We Return
To Paris (1955-1956)
My optimistic hopes for the effects of Paris on
Ary's physical and emotional state proved wrong in every way.
The high blood pressure and over-wrought nerves and the despairing
sense of displacement became worse rather than better. Our room
at the Lutece was small and uncomfortable. The crowds at the
cafes didn't talk about art anymore; they talked about dealers
and the best ways to sell. And they were bitter against America
and Americans.
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Drawing From Babylon Series
1956
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Of course Paris still retained its charms —"This
afternoon we walked to Arbit Blatas' studio. Sun-drenched avenues,
lined with rows of green trees — wonderful abstractions.
Paris began to creep into our hearts again." (From Frances
diary.)
But Ary brooded constantly over the loss of our studio and our
homelessness. There was no desire for adventure in the new situation;
there was only mourning over what had been lost, and hopelessness
for the future. A visit to a doctor, a friend of Ary's former
years in Paris, showed his blood pressure alarmingly high and
his entire physical condition most unsatisfactory. Also it was
generally cold and wet in Paris, and the doctor suggested that
we go to a milder climate. We finally settled on Majorca. A
Spanish painter named Ramis whom we met at one of the cafes
told us of his hometown in Majorca — a town not far from
Palma called Soler. It was set in the mountains, and an electric
tram led down to a beach on the sea. It was quiet and picturesque,
he said, better for us than Palma. So about the middle of May
we set out for Majorca.
Soler proved to be a French-speaking town. Many of the inhabitants
had spent many years in France, in or near Marseilles, as fruit
importers; they had made money and then when they had amassed
enough to set themselves up in business in their homeland, they
had returned to Majorca. So Ary felt in his element, as far
as communication was concerned. Also, most of the guests at
the pension in which we installed ourselves were Belgians, and
even I found myself able to join in conversation with them.
The square was dominated by a big white stone church, Gothic
Renaissance, with Moorish-type decoration, and was lined with
shops and outdoor cafes, with a big stone fountain in the middle,
and further down the street a trough, where drivers of carts
brought their horses, donkeys, mules, and even an ox to drink.
Children gathered around the fountain. People rode by in autos,
motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and in contrast an old man
carrying a jug would walk slowly down the sloping street to
the water fountain, fill the jug and carry it up the hill again,
balanced on his back.
Naturally this scene appealed to Ary, and we spent many hours
at the cafes on the square, drinking coffee or occasionally
cognac, which was only about ten cents a glass in our money.
He loved the beach, too, and almost every afternoon about five
o'clock, after the burning heat of midday had subsided, we would
take the streetcar from the square down a winding trail in the
mountains, to the beach below. A number of hotels were situated
on the beach, and they had tables and chairs and beach umbrellas
lining the waterfront. The beach was rocky and the water dirty,
but Ary loved it, and he would happily wade into the water —
really a funny spectacle, in his red and white plaid bathing
trunks, and still wearing his bone-rimmed glasses and a big-brimmed
straw hat on his head. Returning refreshed to the pension, we
would eat a light supper, and then sit on the verandah, watching
the lights of the little electric train from Palma as it wound
its way through the mountains, and talking to our fellow-guests.
Ary's physical condition had improved, and on the surface his
morale was better. But on July 5th there is an entry in the
diary, which I kept sporadically :
"An unhappy day. I am worried about Ary. He surely is better
physically, but his sense of bewilderment, his inability to
adjust to the loss of the 59th Street studio, are pitiful and
terribly discouraging. It seems that all our dreams, all our
plans during these years, have gone sour. The dreaming and the
planning were the reality, it seems, and the realization is
something very empty. I still resist this disappointing denouement,
and must fight for something better for us both.''
However, on July 8th I made the following entry:
"Ary started to paint again yesterday, and is working
on several little canvases. I stay in the room while he works,
and study my French. It has always been one of my greatest joys
to be near him while he works. His canvases are fresh and interesting
in color and form. I have my fingers crossed and hope he will
go on to retain his old interest and joy of accomplishment."
And again the next day:
"Ary did a beautiful canvas this morning, in greens
and grays and black, directly on the base canvas, without a
background layer. I think it is quite stunning just 'as is.'
"
“The largest of the three,
"Majorca," seems to reflect the merciless heat of
the Majorcan sun. Sometime in the 60s Ary worked on it a bit,
and although he probably improved it structurally, I think
he lost something of the brilliant red which conveyed the
feeling of the burning sunlight.”
The Majorcan stay produced three small canvases.
A small structural composition in black, green and yellow must
be the one I mentioned in my diary. Unsigned, it is listed as
Abstraction No. 105, in the Foundation records. No. 102, also
unsigned, I called at the time it was painted "Crucifixion."
