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August 4, 1954
3A Varennes St.
S.F.11

Dear Dorothy:

I think I should add a postscript to my last letter, which did not mention further your proposed correspondence with Ossorio and myself in regard to the painting he owns. Several thoughts have ticked which might well bear passing along. They might preclude embarrassing after effects if considered now.

Between Ossorio and B. Parsons there is a very warm, and possibly a financial, relationship. Of this latter I have no proof, except the circumstantial kind. Which has had a sharp edge where I have become independent, in matters relating to my work and its purchase. I need not elaborate on the implications and cross-motives stirred up, now or later, when the desire of the Museum is known. Since Parsons owns paintings of mine and has had the effrontery to inform me that she "will do with them as she pleases" (she sent back my cheque refund) I see the possibilities of some very sharp pressures brought to bear without ruth on whomever might be in the road at the most opportune moment. I expect them to hit me whenever they get the chance, but I have no desire to have others needlessly injured by their arrogance and vengeance of frustration.

There is another matter about which I will speak to you when I see you, and which concerns this particular painting. I can only write now that Ossorio did not remember seeing the work in the Museum show, when he first saw it in my studio and thereupon asked to buy it. But what I have to add will have to wait; I think it wisest not to write to him until I see you. I have already informed him of the bare fact of your interest in the work. I think it best to let it rest there. He has again failed to keep his latest assurance that payments on work bought will be resumed -----. I received a token after setting him a brief deadline. My spontaneous expression of goodwill following it was a tactical blunder, it seems, in the game of Chinese checkers.
No one is more aware than I of the personal and unpleasant character of such a letter as this. Frankly, I am Goddamned tired of all this personal muscling and gaming for the fees these bastards make one fight for, and which completely stops the flow of the spirit and functioning of the mind on the levels where good work can be accomplished. But they are aware of their means to power and respect it as all knaves must. I, needing it often desperately, have only contempt for it. This I should hide if I would avoid their resentment, but I never can for long. But if the above can induce you to wait my arrival it may be worth the time, if only to avoid recriminations and future assaults.

Yours as ever,   Clyff