133 - ROUAULT, Georges (1871–1958).

ROUAULT, Georges (1871–1958). Autograph letter signed “GR,” January 20, 1944, to Mr. Manguin; 4 pages, in-4 format. Note: The letter is full of cross-outs and corrections, and written in all sorts of directions. Rouault feels ill and discouraged, in the midst of a lawsuit against the VOLLARD heirs: “It’s a tragicomic story—we have no idea how it will turn out at the moment. I can’t even get good photos of my works, even though Maître Ambroise formally promised to provide them, and people are asking me for them from all sides.” His daughter is more optimistic than he is and reproaches him for dramatizing everything, but “neither the businessmen—nor the greenhorns of the current generations—nor my dear family have ever waded through the pestilential swamp of malignant fevers… the trusts—I believe I am the last to have retained my spiritual freedom […] a true artist, when certain scoundrels get their claws into him—isn’t that true, Father Cézanne… suffers at times death and passion—in silence. […] “I have frostbite so severely ulcerated that I can no longer paint.” In the margin, he mentions “the last joke played on the late Ambroise—not a very mean one.” He used to tell me I was worse than Degas, accusing me in letters of the irreverent things I’d already said out loud, writing and handing over hundreds of letters to his doorman”; he estimates their value at 80 francs each and does the math after 20 years… He still has “two good eyes, which I’ve horribly overused day and night… I can say that, and an excellent ear—you who love music know exactly what I mean; the rest is just nonsense. […] I am vehemently criticized for my letters, which aren’t really letters… just rambling remarks; it seems psychiatrists would view this unfavorably”… “My daughter would be heartbroken if she knew I was sending you this rough draft; I, on the other hand, see in it a friendship—admittedly a bit familiar—but if I were to polish it up, I’d fall back into the same trap”… On the last page are four poems, including one celebrating “Lady Painting.”