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Esther McCoy | 17

were too hard to photograph, and that no photographer was able to do them except under his supervision; he was too busy now to spare a few days--three days was a minimum, he thought, to get the complete idea. The new work coming in was more important than photography, he thought. Alas, I persuaded him to let me get a photographer and go myself. When the prints were delivered he was so abusing to the photographer that I regretted my insistence. "Reshoot," he wrote in India ink over the face of half of the prints, others he cropped mercilessly.
The truth was that by 1945 when the strictness of the International Style ruled design he had been dismissed by the architectural profession as one who had lost his way--a promising talent that had gone astray. The more he was ignored, the testier he became with editors, critics and photographers. In one case, an editor quoted a client as having a role in the design of the house, and when I went in  one morning there was a letter by the typewritter, much interlined, with a request for me to retype it. One paragraph was so insulting that I left a blank space for him to type it in himself. He argued, but when I would not budge he cooled down the paragraph.
There was another confrontation, which might have let to my being fired.
During this time I published several short stories--going into the office at eleven gave me time to write of mornings at home. I also elected to write about Schindler when the editor