Viewing page 1 of 2

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

DOROTHY DEHNER  33 FIFTH AVENUE  NEW YORK 3, NEW YORK

For ART in AMERICA

I met David the day I came back to New York from vacation at home in California. He had been here for a few weeks having come from Washington D.C. where he had been working for the Morris Plan Bank. I had been at the Art Students League the previous year. [[strikethrough]] Our [[/strikethrough]] David's landlady, ([[strikethrough]] and mine [[/strikethrough]]) had told him that she had a tenant who studied art, in response to his questions about art schools. I had scarcely put down my bags when D knocked on the door. He was vary excited and enthused about being in New York. We started talking before dinner time and that conversation [[strikethrough]] didnt [[/strikethrough]] lasted until early morning. We talked about everything, art, artists, religion, families, friends, travel, (I had just come back from a year in Europe) music, colleges and a thousand other things. I was full of the Italian R. & 20C. Fr. art modern art that had seen in Paris We walked down from our lodgings at W. 118th St through Morningside Park to Harlem. We bought food at gorceries and fruit markets and ate it on the streets as we walked. We bought records to play on my old Victrola, and we sat in the Park for hours. David had told me about his disappointment in his previous art classes at Ohio University, where " they taught you how to teach art to others without teaching you how to be an artist." [[strikethrough]] He had brought a scarf along that he had made there in a crafts course. He had made a wood block, and printed multiple designs on the silk. The subject was Eve and the Apple Tree and the big snake. Even that small design was full of [[strikethrough]] energy [[/strikethrough]] vitality and power, but he deplored it because it was craft work and he wanted only to paint. [[/strikethrough]] I told him about the League and it methods and its attitudes to its students. He felt it was exactly the right place for him and [[strikethrough]] I [[/strikethrough]] we couldnt wait until Monday [[strikethrough]] for him [[/strikethrough]] to enroll. He had a job working for a finance company whose offices were right next to the league, writing very high toned letters [[strikethrough]] letters [[/strikethrough]] to people who wanted to buy things, and checking their credit. for this work he wore spats, (in winter)