As I look at it now, it seems to me that it presages to some
extent Ary's Mexican series of fantasy figures. The largest
of the three, "Majorca," seems to reflect the merciless
heat of the Majorcan sun. Sometime in the 60s Ary worked on
it a bit, and although he probably improved it structurally,
I think he lost something of the brilliant red which conveyed
the feeling of the burning sunlight.
By late July I was able to write:
"Ary is getting more and more into the swing of painting,
and is talking of concentrating for a long period, buying a
number of canvases as soon as the store here has a new stock,
and more and more he leans toward the idea of remaining here
for the fall and perhaps part of the winter."
But I could sense that the new interest was for the most part
a cover-up of his underlying unhappiness. And we received conflicting
reports about the severity of the Majorcan winters, and of course
the houses weren't heated. Nevertheless we began to look around
for a house. One was for sale for $1,000 — a sturdily built,
two-story structure; drawback: it had no running water. The
Majorcans told us we could have a maid who would carry water
to the house every day, but I was afraid of this. Finally we
decided on a three-story house just off the square. The painter
Jacques Zucker and his wife had been occupying it for the summer.
It had a bathroom and running water on each floor, and a good
studio room on the top floor. No electric refrigerator, of course,
and only an oil stove. The rent was $17 a month. We were just
about to sign a lease when one evening at supper time the little
maid at the pension brought an envelope to our table. It was
a cable from Paris. My friend Martin Panzer, with whom I had
worked at the State of Israel Bond office in New York and who
was now in charge of the European drive, had lost his assistant,
and wanted to know if I would like to come to Paris to take
the job. Ary and I talked it over that evening and the following
morning I sent Martin a return cable saying that we would come
to Paris.
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In
The Studio
1956
oil on canvas
39 1/4 x 28 5/8
Virginia Museum
of Fine Arts, VA |
In Paris we put up at the Lutece, and Ary found
a room nearby that he could use as a studio. It was bare and
cold, and the only room they could give us at the hotel was
tiny and dark, and in general we were miserable. Finally Ary
met the painter Joseph Floch at the cafe. Floch was leaving
for the United States and wanted to sublet his studio until
June. Ary grabbed it up. It was, like so many Paris studios,
one of a row of buildings in an alleyway; one room, with tremendously
tall sloping ceiling and a skylight. Floch had been using it
as living quarters, but we decided I couldn't stand it even
if Ary could. It had running water, but no inside toilet, and
the only means of heating was an old stove in the center of
the room. So we found sleeping quarters at the Hotel de Chatillon,
a block or two away. The winter was very cold and Ary found
that he had to tussle with the stove all morning to get it to
burn. Meanwhile he would wrap himself up in a blanket and stretch
out on the couch, listening to lectures from the Sorbonne on
the radio. By the time the studio was halfway warm, Ary had
neither the energy nor the inclination to paint. But one canvas
did emerge from that period, a large painting that Ary called
"The Studio." It is an abstraction, and it gives the
impression of fireplace and easels and light streaming in from
above.
Meanwhile Ary's blood pressure had shot up alarmingly, and nothing
the doctors could do for him seemed to help. He really made
a valiant effort to pull himself together, but the trouble now
was physical more than emotional, and he was in really bad shape.
“There, despite his precarious
physical condition, Ary found peace and relaxation, and as
a result one of his finest series of charcoal and pastel drawings
— the series dealing particularly with space and light—was
evolved.”
The following spring an artist friend of Ary's
named Boberman offered to sublet us his studio for the summer.
It was the typical old studio, one room, very high ceilinged,
with a narrow stairway leading up to a balcony, where there
was a bed, a few pieces of furniture, and (a modern addition)
a bathroom. The Boberman's had furnished it quite charmingly,
with a Spanish table and candelabras and other wrought-iron
pieces. And it had an electric ice-box and a gas stove, so we
could prepare our meals. The location was ideal, across the
street from the Gare Montparnasses, in the alleyway where a
tiny theatre "Le Theatre de Poche" was housed. There,
despite his precarious physical condition, Ary found peace and
relaxation, and as a result one of his finest series of charcoal
and pastel drawings
— the series dealing particularly with space and light—was
evolved.
All this time we had been looking for a studio of our own to
rent or to buy, but there was nothing at all available. Paris
was overcrowded, there was little building going on, and professional
and business people were buying up all the studio apartments.
The coming winter loomed before us frighteningly. So finally
after much deliberation, we decided to give up the idea of a
home in Paris, and the first week in November found us on the
Liberte sailing for home.
We both realized that Ary couldn't take the New York tempo anymore,
and when a letter came to us at the hotel in New York from Ary's
sister Sarah Lack in Houston, begging us to come down there,
we decided to accept her invitation for the winter. Ary didn't
care for the city as an environment, but Mexico was nearby and
he felt that when the summer came, we could make for that country,
which he had found so delightful back in 1940.
