Earth, Fire, Water, Air: Anne Dangar's Letters to Grace Crowley, 1930-1951

Bh0335P00-PressProofs.QXD 31/5/02 11:44 AM Page i Earth, Fire, Water, Air Bh0335P00-PressProofs.QXD 31/5/02 11:44 ...

Author: Helen Topliss

37 downloads 1077 Views 3MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Bh0335P00-PressProofs.QXD

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page i

Earth, Fire, Water, Air


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page ii

Image rights unavailable

Anne Dangar in her studio, Moly-Sabata, c.1930s


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page iii

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Anne Dangar’s letters to Grace Crowley, 1930–1951

Edited by Helen Topliss

Allen & Unwin


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page iv

This book was undertaken to commemorate and perpetuate Anne Dangar’s legacy First published in 2000 Copyright © Helen Topliss 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 9 Atchison Street St Leonards NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.allen-unwin.com.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Dangar, Anne, d. 1951. Earth, fire, water, air: Anne Dangar’s letters to Grace Crowley, 1930–1951. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 1 86508 241 4. 1. Crowley, Grace, 1890–1979—Correspondence. 2. Dangar, Anne, d. 1951—Correspondence. 3. Women artists— Australia—Correspondence. 4. Women potters—France— Sablons—Biography. I. Topliss, Helen, 1946– . II. Crowley, Grace, 1890–1979. III. Title. 738.092 Set in 10.5/14 pt Granjon and 10.5/14 pt Cochin by Bookhouse, Sydney Printed by South Wind Productions, Singapore 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page v

Contents Preface Map

vii x

Introduction 1 Sydney to Sablons, 1930–1931 2 Movement Towards the Centre, 1932–1933 3 Toujours les Choses Tournent, 1934–1938 4 Arabian Night Stories, 1939 5 Tormented Movements in Translation, 1940–1945 6 La Poterie Moly-Sabata, 1946–1949 7 ‘Life on Earth is a Passing Through Time’, 1949–1951 Epilogue

1 33 63 114 167 211 251 300 327

Personae Glossary Illustrations and Plates Bibliography Index

331 344 351 353 356


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page vi

This page intentionally left blank


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page vii

Preface

This book represents a complete account of Anne Dangar’s life in France from 1930–51. In editing the letters I have followed Dom Angelico Surchamp’s example in his edition of Anne Dangar’s correspondence by standardising syntax, leaving out repetitive passages and making some corrections to spelling. However, I have retained Anne Dangar’s idiosyncratic mode of expression and her penchant for exclamation marks. Wherever possible I have identified people that she writes about and events that took place. There are also a number of gaps in the correspondence through lost pages, the illegibility of letters written on both sides of very fine paper and the occasional censorship of passages by Grace Crowley, the recipient of the letters. Grace Crowley also carried out some editorial work by providing summaries of many of the letters, writing comments directly on the text, and underlining passages. The letters are copiously illustrated with images of pottery or other objects that Dangar was describing to Grace Crowley, as well as many diagrams illustrating Gleizes’ theories. During the preparation of the manuscript I received a great deal of help from people in France. I would like to thank Monsieur Philippe Prache and Monsieur Petri at the Fondation Albert Gleizes in Paris for allowing me to stay at Moly-Sabata, Sablons, and Dom Angelico Surchamp for sharing his memories of Anne Dangar with me and being a generous and congenial host at the Abbaye de la Pierre-Qui-Vire, Saint-Léger Vauban where I stayed for three days. I interviewed a number of people who had known Anne Dangar when they were


viii

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page viii


children and my thanks go to the following: M. Louis Pegeron, Mme Astier, Mme Gilka Geoffray-Beclu, Mme Geneviève Dalban, Mme Martin Grimaud, M. and Mme Coste, M. Delhomme, Mme Dalicieux, Mme Gamandon and Mme Buard. I would also like to thank Jean-Jaques Dubernard, who took over M. Paquaud’s pottery (where Anne Dangar worked for many years), for sharing information with me; the mayor of Sablons, M. Andrieux and his wife who were both so encouraging about my research; M. Claude Maillard, the artist-caretaker of Moly, who spoke to me about Albert Gleizes and his wife Juliette (née Roche); Mr Richard Brooke for showing me his manuscript on Albert Gleizes; M. and Mme Maurice Grimaud who talked to me about Dangar’s close friendship with their family; M. Jean Chevalier who offered information about Gleizes and Dangar in the 1940s; and M. Henri Giriat at the Fondation Albert Gleizes who reminisced about his time at les Méjades with Albert Gleizes and Anne Dangar. I also owe a great deal to Richard Rousseau, a resident potter working in Anne Dangar’s old pottery at Moly-Sabata, who was enthusiastic about my research from a potter’s point of view. It was Richard who first suggested that I could stay at Moly and introduced me to a number of people in the region. Without his generous help I would not have been able to achieve all that I did within such a short space of time. In addition I would like to thank my aunt Mme Héla Leneman for her hospitality in Paris. I also owe thanks to the Australian Research Council, which awarded me a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship for three years to carry out research on women artists and early modernism, and the Humanities Research Centre at ANU, which afforded me the necessary support to enable the completion of this work. I have a special debt to M. Laurent de Gaulle of the French Embassy in Canberra, who secured a grant for me to travel to central France so that I could conduct the last leg of the research, and his colleague at the embassy M. Alain Monteil who made possible a second trip to France to photograph Anne Dangar’s work for this book. And to Mr Franco Belgiorno-Nettis of Transfield who was most enthusiastic about my research and generously assisted my work in France. Many thanks to Jim Koutsouris for his generosity and support for my project. I am very grateful to Hilary McPhee for suggesting that I take this difficult manuscript to Sophie Cunningham at Allen & Unwin, where from the outset Hilary’s advice was confirmed by Sophie’s encourage-


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page ix

Preface

ix

ment and optimism about this book. This book would never have seen completion without the help, expertise and unfailing good humour of its editor Jane Yule, who kept me at the task through all its permutations. As always I owe a particular debt to my daughters Julia and Maggie who have been encouraging, understanding, helpful and determined that I should complete this book; in particular Julia, who followed my passion for Anne Dangar’s pottery all the way to France and took the photographs for the book. Helen Topliss Melbourne 2000


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page x

PARIS

LYON

FRANCE

BORDEAUX TOULOUSE

Vienne St Etienne

Roussillon Sablons St Rambert Annonay

Thorrenc St Vallier

Tain Romans

Valence

0

Kilometres

10

Cliousclat Mirmande

Rhône

LYON St Etienne

Vienne Valence Montélimar

MARSEILLE

Bh0335M00-PressProofs.QXD

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 1

Introduction

A man surrounded by friends finds the road leading to the country of his dreams. He follows the road eagerly, taking his friends with him. But the path proves to be less well charted than he had foreseen. The man has to continue by himself, with a torch so that he doesn’t lose sight of the path, his dream, or his friends. The road consists of clay, water and fire, and the dream represents creativity through clay. With the enthusiasm of all beginnings everything seems to be a game for him. But the more he progresses the more he realises the wealth hidden in the potter’s craft, and the more he has to guard his solitude . . .1

Anne Dangar’s (AD) story is an exceptional one. It is of an artist who in 1930 left her home town of Sydney and arrived almost penniless in the tiny community of Moly-Sabata, just south of Lyon on the banks of the Rhône, France’s largest river. At Moly, which had been established as an artists’ colony in 1927 by the French cubist painter Albert Gleizes and his wife, she took up her life’s work—the craft of traditional pottery.2 AD pursued her craft single mindedly by undertaking an apprenticeship with the male potters of nearby St Désirat and Annonay and working with many others in the surrounding region. Despite many obstacles to her success, AD proved herself not only to her male peers 1 Daniel de Montmollin, La poterie, Ateliers Melottée, Haute Provence, 1965. (Translated from the French original.) 2 Albert Gleizes. See Personae.


2

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 2


but also to her mentor Albert Gleizes, a hard taskmaster. In addition she passed on a great deal of her knowledge and values to the children of the neighbouring villages of Sablons and Serrières, and taught them to appreciate the value of art, nature and the dignity of human labour.3 Of the latter she gained first-hand experience. For at Moly-Sabata she not only worked as a potter/decorator in a feudal fashion, but also had to till the soil, grow vegetables, tend the bee-hives, exchange produce with her neighbours (the farmers of the Ardèche/Isère whom she erroneously called peasants in her letters),4 and, with no running water, draw water by pump both for the large garden and the old house in which she lived. Anne Dangar stayed at Moly for twenty-one years, leaving her imprint on the hearts and minds of the people of Serrières/Sablons for decades to come. Born at Kempsey, New South Wales on 1 December 1887, Anne Dangar was a country girl with no artistic advantages whatsoever except for an inborn creative gift.5 Although AD’s extended family was wealthy and successful, she belonged to the only poor branch of the Dangar clan due to her father losing their money through financial mismanagement.6 Her friend Grace Crowley (GC), on the other hand, came from a privileged background. The daughter of a landed family whose property, ‘Glen Riddle’ at Barraba in New South Wales, is often mentioned in the correspondence, Grace was born in 1890. She met AD at a sketching class conducted by Julian Ashton in 1912,7 and they became close friends during their early student days at the Julian Ashton Art School, sharing a house in the Sydney suburb of Potts Point. To support her studies AD worked part-time at a small chocolate factory and later at Angus & Robertson’s map store in George Street, Sydney. On completion of her course she taught with Grace at Ashton’s school from 1918 until 1925.8 Although in many ways a contrasting pair, Grace Crowley was 3 Serrières, just across the Rhône where Gleizes lived in his father-in-law’s large house, is in the Ardèche, and Sablons, where AD lived, is in the Isère. In earlier times the two towns reflected the division between the kingdoms of the Vivarais of France in Serrières, and the Germanic kingdom of the Dauphine at Sablons. 4 Presumably due to AD’s translation of paysan, farmer or agriculturalist, into ‘peasant’. 5 Grace Crowley, Biographical Outline of Anne Dangar, Art Gallery of New South Wales [AGNSW] Archives, Sydney. 6 ibid., p. 7. In a letter dated 18 March 1951, AD compared her sister Ruby with their father who never looked ahead and spent everything he had. 7 Julian Ashton. See Personae. 8 Grace Crowley, Biography, ms., AGNSW Archives, Sydney.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 3

Introduction

3

the only Australian fully to understand AD as an artist and to appreciate her unusual personality. This was no doubt due in large part to the amount of time they spent together in these early, formative years during which time they shared confidences, established trust and cemented their friendship. In 1926 Anne Dangar and Grace Crowley travelled to Europe to continue their studies in France and live together in Paris until 1928. While it was not unusual in the interwar period for Australian women artists to study overseas before returning to Australia to communicate to others what they had learned in Europe, the majority chose to go to London rather than Paris. However AD and GC were interested in modernist art from France, and during their European sojourn found themselves greatly influenced by various interpretations of cubism. Initially the two women were attracted to the work of the cubist painter André Lhote.9 With fellow Australian artist Dorrit Black they attended his summer school at Mirmande, a town in the Drôme south of Valence, where they painted the landscape according to Cézanne’s principles.10 But it was when Anne Dangar saw some of Gleizes’ paintings that her life-course was set irrevocably. Instantly impressed by his work, she later recalled the moment for her students at Moly-Sabata. I had seen the pictures of Mr Gleizes in the Salon des Tuileries in June 1928. After having looked at hundreds of canvasses in this exhibition, I reached the depths of the wooden building and found myself in a little room with three large outstanding pictures. In front of these canvases, I was filled with a perfect satisfaction with an internal joy that the Hindus call ‘intellectual beatitude’ and describe as a ‘savorous taste’.11

Despite Anne’s enthusiasm for her studies, in particular Gleizes’ work, she was unable to remain in France. For a while Grace’s family helped her financially in the pursuit of her career—Grace’s father, for example, paid the fare to Paris while her brother Wilfrid sent a regular allowance—AD had to make her own way. Thus she was forced to go home considerably earlier than Grace as she no longer had the resources to stay. Later she wrote of this moment: 9 André Lhote. See Personae. 10 Dorrit Black; Paul Cézanne. See Personae. 11 Anne Dangar, Notes for classes given at Moly-Sabata, August 1949, Gleizes ms., Ampuy, quoted in Peter Brook, Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century, unpub. ms., 1996, p. 5.


