Confessions of an Art Addict (15 page)

In 1956, the Museum of Modern Art lent their Biennale pavilion to the Chicago Art Institute, and Katherine Kuh, who was then a curator of the Institute, made an exhibition called ‘The American Painters and the City'. Katherine came to my house to buy a Bacci, and was very much impressed with my two maids, whom she called my curators, who helped drag enormous canvases in and out. These two Italian country girls act as hostesses on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the days on which
my house is open to the public. I usually hide on these occasions. Afterwards, they often relate to me what has happened during the course of the afternoon. Once they told me with great horror that a Cubist Braque had been pointed out to a group of students as a Picasso. I said, ‘Why didn't you correct this?' and they replied, ‘Oh no, we couldn't, because it was a professor'. Besides making my maids into curators, I have also taught my two gondoliers to be expert picture hangers.

One day, in 1948, when I was walking through the Campo Manin, I noticed a very exciting painting in the window of a little art gallery. My first reaction was to take it for a Pollock. I went in and met the artist, who turned out to be Allan Davie, a tall Scotsman with a red beard. He had a blonde, equally Scottish wife called Billie. I bought a painting at once and we became great friends. Later his father, a clergyman, wrote me the sweetest letter, thanking me for the interest I took in his son. Allan Davie developed his own style very quickly, and though his work was not bought by anyone except me for years, he is one of the best British painters. Now, like everyone else as good, he has finally been recognized in England and New York, where he has been a great success, though for years he had to support his wife and baby by making jewellery.

In 1950 I met Dr Eugene Colp, the curator of the museum of Tel Aviv. He asked me to lend him a large number of pictures to show there. At that time, my basement was
stacked with the overflow of my collection, and as the cellar was very damp, I began giving away pictures, including Pollocks, in all directions, which, as I have already said, I now very much regret. My friend Bernard Reis said that instead of lending Dr Colp the pictures I should give them to him, so I gave him thirty-four, and later some more. Dr Colp was very much infatuated by me, and one day when he asked me what there was between us I replied, ‘Nothing, except thirty-four paintings.'

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.

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 paintings 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.'