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britannica - americana
HEMINGWAY ERNEST
(1899-1961).
Signed autograph letter, signed « Ernest Hemingway »,
Havana (Cuba) 29 October 1934, to Alfred H. BARR Jr.,
Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York ;
3 pages in-8 format, on letterhead “
Hotel Ambos Mundos”
(splits to horizontal folds), envelope marked “Personal”;
in English.
3 000 / 4 000 €
Hemingway on the art market and the Spanish Civil War: a fascinating
letter.
The painting,
The Farm,
by Miro, was purchased by Hemingway
in Paris in 1925, as a present for his wife, Hadley, for her thirty-fourth
birthday. According to Carlos Baker in his biography of Hemingway,
the author found Miro to be “the only painter who had ever been
able to combine in one picture all that you felt about Spain when you
were there and all that you felt when you were away and could not
go there.”
The Farm
was later bequeathed to the National Gallery of
Art in Washington by his widow, Mary.
Hemingway also collaborated in promoting a one-man show of
the etchings of Luis QUINTANILLA (1893-1978), at the Pierre Matisse
Gallery in New York. Quintanilla was being held without bail in Madrid
on charges of conspiracy against the Spanish government. Pierre
Matisse asked Hemingway to sign and circulate a petition to help
get Quintanilla out of jail. Hemingway responded with enthusiasm:
“Luis, was not only a damned fine artist but also one of the best guys
he had ever known.” Hemingway’s own support for the Spanish Civil
War was considerable, raising money for the Loyalists who supported
the government of the Republic against the uprising of General Franco,
and writing about the war as a correspondent.
“Thank you very much for your letter and for the advice you gave
Mr. Sheiser about arranging the Quintanilla show. He has gotten it
fixed up for Pierre Matisse’s gallery end of Nov. 1st week of December.
You were quite right about the prices. The Miro (The Farm), really,
stands up marvellously. It has gained rather than lost. I went to see
his last stuff and it did not mean a damned thing to me except that it
was pleasant. But have often found that what I don’t understand at the
time gets too clear finally. I think it is a wonderful thing for modern
painting that the bottom has dropped out of it financially. Hard on
the boys but there will be better pictures. The good pictures will be
worth just as much and much more in the end (we’ll all be dead but
the pictures won’t be).
Between ourselves Poor old Quintanilla is in jail now in Madrid since
2 weeks waiting a court martial trial. The army beat the revolution this
last time. It was very badly managed and too many people talked
about it before it started. I will hear by cable as soon as he is tried.
You would like him, has one of the finest intelligences we have ever
known and the etchings are very good. These little bastards around
NY that talk about revolution now do not know very much about the
practice of it. They should have had to urinate on their hands sometime
trying to wash the smear from the back-fire of a Thompson gun out
of the fork between your thumb and forefinger, on a roof with troops
coming up the stairs – That’s what the[y] look at – people’s hands.
In NY you are a revolutionist if you picket the Macaulay company
and then go on to a Literary Tea (the event of the season). Had an
invitation to do both. If you don’t answer they put you down as a
Fascist. Think I’ll write a story putting down the exact events of a day
on which one receives in the mail in Havana an invitation to picket
the Macaulay Co. and go on afterwards to a Literary Tea announced
as The Event of the Season...”
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