4

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 4

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Although I had to return to Australia, I could not forget the experience of [the] hour passed with Gleizes’ pictures. I didn’t have the compositions of these pictures clearly in my mind, but more even than the colours, the long lines that had evoked a divine music within me were constantly in my thoughts.12

On her return in 1929 AD took up a teaching position at Julian Ashton’s, but she quickly became disillusioned with Sydney and complained about the limitations of art practice there. Grace Crowley later recalled that when she and Dorrit came back to Paris after a tour of Holland they found letters from Anne ‘filled with misery’. She complained that although Julian Ashton had invited her to take up her old teaching position at his school, he was not at all accommodating about her French teaching methods. Undeterred by his attitude AD asked Grace to find out more about Albert Gleizes, which she agreed to do. Grace recorded the following: All the way back to Australia on board ship Anne had been reading a book written by Albert Gleizes. She begged me to buy every book written by him I could lay hands on. I determined to do even better, I’d WRITE to Gleizes and ask him for lessons so that I could give them to Anne sort of second-hand when I got back to Australia. He replied, yes, at present he and his wife were residing in Paris and he wanted to see me. I have the sketches he made as he gave me the first lesson . . .13

Gleizes’ wife Juliette14 recalled that in September 1929, when she and Gleizes had just returned from a conference in Barcelona, a number of artists were at their house, among them Grace Crowley and Dorrit Black.15 When Gleizes invited GC to take some lessons with him at Serrières, a village on the River Rhône in which he resided for part of each year, Grace ‘asked if Dorrit could come—“yes certainly”’. The two of them arrived at Serrières at the end of September and stayed for three weeks at the Hotel Schaeffer, which was run by the Schaeffer family who were later to become close friends of AD. For their lessons the two women had to venture over to Moly-Sabata on the opposite side of the Rhône from Serrières. To get there, GC was told ‘to cross the bridge . . . 12 13 14 15

ibid. ibid. Juliette Gleizes (née Roche). See Personae. Brook, op.cit., p. 4.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 5

Introduction

5

and get instructions from his star pupil Robert Pouyaud’.16 While at Moly she ‘was still receiving lamentations from Anne’s letters’ about how unhappy she was in Sydney, and decided to read one of them out loud to M. and Mme Gleizes.17 Acting on Grace’s suggestion that Anne become ‘an inmate of Moly-Sabata’, Albert Gleizes invited AD to join his community. ‘M. and Mme Gleizes were both excited, “Elle est déjà ici.” Could I send a cable? “Oui, oui”.’18 When Anne received the telegram inviting her to Moly she ‘came like a flash of greased lightning’,19 with Grace arriving back in Australia only just in time to farewell her before she set sail for France. Journeying from Sydney to Marseille and then to the Isère district by train, AD arrived at the station of St Rambert d’Albon on 20 March 1930. Little did she know then that she would spend the remaining twenty-one years of her life at Moly-Sabata as Albert Gleizes’ true disciple, one who would never question the absolute value of his teaching. As she would later comment: ‘Fourteen months after my return to Australia, I came back to France, directly to Moly-Sabata, and I have stayed here because I found in my master’s work what I was looking for.’20 To understand this dedication it is necessary to explain the underlying beliefs behind Gleizes’ theories. Claiming that Western art had been in decline since the twelfth century, he believed that artists’ increasing perfection of external reality had led to a consequent devaluation of the spiritual in art. According to Gleizes, cubism was responsible for revealing the inadequacy of representational art and it was his responsibility to clarify the principles for a new spiritual art based on rhythmic theories present in pre-Renaissance art. Gleizes analysed the pure forms of Romanesque art and other ancient cultures, such as Celtic and oriental art, and declared that rhythmic art expressed the spiritual, whereas representational art relied on perspective and other scientific devices concerned with conquering the third dimension. He often quoted St Thomas Aquinas’ formula that ‘art should imitate nature in its mode of operation not in its natural appearance’. In his major work La forme et l’histoire Gleizes analysed various cultures that demonstrated a 16 17 18 19 20

Grace Crowley, Biography, op.cit. Robert Pouyaud. See Personae. ibid. ibid. ibid. Anne Dangar, quoted in Brook, op.cit., p. 5.


6

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 6


spiritual concern in their art forms,21 and quoted the writings of a number of theorists with similar comparative approaches to art. All of them affirmed an idealistic view of art that went against the Western naturalistic tradition. Anne Dangar’s lengthy and detailed correspondence with her soulmate Grace Crowley—who treasured the letters and left them to the State Library of New South Wales when she died—is a rare text in the field of Australian art.22 It would seem from reading her letters that neither distance nor time could diminish the regard and affection that these two women held for each other. Full of information about her own discoveries and those of her mentor, Albert Gleizes, AD’s correspondence to Grace outlined Gleizes’ theories on abstraction and the spiritual context of art. A born teacher, AD was a conveyor of a gospel she considered vital to Australian art. She believed that she was on a spiritual mission, which explains the didactic tone of many of her letters. For this reason she sent GC frequent details about recent literature, reproductions of modern art, books on art including Gleizes’ writings and a series of lessons on cubism. The letters abound with advice, diagrams, illustrations, and even a series of lessons on abstraction.23 From GC’s editorial remarks and expurgated passages it is clear that she reread the entire correspondence after Anne’s death and, perhaps with the encouragement of Gleizes who wrote to her that the letters were of the greatest importance,24 planned to publish the correspondence herself. The result of Anne Dangar’s missives can be seen directly in the work of Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson, particularly from the late 1930s onwards. In 1932 after her return to Sydney GC assisted Dorrit Black in the running of art classes at the Modern Art Centre in Margaret Street, Sydney. However, it was not long before Grace and Dorrit had a disagreement (referred to in the correspondence) and GC went to join Rah Fizelle (‘Fiz’) in teaching art classes at 215a George Street, Sydney.25 21 Albert Gleizes, La forme et l’histoire, Jacques Povolozky, Paris, 1932. 22 GC collected all the letters she could find that AD had written to her family and friends, and left them with her own in the Grace Crowley Papers, State Library of New South Wales. Unfortunately, according to Mme Dalbon who had been a student of AD’s, it is most likely that Grace’s letters to Anne were burned after she died. 23 These lessons were sent by AD to GC and were read out to members of her school. 24 Gleizes wrote in his 1952 ‘Funeral Oration for Anne Dangar’ that AD’s life had been saintly and that her letters ought to be published, Zodiaque, no. 25, April 1955. 25 Mary Alice Evatt, ‘The Crowley Fizelle School’, Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 1, October 1966, pp. 314–6; L. Nicklin, ‘Grace Crowley looks back on a lifetime of art’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 1975, p. 11.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 7

Introduction

7


Letter to Grace Crowley from Anne Dangar, page 3

There they taught the constructive approach to painting based on design according to the precepts of Albert Gleizes and André Lhote,26 and counted among their students Eleonore Lange and (Mary) Alice Evatt, wife of Labor politician ‘Doc’ Evatt.27 In 1937 the George Street School closed and GC formed a partnership with Ralph Balson whose painting had impressed her for a number of years. Always modest about her art, GC tended to put most of her effort into Balson’s career. On a number of occasions AD lectured Grace about concentrating more on her own art, but like many other women artists of that time GC’s output was small. It was not until 1977, only two years before her death, that Grace Crowley had her first retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. 26 Letter from GC to Daniel Thomas (then curator of paintings at AGNSW), 28 August 1966, AGNSW Archives, Sydney. 27 (Mary) Alice Evatt. See Personae.


8

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 8



Letter to Grace Crowley from Anne Dangar, page 5

My own interest in Anne Dangar began with the publication of my work on women artists and modernism in Australia.28 After reading AD’s correspondence in manuscript form, I realised that it not only provided a rare testimonial to a life lived for the sake of art, but also represented an unusual spiritual quest. To understand the correspondence better I felt it was imperative for me to see Moly-Sabata and locate more of AD’s pottery as so little of it exists in Australian collections. I arrived at Moly-Sabata on 7 November 1996 from Lyon, the third largest city in France, via the small station of le Péage de Roussillon on the banks of the Rhône.29 In this region the visitor travels between large centres by the fast TGV,30 to smaller towns and villages by train, and 28 H. Topliss, Modernism and Feminism: Australian Women Artists 1900–1940, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996. 29 The etymology of Roussillon is red earth or terracotta. 30 Train Grand Vitesse, a fast train that takes three hours from the Gare de Lyon in Paris to Lyon.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 9

Introduction

9

from there to tiny hamlets like Sablons—an experience not unlike a series of Chinese boxes that open consecutively from large, to small and smaller still. From Roussillon, a small town of narrow streets with stone houses typical of the Rhône-Alpes region, I travelled by car through acres of maize already being tilled for the winter, small market gardens with leeks, cardons bushes and other greens, bounded by fields and orchards of peach and apricot to Serrières on the west bank of the Rhône. Winding through the narrow streets lined with grey, stone buildings and courtyards I arrived at the walls and gates of Moly-Sabata. There I began my search for Anne Dangar. At first there didn’t seem to be much interest in my quest—the doors were closed and the inhabitants seemed to be absent or not answering my calls. But gradually, through constant inquiries, I started to get some information. After ten days the response grew from a trickle to a flood that resembled the swelling of the Rhône. I felt that my head would explode with all the testimonials I was getting from local people who had known the artist / potter Anne Dangar—or, as they had named her when they were children, ‘la Miss’. As I pursued her trail, I punctuated my note taking with frequent walks by the river and through the adjoining fields, walking longer distances to towns that were seven to ten kilometres away in an effort to recreate AD’s life there. Trudging through the fields I realised how central this location was to AD’s story. I talked to passersby, to locals, to shopkeepers, and took in the regional scenery. I interviewed people who had known Anne and gradually began to understand the powerful hold that this landscape had had on her and why, despite a number of attempts to return to Australia, she never made the journey back. At the end of the quay at Moly-Sabata I found the house once inhabited by AD. A traditional iron gateway opened to reveal a large stone house with a centralised, double staircase, above it the simple seventeenth-century facade with large square-paned windows and green shutters. The house, an old relaie de batterie ou de halage (staging post or customs office) dating back to the reign of Louis XVI,31 was flanked by sheds, now modern studios. Anne Dangar’s pottery, which was once the stables (still in its original state), could be seen on the right next to the imposing wrought-iron gates. The traditional open-air furnace or kiln that gave Anne so much trouble stood on a scaffold covered by a roof to 31 From a newspaper clipping dated c.1983, which was found in the library of Moly-Sabata after the fire at Moly.


