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dedicated gangster, a little Molotov who is sharp enough to see that art is important as a political weapon and as a personal entree.

If the above seems unduly sharp or unfair I need only remember that in 1946 when Barney was introduced to me by Rothko he had no painting, was not an artist nor wished to be. He was only interested in schemes of promotion of artists work in cheap commercial ways. He dropped interest in my work when I told him I was not interested in such ventures. Followed an effort to get Peter Neagoe to finance a gallery which Newman would direct. Failing this he moved in as you know Parsons until his name became identified with hers via mostly his own propaganda. Even my name was credited to him by himself and Rothko when, as fact, Betty was urged to add my name to ger exhibitors by Peggy Guggenheim. So the fraud has grown until I was literally forced to retire from the street to save my own integrity. Yet even this was used against me by my "friends" as irresponsibility and temperament. For the "machine" had to be saved. In a following effort to act totally without prejudice toward Parsons I sold her three pictures to be not used in any way in association with her Gallery but as an individual commitment to be handled under very strict rules of disposal. I found myself able neither to withdraw or advance without either capture or opprobrium being a part of the gesture by their grace.

What an irony that you should be attacked by one who has spent his life trying to create that which he assaults with such violence, that which he needs to socially reassure his will. For his is always an act of Death if I ever saw such. He boasts that he "killed painting!" Now his rage at being left out of Hess's book, and your exhibition, is frankly manifest, and are fitted to his personal, vengeful neurosis in a logical pattern of megalomania. So do the impotent strike at themselves, and slash the living. Gestures before rigor mortis is complete. But the oral dance goes on and the Pied Pipers of dictatorship lead merrily on to the gas- chambers, joined by the little artist-people with their palms turned up in the market place, in benediction of their degradation and shame. The Bauhaus has its triumph and its tomb, complete. 

You might be amused to know that Pollock assaulted me, just before I left with the charge that I "wanted everything" because I would not cooperate with the local gangs to exploit the possibilities. Thus am I, totally dedicated to the need for individual responsibility and vision asking nothing in return, charged with total crime against the state. So it has been, is, and I fear always shall be. Certainly fear is