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New York 22, N.Y.

March 18, 1964
 
Dear Mr. Nicolson:

Congratulations are certainly owed to you, and what great satisfaction you must derive from having re-created not only the oeuvre, but also the personality of an artist who, without you, would have remained in complete oblivion.

As you so correctly write, it does read like a roman policier. But what courage and perseverance it took to follow these vague clues to arrive at a convincing conclusion.

All the more as you point out the distance in the evolution between the "Saints Pierre et Paul" and the "Saint Sebastien".

The relationship with Georges de La Tour is essentially, of course, in the subject matter - an art historian, to whom I showed my painting a little while ago, remarked (and how correctly, I think) that BIGOT's was an independent, parallel movement, for the personalities and the techniques of these two artists are indeed quite different. This, I think is so important for, with the tendency to generalization, so common nowadays, some already claim that BIGOT's oeuvre is but a derivative of Georges de La Tour's.

I am surprised, however, at your linking him to some extent to HONTHORST - for, to me, the latter shows a coarseness so typical in fact of other Dutch artists of the period, which is quite absent from BIGOT's paintings and indeed, I am happy to say, from my "Saint Irene", so delicate and refined.

However, in all fairness, I should add that I do not know the HONTHORST paintings you refer to.

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