10

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 10


protect the flue from bad weather.32 Dom Angelico, a Dominican monk who became a close friend of AD’s, once described Moly quite aptly as a place ‘qui apparaissait à mes yeux comme le Château endormi et presque abandonné de quelque Belle au Bois dormant’ (which appeared to me like a sleeping castle that had been abandoned by sleeping Beauty).33 In fact when I first saw it on that Sunday afternoon in November the house, with its desolate garden covered in brambles and its crumbling exterior, appeared to be deserted and I returned to Lyon disappointed. I came back a few days later to visit the Hotel Schaeffer on the opposite bank and, on a sudden impulse, I found myself at the gates of Moly. There I was rewarded by a ghostly light inside AD’s pottery created not by my imagination, but by the resident potter working there on a fellowship. There has been much debate as to the origins of the name MolySabata, with Anne Dangar herself discovering one of its etymologies in ‘Mouilles Savates’ or sabots mouillés (wet clogs). Although a somewhat undignified derivation it was, nevertheless, an appropriate one considering that the waters of the Rhône frequently rose as high as the house and on occasion gushed through the elevated balcony bordering the river. The Rhône’s trepidations have since been stilled; it is calm and sluggish now as a result of canalisation for surrounding industry and power installations. But in Anne Dangar’s time the occupants of the house could be marooned for weeks as a result of storms and flooding. She describes the raging torrent in some of her letters, and how the waters would rise up to the balcony leaving Moly adrift like a barque.34 A marker at the back of the house indicates the water levels reached by the Rhône during floods. On the old facade, just below the top of the high garden wall, was a sign showing that the water had risen to 6.7 metres on 21 January 1995, beside it were two other dates just after AD’s time, 1955—6.6 metres, and 27 February 1957—6.10 metres, which were about two feet or less below the top of the tall garden wall. Moly-Sabata had been envisaged by Gleizes as a centre artisanal that would provide a workspace for artists away from the cities. Gleizes had 32 This is to protect the kiln from floods which occurred a number of times during AD’s lifetime. 33 Dom Angelico Surchamp, Anne Dangar: lettres à la Pierre-qui-Vire, visages et documents 1, Zodiaque, 1972, p. 8. 34 In 1928, inhabitants near the banks of the Rhône had to put their animals up on their mezzanine floors as the floods lasted for ten days, and the proprietress of the cafe on the road to le Péage had to climb the roof of her house to escape. See G. Chambenat, L’aménagement fluvial et la mémoire: parcours d’un anthropologue sur le fleuve Rhône, L’Harmattan Inc., Paris, 1996, p. 53.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 11

Introduction

11

Anne Dangar’s kiln, Moly-Sabata

begun his career as a communist and his anti-capitalist idea of le retour à la terre (a return to the land) became both the foundation of his nonmaterialist and utopian philosophy as well as a link between his earlier and later beliefs. His idea was to redeploy artists in the country thereby reinvigorating metropolitan art with regional traditions, which in turn would stimulate culture in rural communities. Gleizes, a Utopian Socialist at heart, thought that by arresting industrialism wars could be prevented and that by encouraging artists and craftspeople to return to the land unemployment might be eradicated.35 He disliked the gallery-based production of art in cities such as Paris, where he felt art and artists 35 Gleizes’ utopian ideas on art were derived from the historian Fernand Rudé.


12

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 12


had simply become commercial slaves of the system. He also believed that art flourished when all the arts were practised together in a community where life was lived simply on a subsistence economy. His idea was to gather artisans and artists in the same collective so that they could practise their art and craft, and establish a simple economy of exchange of artistic products in return for the necessities of everyday life.36 The first inhabitants of Moly-Sabata, the painter Robert Pouyaud and his family, arrived at the end of 1927. In the following January they were joined by the Romanian poet Georges Dobo, who found the idyll too hard and left soon afterwards, and in October 1929 by François Manevy and his wife.37 Gleizes aided the beginnings of the community by commissioning Pouyaud to make pochoirs, pocket-sized studies painted in gouache based on his theories on abstraction and spirituality. Later Anne Dangar, as instructed by Pouyaud, would also make pochoirs under Gleizes’ supervision to supplement her meagre income. With folk origins deriving from traditional playing cards, the pochoirs were made from zinc plate stencils and each had its own plate or stencil coloured by hand. The method enabled Gleizes to test out his theories of colour, form and rhythm on a small scale before applying them to larger works. It also allowed him to illustrate his lessons on what he called ‘translation’ and ‘rotation’, which required the movement of planes to provide a rhythmic and fluid design.38 ‘Translation’, according to Gleizes, needed balance, proportion and harmony—all the properties of classical painting—while ‘rotation’ involved a disturbance of the picture plane by optical movement, a movement present in cubism and in earlier periods of art such as the Romanesque and Celtic. Gleizes theories took their starting point from the cubists’ imitation of a new pictorial space, which represented reality as something the artist perceived and that was considered an independent entity. Cubists established a number of methods by which to realise this new perceptual form of painting. First, they reduced the pictorial space to a twodimensional space that eliminated illusionism. Second, they represented objects as geometric solids, following Cézanne’s late paintings, and negated the representation of space which had been the basis of Western 36 See La forme et l’histoire, op.cit., p. 408, in which Gleizes complains of the ethnic chaos of big cities and how the French deplored the fact that they could not identify Paris as French. 37 François Manevy. See Personae. 38 Gleizes explained his two principles of ‘translation’ and ‘rotation’ in his book La peinture et ses lois [Painting and its laws], Editions la Vie des Lettres et des Arts, Paris, 1923.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 13

Introduction

13

Albert Gleizes’ principles of ‘rotation’ and ‘translation’

painting since the Renaissance. Third, they allowed for the articulation of planes and the juxtaposition of different views of the same object simultaneously, thus giving a notional or perceptual view of the subject in their paintings. They argued that a painting was a self-sufficient entity independent from the external world, for which they coined the term un tableau objet, that is, the picture as the key object. Gleizes used all these cubist discoveries and added to them his own variations on the theme. Like a number of other painters in the 1920s and 1930s, Gleizes began to devise theories to substantiate his art, since external reality no longer figured for avant-garde artists. After World War I most artists were seeking a more universal art that was meaningful, and many used cubism as a vocabulary for a spiritual form of painting. For example, orphism, which concentrated on the workings of simultaneous colours and contrasts, evolved from the work of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, while Mondrian developed a geometric, purist and spiritual art that eschewed the organic. There were also those like Fernand Leger and the Russian constructivist artists who aligned their art with Communist ideology, and others, such as Gleizes after his conversion to Catholicism, who saw art as the handmaiden of religion. Gleizes viewed the academic cubism of AD’s former teacher André Lhote as old-fashioned since it was static in composition compared to the new theories that argued for a vital or dynamic movement in form.


14

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 14


Thus, once AD had discovered Gleizes’ spiritualist elaboration of cubism she too was extremely critical of Lhote’s principles, which must have grated somewhat on GC who still followed his teaching up until the late 1930s when AD’s lessons finally influenced her. A number of theories about the evolution of art at the time argued for an organic explanation for the evolution of certain forms in art. An American mathematician, Jay Hambidge, demonstrated that all ancient art was founded on inherent geometric laws embodied in the principles of Dynamic Symmetry, an organicist theory that promoted the spiral as the origin of design. Hambidge analysed classical Greek vases on the basis of geometric ratios based on the growth patterns of plants, and revived the thesis of Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci an early Renaissance mathematician. Fibonacci, as he became known, claimed that the geometric law governing the growth of plants could be seen by following Euclid’s Golden Mean (or Golden Section). ‘In extreme and mean proportion, the lesser term is to the greater, as the greater is to the sum of the lesser plus the greater; 1.618 ÷ 1 = 1.618, 1 + 1.618 = 2.618; 2.618 ÷ 1.618 ÷ 1.618 . . . [or] 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13, 8 + 13 = 21 . . . etc.’39 Gleizes’ lessons on ‘rotation’ and ‘translation’ are, in fact, based on the Dynamic Symmetry advocated by writers such as Hambidge, Edwards and Irma Richter.40 What Edwards called the ‘whirling square rectangle (1.618)’ is another name for Gleizes’ principles used in his pochoirs and paintings. Robert Pouyaud was Dangar’s introduction to Gleizes’ artistic principles and in her letters she described her first efforts at making pochoirs under his tutelage. It was also Pouyaud who suggested to her that she ought to consider pottery as an alternative means of earning an income, since she had expressed an early interest in this craft in her student days in Paris.41 In 1927 during her first visit to France, Anne had described in a letter home her love of humble, peasant pottery and how she aspired 39 Edward B. Edwards, Pattern and Design with Dynamic Symmetry, Dover, New York, 1932, p. 44. The Golden Section derives its name from the division of a line into what Euclid called ‘extreme and mean ratio’. The Cubists in 1912 called themselves ‘la Section D’Or’ when they exhibited in Paris. 40 Irma A. Richter, Rhythmic Form in Art: An Investigation of the Principles of Composition in the Work of Great Masters, John Lane, The Bodley Head, London, 1932; Jay Hambidge, Dynamic Symmetry: The Greek Vase, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1920. 41 AD and her friend Susanne Alexandre had studied with a potter called Bernier at Viroflay outside Paris from 1927–28; see Surchamp, op.cit., p. 12.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 15

Introduction

15

to make similar pots herself.42 Three years later in 1930, she set out on the course that proved to be her real vocation. Pouyaud introduced Anne to the potters of St Désirat, a small village south of Serrières, where she was to work three days a week. Her first pots were turned at M. Pignault’s pottery and it was from him that she learnt the fundamentals of French traditional pottery. When Pignault died in 1934, she realised that he had taught her the important lessons of regional pottery to which she adhered religiously. AD recognised that in this region (and others where traditional pottery was practised) the life of the potter and the life of the land were one. Her decision to become a potter reflected a deep-seated need that was associated with the spiritual. For as she discovered there is something mystical in the art of pottery, the real artisans being those who are centred like their pots on the wheel. According to Gleizes, ‘translation represented an unfolding of planes as seen against a square or the surface of a painting; rotation occurred when these planes began to shift around a central point’.43 AD found that the rhythmic motion of the potter’s wheel not only reflected Gleizes’ notions of rotation, but was also consonant with the teaching of cubism, in that it was the movement of form and colour that created the picture. Embracing Gleizes’ principles of design wholeheartedly AD gradually interpreted and applied them to her pottery. She was fond of repeating a quotation by the famous Belgian potter Jules Pignoud: ‘Pottery is not made with a glance nor with the hands, it is constructed, it’s the movement of the form which controls successful pots.’44 She herself wrote: . . . out of a ball I raise a form & the decoration must come out of that mobile clay spinning on a wheel from which an object is created . . . The wheel & the clay are merely the manifestations of my thoughts—as my thoughts vary so will my forms & the decorations will follow.45

AD used natural glazes for her pottery in the tradition of the potters from the surrounding area. The yellowish colour of the ground was obtained by an engobe, whose pale hue enabled the other colours to stand 42 AD was writing to GC’s mother and she contrasted Australian ware with French provincial. See Grace Crowley Papers, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. 43 A. Gleizes, Homocentrisme ou le retour de l’homme Chrétien [Homocentrism: the return of the Christian man], Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons, 1937, p. 13. 44 Originally written in French by AD in a letter to GC, 29 November 1934. Jules Pignoud. See Personae. 45 Fragment of a letter from AD to GC, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit.


