Undated letter from Erich Kahn to J.P. Hodin

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[Translation/transcription]

1 Albert Studios
4 Albert Street
NW1

Euston 6507

Dear Pepi,

Here is the changeling, born of long, hard labour.

‘The revered child-bearer lies
At rest with transfigured eyes’

(Heine on Meyerbeer)

Ach, my muse is silent! And the contents of my notebook are mostly just scribbled pictures or at best suggestions and admonitions that would mean nothing to anyone else and are for the most part completely illegible.

I wish I could preach manifestos and know what good and evil are like the others, those who have become famous. Whether it’s true or nonsensical seems to matter very little so long as it is advocated with authority and the requisite foolish faith. Absurdity can be incorporated and processed in painting without detriment – but preaching calls for a position from which one can ‘talk down to others’. How can a sceptic make an intellectual profession of faith? I have no need to make professions of faith – from my paintings (even more so than my drawings) it’s quite plain to see where the shoes pinch, things that aren’t on my agenda; for example my regrettable tendency to torture myself. When people berate me for this hedonistic tendency I naturally become irritable and reply with the greatest clarity and warmth that there must have been some mistake. (In the last few days, out of sheer self-torture, I have completely ruined a portrait for a friend.) I am not in the fortunate position of having the sort of social conscience that might compel me to paint poor people, miners from Wales, heavy labourers etc, etc. C’est trop bête… unless one likes doing that sort of thing.

I need painting, the ‘materiality’ of it, to keep my feet on solid ground (the word comes from ‘mother’ after all); sometimes I make notes for myself on the typewriter so as to create an intellectual substructure, with varying degrees of success. But that carries very little weight; spontaneous sensual expression goes its own way. It is true that I am always speculating, but painting, which is to a large extent subject to the law of inertia, is not amenable to rapid transformation. The result of painting – the visible image, the drawing etc. – has, when it is seen, a social function. The instinctual urge to paint is naturally egoistic. But this is ancient wisdom. Such things should be kept secret, not waved under the nose of the public.

The page of ‘Early Impressions’ that I’m sending you here is of course the history of the onset of a neurosis, but it is no-one else’s concern. The rest is exactly as I have described it.

All of this has taken an inordinate amount of time. Apologies. I shall try put some more abstract ideas down on paper.

That will have to suffice for today.

Sincerely yours,

Erich

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