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December 2, 1974


Sheila Hicks de Zanartu
c/o Atelier des Grands-Augustins
30, rue Dauphine
Paris 6e

Dear Sheila:

I love your letters, I love the variety of paper on whichtthey are written, and now that the strike is over, let me give you a lengthly report on the 7th Biennale.

There will probably be about three from Germany, one from Argentina (being of course Penalba), probably twoffrom Belgium, one from Brazil, by a guy named Jacques Douchez, Olga of course from Columbia, one from Finland...And the French are: Marc Bankowsky, Daniel Graffin, Patrice Hugues, Marie Moulinier, and probably Hans Hartung got in at the last minute. Aside from Hartung and Daniel, do you know any of these people? They ahd submitted 68. Do you know Diana Springall from Great Britain? There's one Hungarian, one Israeli (Agam), two Italians, and of the thirty Japanese submitted, we will have six. There are a couple of new people from Holland--Acresberger, Van Blaaderen, Munster, Ody de Boer, Desiree Scholten, Verschuure, Vossen. Do you know any of those people? Out of 44 poles, we have five, all new people, except Magda. Elsi, Francoise, Moik, from Switzerland, in addition to two others. Czechoslovakia fell flat on its face. A sentimental inclusion from the Soviet Union--the first. The good old USA submitted over a hundred and seventy. We selected Lia Cook, Charlotte Funk, Gerhart Knodel, Debbe Moss, Deborah Rappaport, Sherri Smith, Gary Trentham, Carol Westfall. Some of them are brand new to me. I had one major victory in this area; I gal by the name of Mary Winder Baker had the nerve to submit a piece that was almost a complete imitation of your white piece as you showed it on the floor in New York. I got rid of that quick. I had one major failure, and that even though I love her work. The sculpter from Venezuela, Gego, I suppose encouraged by the fact that we had put her work into our book, had her piece accepted, even though it had nothing, but absolutely nothing, to do with the field, except the structure. Jagoda, of course, was accepted, and as I indicated to you over the telephone, it is fine that all observed the democratic process of submission, but they couldn't be less interested in your explanations. Everybody said, "They can do no wrong."