16

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 16


out. Black was obtained by manganese oxide; green by copper sulphate; red from natural ochres.46 Anne had great respect for the local potters’ craft and when she finally constructed her own pottery studio in 1948, with Grace Crowley’s financial assistance, she based it on the regional potteries of the district. In her studio there was a potter’s wheel—le tour as she always referred to it—underneath which a pedal was pushed by the potter’s foot to set the wheel in motion, an irregular movement that makes it difficult to obtain a fluid rhythm. There was also a wooden seat, more like a ledge, which placed the potter in an elevated position above the pot. When complete, the pots were removed from the wheel on a wooden base that was detached from the wheel and then placed on a shelf to harden. AD’s pottery was very primitive, and although she talked about installing an electric wheel and kiln she could never afford to realise her ambitions. M. Delhomme, a potter from Roussillon, came to talk to me at Moly and explained about the natural glazes and types of clay that AD had used. He told me how his father had both helped AD with a problematic kiln and turned many of her larger pots, as she had neither the strength nor the training to turn them herself. Potters in France are apprenticed at a very early age and for the first year they do nothing but prepare the clay for the more advanced potters to turn, with the period of apprenticeship—seven years—Biblical in proportions. Turning the pots, even small ones, takes a lot of physical effort and Anne was often worn out by the arduous nature of her subsistence existence and the many kilometres she walked every day. The potters of the region made huge pots of fourteen to twenty-five kilos, but Anne was forced to assign her large biches, platters and amphorae to the potter at Roussillon to turn. M. Delhomme identified not only those pots that were turned by his father, but also a large pottery bell that had been made by the Roussillon potter Jean-Marie Paquaud. Our conversation made me realise afresh that when AD was asked to contribute a large funerary 46 Jean-Jacques Dubernard, a potter of Roussillon, provided a list of ingredients for traditional glazes: The black engobe was made of manganese, lead oxide and some red engobe. The green engobe of white clay and lead oxide. The blue engobe of white clay and cobalt oxide. Alquifoux which gave the pots the traditional yellow ground was made of lead and clay from Bresse. Red glaze came from alquifoux and oxide of hot lead. Black glaze came from red glaze and manganese.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 17

Introduction

17

pot for M. Bert she would only have been asked to design and decorate it, while Paquaud probably made it.47 In fact Anne drew many designs on paper for Paquaud to follow the different types of pots that she required—one is still stuck to the wall next to the wheel at his pottery. In a letter written to Paquaud AD acknowledged his contribution. I am very grateful for your help, I don’t know what I would do without you. The spirit of the times hasn’t affected the real potters—guilds don’t exist officially today, but amongst potters the spirit of the guilds is still there. LONG LIVE the potters!48

Moly-Sabata was in some disrepair when Anne arrived and she had to paint the living room and her bedroom to create her own space. Not only that, but she was somewhat shocked to discover that she was expected to lead a subsistence existence while she pursued her craft. This was, of course, not true for M. and Mme Gleizes who had several servants to run their large house at Serrières. Although Gleizes preached a life of simplicity and hard agricultural work for artists, he himself did not actively pursue his own teaching. His wife Juliette was the daughter of the Mayor of Serrières and a French Minister for Finance, Jules Roche,49 a wealthy man who left Juliette a large inheritance that granted the couple a comfortable life. Mme Gleizes behaved a bit like the grande dame in relation to Anne, who would often refer to her by her maiden name of Juliette Roche when she was angered by the Frenchwoman’s behaviour. While they eventually came to value each other, in the beginning Anne found it extremely difficult to comprehend the other woman’s aristocratic manner. Mme Gleizes, who has been described as being eccentric and ‘d’avoir une côté méchante’ (having a wicked side),50 clearly took great delight at AD’s initial discomfort and disorientation as this excerpt from her memoirs illustrate: The countryside which was nothing but a white and pink mass of fruittrees in flower, the nobility of the Rhône, the contours of the hills on the right bank, the old house so contemplative, the dinner rich with 47 Henri Bert. See Personae. 48 Originally written in French by AD in a letter to Jean-Marie Paquaud, 28 December 1948, collection Mme d’Albon. 49 Jules Roche. See Personae. 50 Helen Topliss interview with Dom Angelico Surchamp, la Pierre-qui-vire, November 1996.


18

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 18


Anne Dangar with her class of children at Moly-Sabata

local tastes, everything enchanted Miss Dangar—but when Pouyaud showed her the square of garden she had to cultivate and the cabin where the rakes, the spades, the picks were stocked, she underwent one of the worst shocks of her life. To have broken with her entire past, and to have travelled 20 000 km to find nothing but agricultural implements was a tragedy. With her accent that was so distinctive and that scorn for genders she would never lose and which we all learned to appreciate so much, she declared: ‘But I am a [feminine] painter, I’m not a [masculine] gardener.’51

To come from Sydney to a French country hamlet, to be placed in a primitive dwelling without furniture and heating, and to be told that she had to occupy herself with a subsistence existence suited to peasants was an understandable shock. Although Anne complained frequently in her letters that she didn’t have sufficient energy to cope with the daily toil that was required to keep body and soul together nor enough time 51 J. Gleizes, ‘Memoires—Arrivée d’Anne Dangar’, quoted in Brook, op.cit., p. 8: ‘Je suis une peintre et non pas un jardinier.’


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 19

Introduction

19

Anne Dangar teaching at Moly-Sabata, c.1940. Luke Geoffray is at the head of the class.

to concern herself with painting, she nevertheless took pride in fulfilling Gleizes’ expectations. Thus her realisation that Gleizes was clearly not impressed with her as a painter probably compelled her towards pottery, both as a form of expression at which she could excel and as a possible means of supplementing her income. What determined her in this difficult and onerous existence was her implacable belief in Gleizes as a master and theorist of the spiritual life, with the result that the merging of cubism and Christianity became her vocation. AD was also passionate about the region and felt that despite the colossal difficulties the landscape and the house itself were beautiful; they captivated her. Her links with the countryside were further developed when she began to walk through the fields to St Désirat, some seven kilometres away, to learn her trade of pottery from M. Pignault. It was there that she made the connection with the Gallo-Roman tradition of crude, terracotta, glazed pottery as the St Désirat pots have simple, heavy forms that have remained unchanged over the centuries. They are mostly covered with a yellow, off-white glaze, with green and brown abstract, primitive floral designs painted on this pale ground. Anne Dangar’s early pots, which were heavy and bulky, follow this pattern. The museum at Annonay, a town not far from Sablons, has a service aux oiseaux (dinner service decorated with birds) by AD that is


20

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 20


typical of this regional pottery, with each plate having a green bird in its centre against a cream ground. AD experienced many annoyances and inconveniences occasioned by people who were invited to Moly-Sabata by Mme Gleizes. While there were a few visitors and longer term inhabitants with whom she was friendly, such as Robert Pouyaud and his family, there were many more whom she disliked. Much to AD’s chagrin the Pouyauds eventually left Moly as a result of arguments with François Manevy, only to be replaced by a family with whom she would never get on. César Geoffray arrived at Moly in 1932 with his wife Mido, children Gilka and Luc, and their maid Lucie Deveyle.52 From the start, the Geoffrays received preferential treatment from M. and Mme Gleizes and were never pressured to do much manual labour. César Geoffray made the excuse that since he was a musician his hands could not be sullied by any heavy work. In a letter written to Grace on 10 July 1932, AD described how she had seen César ‘lying nude in the sun and reading’ while she and Lucie were hard at work. She accompanied the letter with a caricature drawing of César and noted that ‘he is an awful shape. . . His hands are white & cared for till they make me ill but Madame Gleizes says “of course the Geoffrays can’t garden because of their hands”.’53 Gilka, César’s daughter, recently confirmed that there was no love lost between her father and AD.54 Fortunately for Anne she was befriended by the family’s maid Lucie, who in 1934 moved out of the Geoffrays’ quarters and joined AD in her part of the house. Lucie, of peasant origin from Bresse, was a talented weaver who assisted AD with all the hard, manual labour that was required to keep the community going. Without Lucie’s physical help and Grace Crowley’s financial assistance, Anne would not have been able to survive. In one of her letters to Grace, AD wrote that she could not imagine life at Moly without Lucie, and her pets Pierre and Poulette, for they made it ‘home’.55 Lucie is only a little peasant but so very intelligent & si gentille! To wake scenting the coffee already perfuming the air, to rush to the freezing bathroom pump [and] two hundred [strokes] si gentille to put a dribble 52 53 54 55

César Geoffray; Lucie Deveyle. See Personae. Letter from AD to GC, 10 July 1932. Helen Topliss interview with Gilka Beclu (née Geoffray), November 1996. Pierre, sometimes called Pierre the vénérable, was AD’s cat and Poulette her dog.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 21

Introduction

21

in the enormous beignoir, to plunge into this icy dribble & potter partout avec un mètre de crin [with a metre of bubbles all over], [then] hurry to the kitchen just as Lucie is pouring out the two bowls is really very good. Imagine if I had to still chop the wood & light a fire after my icy bath . . . I am very fond of Lucie—I have made her. No, I have opened her & she finds herself an independent, capable weaver delighting in colour & dimensions & materials.56

Lucie’s sincerity and loyalty were greatly appreciated by AD, especially in later years, as was her contribution to Moly-Sabata. The dedication of Anne and Lucie to Moly meant that they became the community’s sole permanent residents, and both died there within a few years of each other. AD’s French was very hesitant at the beginning of her time in France but as the years went by it took over in her letters as her command of English decreased. She began to think habitually in the language and translated expressions from French into English; for example, ‘regard the sky’. Even spending a few weeks at Moly-Sabata I could see that it wasn’t an affectation on AD’s part but a way of thinking that evolved and influenced her thought and speech. The psychology and raison d’être of the culture was, and still is, quite different, just as body language differs between cultures. The way of life in the provinces is slow and conversations meander as people have the time to be polite and inquisitive; they value simple things like nature, art and good conversation. The rhythm of the seasons is also more prominent and Anne’s letters describe this rhythm that gave her life its momentum and dictated many of her activities. Winters at Moly were long and severe, and summers ‘so short that every second is necessary to get through all the work before [the] rain & cold return’.57 She had to learn ‘how to provide for winter during summer, to do the thinking in winter & the practical work in summer’.58 Arriving in autumn as I did, one only sees the more clement and benign face of the region. In November the colours are golden brown and green, the vegetable plots contain ripening tomatoes, the trees still have some apples and pears on them, and the persimmon trees glow with dense orange clusters. On the river there are wild ducks, geese and fish. In the early morning the mists hang densely on the river obscuring the hills that surround Serrières on the opposite bank. As the sun 56 Letter from AD to GC, 6 February 1938. 57 ibid., 14 August 1949. 58 ibid., 10 August 1936.


