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JOSEPHINE HERBST
WRITER

Erwinna Penna. Sept 27, 1963

Dear Nell,
 
I couldn't get in to the Knoedler show for its opening and to tell the truth, didn't really want to, as I want to see the paintings and it's too difficult with a milling crowd. But I came in yesterday and went up this morning and spent some time there. Leslie met me there and I also talked with that nice Mr. Davidson.

But I have to tell you that it meant a great deal to me to see all your new work. I can't even begin to describe what it did to me. Perhaps the shortest way, is to say that it made me very happy. It's not only beautiful, but, if you don't mind my saying so, I like it better than any of your earlier things. Something seems to have happened to a kind of internal structure, one can feel it behind that gorgeous color. It's pervasive quality and its intentional. The scenes from Gloucester moved me very much. I have been there only a few times and both times came to the port by sea, in a sailboat. The first time, in a very small one, 23 ft. long, when my husband and I sailed from upper Maine down the coast. The next time, years later, in a very swank sailboat coming from Provincetown by moonlight and getting into Gloucester early in the morning. I don't suppose I have put together the images of what Gloucester may seem to be, in my own mind, visual though my memory is, but when I saw the orange boats, and the green one and the lights in the water, that was it. Not the literal image, but the one the imagination really holds to, and that you bring to life as if it had leaped out of the dark. I loved that with the dark piles under what is probably a fish house, at the wharf, with the house itself salmon, and the houses on land darkening at sundown, and the color you have given to the background, sinking at sundown, and the color you have given to the background, sinking into night with the water holding its own against the fading day. And I loved that one you did of oak leaves with the orange, plums and the skeletal bunch of grapes on the table, and the sort of bars of color behind, the green, turqoise, orange, and so on. That's exactly the way it takes on a vision of itself beyond the ordinary vision one sees. But there wasn't a single painting you did, flowers or landscape, that did not give me a wonderful lift. I do thank you. The whole show is immense. Yes, I know I am using a big word but that's the way I felt. I go a great deal to art shows for painting has always meant a great deal to me. There are times when writing snags, and I go to see paintings to lift myself up and out again. Not all painting can do that. Even what are called "great paintings" can't always do it. They, great though they may be, can seem quite dead. And it is that especially alive thing, whether in words or painting, that I want. So this show seemed to me to be speaking, and some of yours even sang.

I know what a battle all of this has been, and perhaps that was a part of my joy. But it had nothing to do with the response to the painting which was something by itself. But I did get an added pleasure in knowing how much had gone [[strikethrough]] all [[/strikethrough]] this and I like that kind of triumph. In fact, it's the only kind of triumph that means a damn to me.

I'm back here where there is a real outdoors, and the trees are turning. Seeing that show made me crazy to paint, as I sometimes do, for my own sake. That's the real creative stuff when it makes you want to do something too. I use that test when I am reading and if it makes me feel unconsciously for a pencil to begin to make notes, I know it's really got something. The old tickle and twist is starting up, and that's it. Anyhow, many thanks, and my admiration and my love to you and Dilys.

Josephine Herbst

Transcription Notes:
Joseph Herbst - American writer