Letter from Oskar Kokoschka to J.P. Hodin

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[Translation/transcription]

Villeneuve

19 October 1964

My dear Master Hodinus,

It's almost another century since I last saw you both, and I'm very eager to see you. Your enormous book is of course an enormous task, but you'll be all the happier for that once you have it finished. It will be and remain the best and most important book about me. The portrait of the beautyfull one will be your consolation for all the hard work and an acknowledgement of your love for me.

See what sort of people these Marlboroughs are, putting on a big exhibition now for the Viennese pornographer, Klimt's imitator and mine, thereby spoiling the impression that the Tate exhibition seems to have made on a few of the young people here! Of all the proletarian painters, the most offensive to me is this product of the art market [illegible] For fifty years Herr Nierenstein-Kallir has constantly needled me with this boy by feeding stories to the press that connected my name to his and thus helped sell his products. Two years ago the French press started publishing this nonsense too: I was his most intimate friend, I shared a studio with him, my first exhibition in Vienna actually came after his, my first pictures were made around 1918 and so on. Herr Fischer knew perfectly well why I didn't want to be associated this fellow, whom I've never met in my life, though he had the audacity to take my hallowed life drawings from my studio (Frau Mahler gave him the key rather than continuing to pay the rent on it after I'd been reported dead in action), to paint over them in his pornographic manner and then to flog them in the bookshop at Lányi's, which is why I can't stand this typically Viennese darling of the Viennese art world. Fischer couldn't resist getting his hands dirty for a bit more money! And from Mr Sylvester in the Sunday Times I now learn that the pornographer is far better than me. After an entirely abstract, non-objective decade, pornography is of course the easiest and most obvious way for an art dealer to avoid bankruptcy. I just hope no-one takes up Harry Fischer's suggestion to write for the book he was planning for my birthday. Please say this to Gombrich, who's also been invited. Goldscheider has already declined, and you mustn't do it either. They should stop bothering me and stop shortening my life with their empty praise. You should concentrate on our book, but if you do hear about Fischer having asked anyone else to write anything (John Russell perhaps?), please tell them I'd really be very glad if they were to remain silent about my impending birthday.

I hope you're both well. Do come and see us again soon. With enduring love and gratitude for your loyalty, I embrace you and the beautyfull one,

Yours always,

OK

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