22

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 22


strengthens the mist shifts in light, smoke-like wisps and the water begins to sparkle with the sun’s pale rays—everything looks incandescent, like liquid gold. From what had once been Anne’s balcony, with its simple wrought-iron balustrade all rusty but showing traces of emerald green paint, one has a complete picture of the river, the fields, the côtes du Rhône with plantations of vine on their sides, the town of Serrières with its church spire, and the suspension bridge connecting the two villages built by Marc Séguin.59 This scene led Anne to understand: . . . [for the first time that the Sky and the earth become unified by Light, they are only separated by the barriers invented by men, and I have a recollection of great joy in finding myself enveloped by the Light and the Sky on the little balcony] . . .60

The fact that Anne had to extract her living from the soil made hers a life of hardship, but it also meant that she had a profound physical bond with the earth and the people around her. As can be seen from her correspondence she laboured hard not only with her pottery, but in the garden as well. Unlike Gleizes she did not inhabit an ivory tower, but was acutely aware that the manual activity of making pots was what connected her to the soil and to the traditions surrounding her in the countryside. At Moly, AD turned her back on urban culture and immersed herself in a peasant economy and a craft as ancient as civilisation itself. She felt that in following Gleizes’ teaching, and le retour à la terre that he preached, she was fulfilling her destiny. The materials that she worked with were the most elementary and basic because they consisted of the four elements: water, earth, fire and air. Her immersion in the potter’s craft and her decision to follow traditional, peasant forms of pottery made her conscious of the mystical aspects of her profession. Her return to first principles also encouraged her religious and spiritual zeal. It was this strong sense of a divine vocation, allied to the fact that her life was lived frugally, that made her so critical of Australian art and culture. Her zealousness also meant that she acted very much as a latter-day convert. That is how she in fact saw herself, as someone who had seen the light at a late stage in life and who was, therefore, impatient with 59 Marc Séguin. See Personae. The museum at Annonay has a large commemorative platter by AD, which is decorated with a picture of the bridge at Serrières built by Marc Séguin in 1828. 60 Originally written in French by AD in a letter to Dom Angelico Surchamp, in Surchamp, Anne Dangar . . . , op.cit., p. 155.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 23

Introduction

23

The balcony, Moly-Sabata

those who did not share her values. When reading AD’s letters to Grace Crowley, one often feels a lack of sympathy with her maxims and strictures. Her sense of art and life were absolute and she unburdened herself totally in her letters, which were, after all, meant only for her soul-mate ‘Smudge’. But even Grace was often dismayed, or uncomfortable, about Anne’s response to ideas and to people that she found antipathetic. We can deduce some of Grace’s feelings from the large amount of material she censored in the letters, in particular the diatribes against Mme Gleizes. Also Anne’s veneration of Albert Gleizes’ work and ideas, as well as her often expressed admiration of him as a person, must have seemed exaggerated to Grace who was living in a more secular context surrounded by many other artists. It is clear, too, that Grace must have asked Anne to preach less about religion, because the latter replied on one occasion that her new belief was integral to the art that she was producing as well as to Gleizes’ cause with which she identified so strongly.61 61 AD converted to Catholicism in 1951 shortly before her death.


24

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 24


But while Anne followed Gleizes’ artistic developments with intense interest and applied them to her own art, what distinguished her from most of Gleizes’ followers is that she translated his ideas into a craft that was more rudimentary and rustic by nature. In this way she avoided the trap of imitation that many of his other adherents had succumbed to in the medium of painting. For while Gleizes was incredibly generous with his disciples, he certainly did not expect a slavish following from them. As one of his students Dom Angelico Surchamp remarked, he was not a conventional teacher.62 Rather Gleizes saw himself as being engaged in discoveries and experiments that he wanted to communicate, but he did not interfere with his followers’ individual artistic expression. What he provided was an ambience in which artists could learn together. In the case of Anne Dangar he conversed with her, he read to her from books that he had been studying, and he lent her a wide range of literary material that she could not have otherwise purchased herself. She and Gleizes also discussed all aspects of formal design and its spiritual connotations, which she then transcribed onto her pottery. He even asked her to imitate some of his designs on large platters, which often bear his name next to the image and can be seen in the collection at Moly. But whereas Gleizes was free to travel and lecture at important venues such as the Bauhaus—returning periodically to his apartment in Paris, his large house at Serrières or his farm at les Méjades, St Rémyde-Provence, twenty kilometres south of Avignon—Anne was rooted to the spot at Moly-Sabata. This meant that Gleizes was not only her mentor but also her connection to the external world. Dangar’s path was difficult and often trying, but she gained strength from watching Gleizes’ experiments. His explanations about everything that concerned art and life gave her a sense of partaking in something larger and more meaningful. AD felt privileged to be part of his world and it made her realise that her previous life, artistically and spiritually speaking, had been spent in the wilderness. For in Australia modernism had been a very limited enterprise, with the country’s few modernist artists isolated and struggling to advance their work. AD was aware of GC’s artistic isolation and sent her frequent details about contemporary art, which Grace shared with other artists who visited her studio. For despite AD’s solitary existence in the Ardèche / Isère, she had a complete framework in the ideas and art of Gleizes, as 62 Helen Topliss interview with Dom Angelico Surchamp, op.cit.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 25

Introduction

25

well as in the countryside itself which nourished both her own and Gleizes’ artistic beliefs. This fact largely explains her religious zeal and the sense of vocation that she voiced so often in her letters. And although her criticism of everything Australian no doubt on occasion vexed Grace, it was for Anne an affirmation of having chosen the right path. The irony of the situation is, of course, that while AD led the true life of an artisan/artist, Gleizes enjoyed the lifestyle of a privileged artist with a European reputation. But Anne Dangar’s faith in him was so profound that she never questioned the discrepancies between how he lived his life and how he told others to live theirs. It is apparent from the letters that such devotion made Juliette jealous of the understanding that her husband had with Anne, who was certainly not innocent of animosity towards Mme Gleizes and often wondered about the couple’s incompatible relationship.63 Standing on the balcony at Moly-Sabata as evening descends over the Rhône, the cold air emerging from water and stone, it is possible to feel how alone Anne Dangar felt at times and how essential a life-line was her frequent correspondence with Grace Crowley. AD often expressed her feelings of loneliness to her friend and how, unlike Grace who had Fizelle and later Balson as partners and companions, she had no one nearby to turn to.64 For although AD had Lucie as a faithful and constant presence she never regarded this kind-hearted woman of peasant origins as an equal. But while Grace was closer to her than anyone else, she was forever thousands of miles away. As for Gleizes, AD shared with him only her passion for art and a spiritual yearning. They did not have an intimate friendship nor did she share her problems with him, as she did with Grace. It would seem from AD’s description of the Gleizes’ menage, and from others’ observations too, that Gleizes lived the life of a devout artist surrounded by disciples but essentially was in his own world free of any material cares. His marriage was largely one of convenience since he and his wife did not have much in common. Furthermore, as AD noted, Juliette dictated the terms, directed the household and decided the practical concerns of their lives as they moved 63 Dom Angelico Surchamp commented on this unusual combination of personalities and observed that Juliette, who was also a painter and writer and an educated person, nevertheless had no real affinity with Gleizes’ art and was jealous of AD’s absolute empathy with her husband. Quite often when they had their discussions about art, Juliette would interrupt them brusquely, a jealous response that Anne frequently commented on in her letters. 64 Rah Fizelle; Ralph Balson. See Personae.


26

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 26


from one place to another. It was Mme Gleizes who made possible Gleizes’ life as an artist and writer for, after all, it was her inheritance that provided the basis for their privileged lifestyle. By contrast Anne Dangar had to concern herself with every single, minuscule detail of daily living. Her letters contain frequent calculations of the cost of articles she needed for her work and her very survival. For Grace, she outlined every franc spent and balanced it against the paltry sums that she realised from the sale of her pots.65 It is quite painful to note how the content of her letters often leaps from the universal to the particular, and from the spiritual to the mundane. Thus descriptions of St Augustine’s thoughts on civilisation and personal ethics are bounded by calculations of the requisites for quotidian life, while passages about the wonders of nature are often curtailed by sums detailing life’s necessities, such as the cost of firewood in winter or the price of keeping the kiln in fuel. Nor did M. and Mme Gleizes care about AD’s financial struggles; in fact, it would seem that Mme Gleizes did everything to make things harder for her. She would, for example, invite artists to come and stay at Moly and demand that Anne prepare them meals out of her scant pantry. Many of the people I interviewed in Sablons and other towns, who had been students of AD’s in the 1940s, had tears in their eyes when they recollected her struggle to survive on such slender means and marvelled at how she was able to produce art under such straitened circumstances. Those who have not had to subsist in the most elementary way— as AD put it in one of her letters ‘substituting the spade for the paintbrush’—cannot comprehend the anxiety that she communicated frequently and copiously to GC. It is true that much of the correspondence is obsessive, but this was generally due to the lack of independence AD felt as a result of constantly having to work hard just to survive. She was never in a situation where she could stand back and think that she had nothing to worry about in the immediate future, for if she were to fall ill or not sell enough pots she had no savings to rely on. Daniel de Montmollin, himself a master potter, realised that the vocation of traditional potter was not at all a romantic one. When we think of this mineral substance and the work which is done as if blindfold, the potter reflects that the ‘worst of his creation’ will 65 AD’s rent at Moly was 4.5 fr. per week, and she earned 2.5 fr. per week teaching the local children.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 27

Introduction

27

not take place naturally but in a laboratory that will have to be created. And it is here that he has to say to himself, that it is entirely contrary to the romantic idea of ‘a return to the land’.66

The household calendar was divided into precise duties and chores: the planting of vegetables, managing the bees, the gathering of honey that AD exchanged for flour and other staple foods with nearby farmers, and maintaining the kitchen and living areas. AD’s work necessitated long walks in all seasons to the neighbouring potteries—including Roussillon, St Désirat, St Vallier and St Uze—that is until 1948 when her own pottery took life. She also taught the children of the neighbouring villages to paint every Thursday. Photographs of Anne Dangar with her group of children in front of the house at Moly-Sabata reveal her as a patient, elderly lady with white hair. She took immense pains with their lessons, diluting Gleizes’ theories about form and colour and illustrating the colour wheel with wild flowers that she asked the children to pick or using cut outs from coloured papers to demonstrate colour theory. In developing an alphabet of forms for her students, AD was influenced by the Mexican theorist Best Naugard who based his system on primitive man’s use of geometric symbols.67 Anne interpreted these as being the straight line, the double curve, the spiral, the undulating line, the curve, the circle and the zig-zag.68 She painted pictures with her students that were figurative, executed with single colours and simple designs based on subjects from their daily life. AD was not doctrinaire with the children and confided to a friend that ‘I do not know if one of these kids will turn into a painter, but I hope to give them a little more interest and joy in life’.69 However, she was worried that if she taught the children about abstraction that their parents would withdraw them from her classes.70 This fear proved unfounded and she went on to paint murals in a folk-style idiom based on pictures she had done with the village children at the hotel belonging to her friends the Schaeffers. Their daughter Yvette, one of her students, even helped Anne paint the murals in the large dining hall of 66 From de Montmollin, op.cit., p. 67. (Translated from the French original.) 67 Naugard claimed that primitive man used seven geometrical motifs to express himself. 68 Henri Giriat, Albert Gleizes à St Rémy, Musée des Alpilles, Ville de St Rémy de Provence, 1990, p. 7. 69 Helen Kinley Feustel, ms., National Gallery of Australia Archives, Canberra, p. 11. 70 See letter from AD to Dom Angelico Surchamp, 2 February 1950, in Surchamp, Anne Dangar..., op.cit., p. 97.


