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clipping service worked well. In the folders, I also carried letters of introduction to a sizeable segment of the total art population of Europe.
Thus armed, I set off in the summer of 1938.
The expedition began inauspiciously. A titled gentleman who lived in Paris had been named as a sort of commissioner-at-large for France, being the friend of a friend of friends in San Francisco. He had drawn up lists of objects to represent French decorative arts in the Exposition. When I saw it, my heart sank. He was living in the past. His tastes ran to the baroque, the very elegant, the tres gentile of the 19th Century and even earlier. If he saw any beauty or value in contemporary art, it was not apparent. My ideas, as exemplified by the folders of clippings, revolted him. We were poles apart in taste. Since he was supposed to be the liaison for me in france, it was an awkward situation. I wasted precious days trying to find a solution.