves.

  ’We stayed in a Le Corbusier hotel. It was quite comfortable. Le Corbusier had made lattice-work cement walls everywhere to keep out the sun and let in the wind. This idea, though seemingly his invention, is an old Indian custom, so everyone is happy. The city is not beautiful, and never will be, because the houses are too regular, similar and uninspired. Anyhow, the idea is to raise the standard of living of the poor. It is quite socialistic. We saw one cinema in one sector that is finished. This sector resembled a town in the United States . . . The whole enterprise must give great satisfaction to Le Corbusier, who is the only person in the whole world ever entrusted with such a commission. In his office there is a plan on the wall, which you are supposed to view before you see the town. The workmen of Chandigarh have been honoured by having the streets lined with poles bearing the colourful bowls which carry earth and cement, the symbols of their work. The worst houses looked like women’s knitting or embroidery. There were one or two rows of very handsome houses, but nothing really wonderful or stately. However, the enterprise was not supposed to be anything else. Too bad. It could have been much better, even within these limits.’

  Modern art in India was very disappointing, as it was in Ceylon, where George Keytes was considered the best modern painter. He decorated temples in semi-realistic style with Buddhist myths as subjects. I could find nothing to buy besides my Jaminy Roy, except one very lovely primitive painting I saw in an all-Indian show in New Delhi. This depicted a village scene of peasants seated at night around a table. It had tremendous atmosphere and, though it was not at all realistic, gave one a great sense of Indian life. I wished to buy it, but when Pax went with the money she was just too late, as Nehru had given it as a present to Nasser.

  What I lost in painting I made up for in ear-rings, coming home with a great many bought all over India, and even some from Tibet. These I found in
Darjeeling, where I went to look for Lhasa terriers, endeavouring to put an end to the in-breeding of my numerous dog family. I went to visit Tenzing Norkey, the sherpa who climbed Mount Everest with Hillary. Tenzing had six Lhasas who walked with him daily in the Himalayas, but he would not part with any of them.

  Princess Pignatelli once said to me, ‘If you would only throw all those awful pictures into the Grand Canal, you would have the most beautiful house in Venice’. And so it was considered. But no Venetian approved of my modern décor. However, I had to have a suitable modern décor for the collection, which was exhibited all over the house for lack of space. In place of a Venetian glass chandelier, I hung a Calder mobile, made out of broken glass and china that might have come out of a garbage pail. I had sofas and chairs covered in white plastic that could be washed every morning, as my large family of dogs felt most at home in the best seats. (My two darling Lhasa terriers had mated with a gentleman dog specially brought for this purpose from America by Mrs Bernard Reis, and had produced fifty-seven puppies in my home. About six usually remain in residence.) Over the sofas I placed black-and-white striped fur rugs, which the dogs adore to lick. This was also un-Venetian.

  Most Venetian, and at the same time un-Venetian, is a forcole, or gondolier’s oar-rest, which Alfred Barr presented me with for my garden. Those who don’t know what it is admire it as a wonderful piece of modern sculpture, which is just what Alfred intended.

  Originally the entire house was open to the public on museum days. My poor guests—how they suffered! I remember once the painter, Matta, locking himself up in his room in order to take a siesta. The lock was so seldom used that we had to get a locksmith to release him. I did not even have the privacy of my own bedroom, as it contained my Calder bed, which, strangely enough, against my turquoise walls looked as though it had been made for its ultimate destination—Venice. There is also a painting by Francis Bacon, the only one of his I have ever seen that didn’t frighten me. It depicts a very sympathetic ape seated on a chest, guarding a treasure; the background is all done in fuchsia-coloured pastel, which goes admirably with my turquoise walls, and with a curtain made out of an Indian sari and a marabou bedcover of the same colour. The rest of the walls are decorated by my collection of ear-rings, a hundred pairs or more, collected from all over the world. In addition to this, the room has Venetian mirrors and Laurence Vail’s decorated bottles and Cornell’s Surrealist ‘objects’. Everything combined makes a fantastic atmosphere.