28

31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 28


her parents’ hotel. The wall paintings depict popular dances and folk costumes of the region and can still be seen in the old abandoned banquet room in the recesses of the now-renovated hotel. Those small children taught by Anne Dangar are now the seventyyear-olds who spoke to me when I visited Moly, and none have forgotten what she did for them. She had been astute in teaching the young because it is they who have kept her name and work alive; they remember her teachings and her kindness to this day. AD was aware of the importance of educating children and it is a subject about which she often wrote. In one letter she explained to GC a conversation she had had with Gleizes, in which she told him that the profession of painting on its own merits would be empty if not applied to life. She explained the importance of training children in the right principles so that they could become a real force in the region ‘if I can hold on to them awhile’.71 From conversations with those she taught I realised that she had succeeded far more than she had anticipated. AD did not live long enough to realise how successful she had been. She died on 4 September 1951, when her weak heart that she often complained of in her letters finally gave way.72 Her funeral was conducted at the church in Serrières and she was buried in the Roche family tomb in the cemetery on the hill above the village. The tomb is right at the top of the prominence overlooking the Rhône, the river she loved so much. AD was laid to rest next to the graves designated for her master Albert Gleizes and, ironically, his wife Juliette Roche-Gleizes. At her funeral the mayor and Albert Gleizes delivered the orations, with Gleizes praising AD for having lived the life of a dedicated artisan and for her efforts on behalf of his community at Moly. Villagers from both Sablons and Serrières joined in the funeral obsequies as well as in the procession up the hill to the cemetery where she was given a hero’s burial. The critic René Déroudille attended as did Rudé, the sous-préfet of Vienne, Marcel Michaud of the Folklore Gallery, M. Dorel the mayor of Sablons, and a legation of potters from Roussillon.73 Grace Crowley 71 Letter from AD to GC, 23 November 1932. 72 AD was aware of her condition and in a letter to GC written on 5 January 1947 she wrote the following: ‘One can never tell what to expect. Somehow I can’t worry about my future, I suppose I should but I haven’t time. I know my heart plays up when I carry too big an arm-load of wood or two watering cans of water, so perhaps I won’t have to grow too old— I’m old already you know. And yet here I am full of hope & interest going to buy a kiln & install a pottery at Moly . . .’ 73 René Déroudille was also a puppet theatre operator in Lyon.


31/5/02 11:40 AM

Page 29

Introduction

29

received numerous letters of condolence all attesting to AD’s exemplary life. One of her artist friends in Paris, Mary Webb, wrote of Anne: ‘Her life was deeply spiritual and profoundly devoted to her work and there is no wonder that the Gleizes family and all those surrounding her held her in such high esteem.’74 For M. Gleizes’ part he described AD’s life as ‘an apostleship’, and declared that ‘there was something saintly about her’.75 Gleizes called Moly ‘un radeau de sauvetage au milieu du XXe siècle’ (a rescue raft in the middle of the twentieth century), while Dom Angelico once likened it to Noah’s ark—complete with the continuous murmuring (in French a ron ron ron sound) of the overhead pigeons. As for AD she described it thus: Old tumbling Moly is my home, I love her dearly & if I won the lotterie nationale I would repair her from beginning to end & feel that my life had not been in vain. For Moly is a beautiful monument of French architecture before architects made plans in city sky-scrapers & dumped their straight lines & cubes on the top of the earth. Moly is a chef d’oeuvre—a poem. The long low houses on the plains of Sablons follows the movement of the Rhône in her sinuous lines. The building has three distinct angles which blend into one another. The foundations go down to the river bed rocks & the house grows out of the ground . . .76

Unfortunately Moly-Sabata was gutted by fire in 1983 and had to be rebuilt; only its external walls and structure were left. Anne and Lucie’s upstairs quarters no longer exist as the Fondation Albert Gleizes decided to have a higher ceiling in the main rooms rather than retain the original mezzanine area.77 One can still see the doorways to AD’s rooms high up on the wall. As one enters the house from the porch there is a large hallway or ante-chamber with a long table, then another large room adjoining it, in which there is a refectory table with two of AD’s pots on it dating from her early years at St Désirat pottery. One is a tureen on a pedestal base with a big lid decorated in the typical green, pink and brown floral design of the region. The other is a pot with an ill-fitting lid, brown glaze and cream design inscribed with the words 74 75 76 77

Mary Webb letter to GC, 21 October 1952, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit. A. Gleizes, ‘Funeral Oration for Anne Dangar’, op.cit., p. 9. Letter from AD to GC, 23 April 1947. The foundation was established with money left by Juliette Gleizes on her death in order to perpetuate the memory of her husband.


30

31/5/02 11:41 AM

Page 30


The Roche-Gleizes tomb at Serrières cemetery which houses the graves of Anne Dangar and Lucie Deveyle

‘Mièle de Sabata’—offering testimony to the bees that AD had to tend— on the cream rivulet flowing like a stream of honey over the body of the pot. At Moly the flood gates of memory were held by the continuing presence of the Rhône, which had borne silent witness to times past. During my time there I found myself being constantly lured by the river at various times of the day, just as AD had been. Standing on the balcony facing the Rhône and looking over to Serrières of an evening, one can see the lights shining on the opposite bank. It is easy to imagine


31/5/02 11:41 AM

Page 31

Introduction

31

The view of the Rhône from the cemetery at Serrières

Anne Dangar standing there after a hard day’s work, gazing over across the river to where Gleizes lived in his large house, and him sitting down to a dinner prepared by his servants. But it was in the early hours of the morning when no-one else was around that the Rhône was particularly special. At 5.30 a.m. it was still dark and as I walked along the quai du Rhône I meditated on the reflections on the water that were so like AD’s abstract touches on her pots. At moments like this I could see how she had become one with her environment and could not help but feel that she had fulfilled her mission. The Rhône drew me as it must have drawn her, with the incessant flow of the river at Moly and Serrières connecting the past to the present. At 7.30 a.m. I saw the pink sunrise on the river; it was magical, like a Turner painting with light radiating through rose mists. Memory is retained in the landscape, in monuments and in works of art but it has to be stirred by human agency. Proust defined it by dipping a Madeleine into a bowl of coffee to stir his own memories of lost moments. AD’s memory is there in her pottery, in her letters and in


32

31/5/02 11:41 AM

Page 32


the minds of the people who knew her, such as Dom Angelico and the children she once taught. Visiting Moly-Sabata and Sablons/Serrières was an overpowering experience. The living testimonials of its people mingled continuously with the landscape and the ever-flowing Rhône— a mute but stirring witness to her life—to enable me to see Anne Dangar’s life in a new light. But it was the eloquent Anne herself who best expressed her relationship with the region when she wrote: ‘Les eaux sont entrées jusque dans mon âme.’ (The waters have come right into my soul.)78

c

78 Surchamp, Anne Dangar . . ., op.cit., p. 145. Written on a photograph of the balcony facing the Rhône that AD sent to Dom Angelico Surchamp, dated 3 March 1951.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 33

1 Sydney to Sablons, 1930 –1931 Through her meeting with Albert Gleizes in 1929, Grace Crowley helped set her friend Anne Dangar’s direction in life. In this correspondence spanning twenty-one years, Anne Dangar conveyed in her journal-like letters to ‘Smudge’ all her aspirations, tribulations and successes, along with every aspect of her daily life. Her early letters describe the subsistence nature of life at Moly-Sabata and give descriptions, not always flattering, of its inhabitants. But in itemising the difficulties involved in living at Moly, as it was known affectionately by its inmates, AD found that the disadvantages were always compensated for by her belief in Albert Gleizes’ theories on art and spirituality. Thus he alone was exempt from criticism, and her respect and admiration for him shines through her correspondence especially in these early letters. The location of the ancient house, on the river facing directly onto the vineyards of the côtes du Rhône, also captivated her and always bolstered her faith. AD often referred to the river outside her window when she was writing her letters, and noted that ‘the Rhône is immobile like God’. It was here, in the heart of France and on the banks of its mightiest river, that she found a new faith in art and life. According to GC, Anne Dangar was ‘a very remarkable woman’ because ‘in the face of evil odds she overcame [an] impossible situation, and was practically worshipped by all who knew her, for her lovable but forceful personality, her great gifts as an artist, a friend and teacher’.1 1 Grace Crowley, Biographical Outline of Anne Dangar, op.cit.


34

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 34


However, AD had not been prepared for her life at Moly-Sabata. First of all, she was horrified at the idea of having to maintain the garden, do the housework, look after the bees, and then try to paint in her spare time. To assist her financially Gleizes paid her in advance to produce 400 pochoirs, but these proved to be a trial as she struggled to satisfy Gleizes’ stringent demands. The pochoirs, which so resembled Cubist paintings of violins that she often referred to them in French as her violons, interpreted Gleizes’ theories of ‘translation’ and ‘rotation’. These involved the movement of planes and their rotation within the picture frame, and were achieved by staggering the design and colour variations within the composition. This rhythmic and simultaneous movement of planes and colours is described for Crowley’s benefit by AD in her letters, and her definitions of Cubist composition led GC and Ralph Balson to produce abstract or non-objective art in the late 1930s in Sydney. In one of these early letters AD refers to tableau objet, abstract painting that represents a higher objective than imitative art. This concept originated with Cubism when Braque and Picasso were treating the painting as an object, devoid of representation with the aim of achieving pure painting.2 As a result of Gleizes’ spiritual beliefs, AD was dismissive of artists such as Picasso and Matisse whom she considered lacking in religious values. For AD abstract art on its own, devoid of religious principles was meaningless. Gleizes lent AD various texts on spiritual values and comparative religions such as those by the philosopher Ananda Coomeraswamy who had developed his own theories on the basis of Christianity and then Hinduism. AD read texts by Pierre Saint Yves who wrote on folklore and mythology; René Guénon who was a Catholic theorist.3 AD’s immediate circle also had a great admiration for the strength and justness of Mahatma Gandhi’s political and religious principles. Gleizes’ aesthetic orientation was towards early Christian art, the Romanesque and Byzantine, as well as the non-representative art of Eastern and Western societies, such as Celtic art, Hindu art and folk art in general. Following World War I there was a profound disillusionment among artists and intellectuals in Western society who believed that civilisation had grown corrupt and that religious values had been 2 In 1912 the poet Apollinaire wrote that the young artists of the cubist group were attempting to achieve pure painting. See Guillaume Apollinaire, ‘Les commencements du cubisme’, Le Temps, 14 October 1912. 3 René Guénon. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 35

