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NEWCOMB COLLEGE
Tulane University
NEW ORLEANS 18, LA.

Department of Art

November 27, 1957

Mr. Germain Seligman
5 East 57th Street
New York 22, New York

Dear Mr. Seligman:

I can hardly believe that it has been a whole year since I left the firm and New York and embarked on this new life, which has turned out to be wonderful, exciting and even better than I'd been led to expect! I must apologize though for being so remiss in writing. Don and I were indeed sorry that we missed seeing you in New York last summer. In fact we tried to time it so we could see you, but it just didn't work out that way, and then when we came back from New England the end of July you had already left town again. I hope that the next time we are in New York we will be able to see you, or even better, should you plan a trip to Yucatan again soon, do come via New Orleans. We find it a most fascinating place to be if one can't live in New York and in any event infinitely better than Lawrence, Kansas! Although we enjoyed Lawrence in the first blush of (not young but) mature, considered love, there is no real comparison. New Orleans is the second biggest port in the United States and a really cosmopolitan, indeed, international city with foreign consulates, shipping, etc., and it has all the color that comes with that. Plus its French and Spanish heritage, proximitey [[proximity]] to Mexico and the Caribbean - all this and restaurants too! And such marvellous [[marvelous]] restaurants? From our apartment we can hear river boats going up and down - almost like hearing the Queens on the Hudson, and the Times Picayune every day lists all the ships that come and go, and it's often a list of more intriguing places than the New York shipping news gives. 

Well, enough of that! We are also liking the University very much. The Middle American Research Institute here (MARI) has a superb library in our field, one of the best in the US, and Don is delighted with it. He has started graduate work in art history with his Latin American Art course this year and has nine graduate students as well as others who are undergraduates, and they are all very enthusiastic. Also all our colleagues in Latin American studies seem delighted to have an art historian here in their field. The MARI read Don's book on Mexican Colonial Manuscripts this fall, and they want to publish it as soon as we ca get it polished. We are actually hoping for a joint imprint if it can be worked out with the Yale Press, which is also interested, as in this way it will come out in an art historical and not just an anthropological context. We have been very busy this fall, in fact; Don will have a book review of Bernard Myers, Mexican Painting in Our Time, in the the June, 1958 issue of the Art Bulletin, and we will both have little articles in Ed Maser's next U. Kansas Museum Register. Incidentally the Masers are coming down between Christmas and New Years for a little visit. He sent us a copy of his Fontanalia show and saw your name among the lenders. It looked like a very fine show. We think that Ed has been doing really excellent things out there, but of course he also has the help and support of Dr. Murphy whom we also liked very much and felt was a truly remarkable Chancellor.