1930 –1931

35

forgotten. Artists such as Gleizes and AD believed that society had to be rebuilt along more fundamental values such as those of the early Christian church and certain Eastern religions. Gleizes and other writers at the time cited Tibet as a perfect example of a society that had continued along traditional beliefs and whose spiritual life had not been eroded by progress.

c Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 29th March 1930 Sweetheart! Oh I am so happy. I was so weary of battling that cold world of jealousy & blindness & greed—& you have put me into the shelter of a convent! A house of love & hope & peace & kindness! A religious house where one lives a sane life of the necessities of the flesh but where the things of the spirit are recognised as the only real joys in life. A convent where the dear little nuns & monks sing & dance & swim & picnic & go on walking tours for several days at a time. Of course St François is my darling but I love his little girl very much indeed, and I must try & make her younger, she is terribly old for her age.4 Both women tell me I’m much younger than they are & I believe I am in my foolish heart. They say M. Gleizes tells them they are years older than he is. The Gleizes return this day week, another week to get my breath in! I have done my first twenty pochoirs. They are done in twenty-five lots. The work is very like map reproduction so I fell into it quite easily. St François was quite impressed & cried after my seventh, ‘But Mademoiselle I can’t do better myself!’ Monsieur Manevy works at pochoirs too, but he’s bored & takes no interest in them so I think I’ll soon relieve him altogether of the work.5 One afternoon when the sun came out St François said, ‘Will you come for a little promenade with me Mlle?’ So he took me to Gleizes’ studio. How wonderfully you described those two beautiful pictures for the new religion Gleizes believes in! As soon as we left the house that dear boy 4 St François and St Francis were AD’s names for the artist Robert Pouyaud, and the ‘little girl’ AD refers to was his wife, Cécile. See Personae. St François was a disciple of Albert Gleizes. 5 François Manevy and his wife were also living at Moly-Sabat. See Personae.


36

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 36


began to talk as naturally as if I were his greatest boyfriend. ‘Regard [sic] the mountains with the sun on them! It isn’t their surface which awes us & swells our heart with their grandeur. The surface changes— spring, summer, autumn, winter come in their numerical order—the surface is material but there is something eternal which rests. We are mortal, we are born, we grow, we weaken, we die but humanity remains. The Rhône! Look how the water passes quickly. This water we see is all going right away but the Rhône never rests. The water is mobile. The Rhône is immobile comme Dieu. The world changes, the world revolves, all things upon it die, change, but God is there always, we know he is there Immobile, Eternal! It is all built on the Courbe but God [as] the Great centre is immobile.6 This is the whole theory of Monsieur Gleizes’ teaching, Mlle.’ We seek to express the thought beneath the surface which springs from the centre & is contained & held always to that centre. We were climbing the stairs to the studio by then but after we had looked at a few hundred pictures he continued the subject. We were sitting looking at the lovely spiritual pictures of two years ago & I asked him what about the story of Christ? ‘It is very simple, just the same thing,’ he replied. ‘The mortal, the intelligence, the God in man. It’s always the trinity, for you and me. It’s the same thing that the beatitudes say, isn’t that right?7 Buddha’s life story is just the same & the Brahman history tells it more plainly still. Each religion in its turn teaches only this at first—as it springs into birth but it is like man. It is born, it grows, reaches its zenith then falls gradually & dies—but something always rests. Christianity is dead, or just dying, but there is something which remains. And a new religion is born . . . Yes you will see! Think of the spiral. The centre— when you come out at the end you return to the centre, you are connected to the centre. It’s a magnet—it’s exactly like that, you understand?’ He has given me the two lessons & a lovely pochoir in colour for my room. I have loved today. Yesterday I could do nothing—had no brains & no confidence in myself—you know how terrified I get of showing my work to anyone. But today! I scolded myself into being simple & childlike & French & not an egotistic self-conscious Englishwoman & I suddenly felt I could enjoy composing, & the sun shone out on my table & the 6 Courbe, meaning bow or arc, is identified with the rainbow, which in French is called arcen-ciel. The rainbow also reflects the colour spectrum in all its tonal combinations, which is the basis of all art. 7 This conversation originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 37

1930 –1931

37

honey. The grande pièce [living room] seemed to radiate with warmth & peace & HOPE! They have given me nearly all the flower garden (which is almost empty) & yesterday Manevy & I went to St Rambert across the fields & we bought a dozen packets of seed & fifteen little plants. This morning I made a glorious seed bed & planted my fifteen little plants. So the Bird can guess how happy I am.8 Naughty St Francis doesn’t love flowers! He likes them, though I wonder if he’ll ever grow to like this funny old Anne half as much as he loves a bee? Beaucoup! beaucoup! BEAUCOUP! I’ll have to learn to love bees but I’m scared out of my wits of them they’re so terribly busy after the long winter . . . Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sunday 11th May 1930 My dearest one, In this big world, how near your letter brought that silly ignorant Sydney. I read it in the kitchen & shrieked & shrieked with laughter over Dorrit’s indignation—yours at being likened to her—the infuriated being called Gallway [sic] etc. etc., until St François came to hear what was the matter. But a choke was not very far behind that laughter my poor darling. How I can sympathise with the hopelessness of being appreciated, understood or even awaking interest. It’s a miserable ignorant commercial country & the sooner you can get out of it the better. To paint there it is necessary to be as common as Robert Johnson.9 Any natural refinement or artistic knowledge is casting pearls to swine. I haven’t asked St François about the canvas yet [as] he’s terribly wrapped up in a book called DIEU & I don’t like to break through the dreamy film which is over his grey eyes, bless him! Smudge he is such a darling to your Anne . . . Later: I told St F. about the requests in your letter & he says he will write to you. The colours en poudre I think one can buy at Nock & Kirby or Grace Bros in the house paint department. You have to grind them very fine with a little mortar, put them through [a] sieve & mix them 8 The Bird was GC’s mother. See Personae. 9 Robert Johnson, 1890–1964, was a traditional Australian landscape painter.


38

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 38


with water till a smooth thin paste. The gomme is made with gum arabic— simply buy crystals & put a few in a bottle, fill with water & stir well [and] leave two days. This is what Gleizes uses for gouache, but to paint in colle the process is different. He uses a glue pot & spirit lamp & paints while warm. This is to get a perfectly flat dull surface à la Primitifs. I don’t like the idea— one hasn’t time to put the same fervour of thought into the thing being painted if one is thinking of the terrifying drying medium all the while. I have watched M. Pouyaud these weeks—his little gouache is a beautiful expression of a beautiful mind. At five PM he commences his big picture where he left off the day before & paints for two hours. It’s a labour of pots & spirit lamp going up & down the step ladder & terrible anxiety (for one is not sure what the colour will be when dry) & his big pictures are all empty & broken compared to those delightful gouaches little ones. This with one exception—his picture like the pochoir I sent you. But perhaps this is because it is not too big. I sent Burdett some pochoirs—what a farce, they’ll be looking for ‘atmosphere’ in them I suppose.10 Gleizes is good & Madame is too & Robert Pouyaud & Cécile & you & the Bird & the peasants of Serrières are good & simple.11 With all these to rebuild my faith I feel strong & happy. If only you could have a sure & happy future. Dearest I don’t think I’d have a care in the world except [for my sister] Ruby. There is always Ruby, for they are always needing rain or having sick pigs or trouble of some kind.12 I told the Pouyauds I only had 60 francs left (I spent your money on house linen & things I had to buy for the house as my share—Madame G. was MAD not to have told you—I could have brought everything I had to buy), & they said there was money in the desk that belonged to me but Manevy managed the money & I’d have to ask him. Well I won’t. I’ll wait till the Gleizes come home & tell them I’ve never had a sou & ask them how I get paid. Don’t be anxious darling, I’ll be VERY sweet & gracious to them but they must know about the Manevys, & the Pouyauds won’t tell. I don’t understand properly but from what I gather Manevy did them in for 1000 francs last Christmas & they didn’t tell. 10 Basil Burdett. See Personae. 11 AD often translated literally from French to English and it is for this reason that she has translated the noun paysan in French as ‘peasant’ in English. In fact, the people she is referring to are farmers who owned land and vineyards and were quite well-to-do. 12 Ruby Singleton lived on the family farm with her husband and children. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 39

1930 –1931

39

My letter is long as usual & nothing in it. . . . Moly-Sabata looks wonderful now the Marrons trees are full of leaf & flower, I love the cold place darling. My room looks out on the river (it is the last window— the nearest to the studio) & I have yellow grey green walls & wood work the same but lower in tone with pickings of prune. My bed cover is a huge check of yellow green—or orange & red violet, my table painted yellow grey green has check raffia cover (like cushion I left you) & my two chair seats are covered with same & I have one cushion of same. Then I have a black, a green, & a black & violet cushion, two bolsters are to be same colour as wood work, [and the] hanging mirror has [a] prune frame. Felt squares of grey with black binding & red violet border a foot wide & then a line a little lighter (done with dye & glue & stencilled). I have some bookshelves & electric light & a button beside my bed. Then one goes to my room along the terrace & up a corridor. I’ve made the corridor quite nice, put up some coat hangers for my overcoats, a dark green shelf for a big jar of flowers & fifteen reproductions. But don’t think I’m unhappy, I’m going to tell Madame Gleizes everything. They must be more responsible of Moly-Sabata, [or] instead of being a wonderful example [they] will be a shame. The Pouyauds suffering silence, trusting God’s deliverance peut-être, mais God helps those who help themselves. I can’t let my beloved children go off to Paris or somewhere—I must tell the Gleizes. I wish I could tell him but I’d be too shy I think. I have only known him four days & my French is still very bad. Well I must get on with my picture. It’s turned into a Virgin enthroned although I was determined to keep the holy family out of it by hook or by crook . . .

K Moly-Sabata 24th June 1930 My dearest one! . . . I’m beginning to feel he is so strong I can’t develop my own ideas on the ones he has given me, [as they are] all his colour notes—charts— book everything. But alas I haven’t time to open one or the Irish girl’s13 13 Evie Hone. See Personae.


40

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 40


essay or anything. . . . It takes me every moment from 5.30 till ten PM to keep this big house in order & cook three meals & afternoon tea & wash up & feed animals & do the shopping etc. Florence [Blake] went yesterday.14 Thank the Lord. She got nothing from a month’s teaching but I did. She’s got the brains, [but] says all the time it’s only ‘commercial art’. That [the] pochoir I sent you is like a weak tile. That she’d just as soon play with a box of coloured papers & envelopes as a Gleizes composition etc. etc. St François calls her ‘the old fool’ always. He was sick to death of her but the little wretch made him paint four nice gouaches for her & make a delightful drawing very like the map of Australia & she’ll pretend she did them herself I know. She didn’t even ask them to dinner! I was ashamed of her after guzzling our meals for a month all for her rotten little 200 fr. & a lesson nearly every day. She asked me alone to dinner. Ah she’s a poor unfortunate miserable miser hugging her wealth to her in terror all the time! We saw her off yesterday morning, St F. & me, & as we left the gare he stretched his arms up & said, ‘Thank God for the liberty of poverty!’ This because she fought him like a tiger cat when he wanted her to put one of her great five suitcases in the luggage hall. We walked to Verlieu (up to the two pines you walked to) & drew the village after lunch . . . Later last night St F. took me through the colour notes he has given me & explained all. They are the most lovely things. I said, ‘Do you mind if I copy these for mon amie?’ He hesitated, ‘Is Mademoiselle Crowley sincerely interested to become un tableau objet [abstract] painter?’ ‘What do you mean exactly by tableau objet?’ ‘Why all other painting is painting objects—this is an object, a thing made—the only raison d’être there is for painting at all, otherwise the carpenter, the shoemaker & all who make something are superior in every way to painters. These laws of colour applied to the creating of movement & governed & governing form are not for the profane.’ ‘Mon amie is not profane,’ I flared. ‘Non c’est moi,’ says little Cécile. ‘No [I said], it’s the painters who paint pictures for their own amusement. Mon amie is starving in a desert for food you have to give. You think of her as one of the idle rich because Florence told you she was rich, but what good is money in her father’s pocket while she has to sit with her mother hours and days & weeks & months merely listening to her mother’s visitors talking about babies & engagements & 14 Florence Turner Blake. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 41

1930 –1931

41

weddings & jam recipes?’ And I said a lot more on your doing your duty while your work lay idle. ‘C’est vrai?’ ‘Oui, I wouldn’t change places with her for all Florence’s wealth which is more than Smudge will ever have.’ ‘Poor Miss Crowley! Do as you wish with the things I have given you but you can’t look at them until October because I want to teach you some of these rules,’ [Pouyaud replied]. It would take you a month to make a set for her [as] it took me four months to do four sets, one for you, one for M. Gleizes, one for myself & one for the Irish girls!15 So in October darling I’ll send you these lovely things with my exercises corrected by St F. Then I’ll feel I have been able to do a little thing for you. It would take me a year if it took him a month. Keep them three months & do exercises & send the exercises to him & he’ll be really happy to correct & advise. In the meantime all painting must give the sensation of light. Light contains colour, colour gives light. The rays of light are easily shown to be composed of colour directing one single ray on a piece of cut glass in a dark room. Our great effort is to create light by colour in our painting not by black & white. (How often Lhote advised this, but he didn’t show how to do it!) The colour black shows how light is revealed to the eye, how colours cannot change colour in the movement of translation they can only change tone. But in the movement of rotation they cannot stay the same for they move towards another colour immediately. N’est-ce pas? going across the colour ‘blue’, for instance, it can only get lighter or darker as it approaches black or white. But say it begins to turn, it gets more green & more violet at once. As it is impossible with pigment to get white with colour we can only achieve a perfect grey sans colour when revolved . . . Now say you start a background in red ochre & black & white mixed. Placing the black & white thereon you get your blue green complementary. That is the complementary because the eye calls for light & light is only created when the missing colours are added to a colour already there. Red ochre contains yellow, red, violet. But it has neither blue or green in its composition. It calls for them and a perfect neutral like black & white recalls them to the eye. Now proceeding you will use colours which go towards blue green but always mix a little background colour with all except when you get right near centre, then you work towards great movement when 15 Evie Hone; Mainie Jellett. See Personae.


42

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 42


colours are very close to one another. The movement is slow but put blue & yellow orange together in pure & separate colours & you have the maximum of movement, the whole circle. So with all complementaries. You see, because your canvas is a static form. The forms which repeat it are unable to change colour in translation, they can only change tone. That means all vertical forms will be tones of the background colour. The rotating forms must change colour. N’est-ce pas? . . . The rain, floods, [the] Rhône, the market at le Péage & that of Annonay of Serrières & St Désirat, etc. etc. etc.16 . . . Must go; you’re the dearest bestest [sic] bravest thing in all this topsy turvy world . . . A big, big, hug my ‘darling dear’, Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Isère September 1930 Dearie, I am sending you all the Lhote-isms I can find. Only to you who knows my mosstist [sic] & my bestest [sic] could I show my rotten spelling & muddled scrap bag. Even for myself I could not bear to use such disorder & for three weeks on the boat I selected & arranged these notes and Gleizes’ books so that I had a very valuable compilation of notes leading from Impressionism—Cézanne through Lhote & the Renaissance masters to Gleizes & the Middle Ages. This is the book I lost. Now we are deliberating on the work before the ‘Middle Ages’ Celtic art and Celtic beliefs regarding God. It is tremendously thrilling dear, it is too wonderful!! I can hardly dare write about it. You may think we’re a nest of silly spooky spiritualists but it’s TRUE. At this present moment there are a million people living in Tibet who are the wisest people on the earth & only two books crept out of their great secret subterranean city to tell these wonders; one is called La mission des Indes by Saint Yves.17 Smudge the things it reveals are too marvellous, I can’t keep still regarding it as a fairy tale but it isn’t—Saint Yves wrote it in 1886. He went to India 16 AD is referring to the fact that nothing in life is static and forms a continuum, just as the rain falls in certain places in succession. 17 Pierre Saint Yves, who wrote La mission des Indes in 1886, was a historian of mythology and folklore.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 43

1930 –1931

43

to study Sanskrit & in his study he became friendly with a Prince. He was [a] very holy & very learned Frenchman & the Indian Prince found his Christian beliefs identical with his Brahman belief in fundamental essence. Gradually Saint Yves became one of the ‘initiated’ of this ‘centre of the earth’ (if you look at a flat map of the earth you will find Tibet, the centre of one side of the globe America being on the other side). Oh the things he tells are too marvellous. I can’t read the book because Pouyaud is reading it, but he reads aloud every night, & I am reading Le roi du monde by Guénon18 . . . the book which made Pouyaud get La mission des Indes. But the priests in this holy city have communication with God—the city is lighted by a light sans lamps or anything, sans fils [without electricity] or essence [petrol] gas etc. It is older than any history, in it are the histories of every people, every period. The scientific discoveries of recent times have been known there all the while, also other sciences yet undreamed of in our laboratories. It sounds mad but Le roi du monde explains symbols in Greek, Hebrew, Indian & early Christian religions, especially the Celtic beliefs, which show it is a fact [that] this ‘centre’ has been always the axis from which the world is really governed by those who receive their orders from God. And the convincing facts Guénon gives regarding Christianity, Indian religions & the Hebrew religion make one see there is only one religion; all have the same ideas, all are exactly the same. I will send you a copy of the Celtic belief. Christianity is the only religion which teaches the body shall rise again. All others teach that the transmigration of souls takes place on this planet, that our lives [take] many times to work towards perfection—the ‘initiated’ of Tibet are ‘supermen’ in intelligence & holiness—we are working our passage towards this ‘Centre’, this beautiful city in our very own world!19 You will ask why the city is not discovered? Because an organised system of 2,000,000 people are arranged to keep out those who are not ready to enter. We may be un-knowingly one of those sentinels. It is only those who go to Tibet who become really aware of a hidden power preventing any penetration into Indian towns & societies, but the whole world is known to these two million great intellectuals & the effect of causes is known to them. 18 René Guénon, Le roi du monde, Ch. Bosse, Paris, 1927. 19 AD is claiming that Tibet is the centre of the world both spiritually and geographically, and that the rest of humanity must strive to attain this perfection by aiming towards the centre (spiritually and geographically).


44

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 44


I’m too ignorant to tell more yet. Dear, as I learn a little more I’ll tell you, but doesn’t it seem as if Gleizes’ theories are something much bigger than the bright spark of humanity from which they issued? Dear human Albert Gleizes! to me he seems the tool of some great master, has that tool further use? Shall Robert Pouyaud be picked up & used next & then he too laid aside in turn? And you and I? Perhaps you have also entered into the spiral already, our little influence over others still farther away from the centre is ordered & consequently supported by a power greater than our own . . . The first signifying the sky, the earth & the palace of silence between life & rebirth, the second being the complete form in centre & outside the life carnal. Also the letters AUM which at other times is written OM & is the name of a saint known in the Brahman & also in the early Christian writings. In the midst of this stupefying conglomeration of thought I am being taught other lessons by the drunken old potters of St Désirat. My work is going ahead finely—I can ‘turn’ with certainty at all the movements & have made a coffee set entirely as well as many other things the last four days. But the old potter is not ‘turning’—there’s still no clay—[so] he is making châteaux!! He makes a bowl on the tour & a lid then he makes a slab & places his bowl on it. Next he makes little shapes like these on the tour & behold & behold a château!! And all day he sings & talks to his creation & even forgets à boire [to drink]. And I am jealous of this old man of seventy who can love his work even as a little child while I am too aware of surroundings to create. This is art! Who is to say one word of criticism of those châteaux when they have been born wholly from the creative instinct of a child’s nature? I thought all day yesterday of our searchings in the mysteries of the past for truth & God while the answer is just ‘unless ye become as a little child ye can in no wise enter the Kingdom of heaven’.20 Oh sweetheart this pen is awful, it sucks ink & then drops it out in fat blots. I’ll say night night before I make more mess. Bless you darling. 20th Sept. All Sablons are now in our back yard assisting in the departure of Madame Manevy. Amen! The Pouyauds don’t talk of going. I think if the Gleizes are gracious they want to stay till November but at the first half sign of displeasure on the Gleizes’ part they’ll be off. It 20 ‘ . . . unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Matthew 18: 3, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 45

1930 –1931

45

is very foolish; far better part good friends & I’m afraid that will be impossible if Madame G. & that naughty St François see much of each other. I like them both so much it is hard on me this antagonism between them & really the Pouyauds are to blame. Madame G. said Madame P. had a caractère très difficile. This was last Christmas but the whole upset has come from that. Madame P. has slowly but surely poisoned St F. against Madame G. & they both (especially her) try to poison me against Madame G. But I am a woman—I can see through her wiles—also I am more Madame Gleizes’ class than Madame Pouyaud’s & that revolutionary cry ‘down with the aristocrats’ is not my political side at all. I like Madame Gleizes. She may be arrogant, authoritative, cold, selfish & all the things they say, but she’s trying to be a good generous sympathetic woman & there is something very sweet in her. It’s a terrible pity St François married so beneath his natural refined instincts, [although] he couldn’t have married more wisely as far as getting a faithful slave to wash & cook & iron & clean & knit & mend for him. His tastes are the only thought of her life, but with less bodily pampering & more elevating companions a truly great man might have been made of him. And now he goes to adoring but very common middle-class parents (so Madame Gleizes tells one) to be cuddled & idolised & kept tethered to home comforts & interests. Oh unwise St François! The Geoffrays (the musicians who were here a month) talk of coming to live here.21 They are very fresh healthy creatures & play the violin & piano very well. They love the idea of living in the country, but how [to] make a living? They have one child & Madame told me she’d love to have four. That’s the trouble, how can one make a living here? I’m panting for Mrs Gibson to send her fees & for Nell to pay me; Lawsons will never sell my Art in Australia & Julian Ashton picture while Aussie is in such a hole.22 I hope that they don’t forget who they belong to. In a year or so I think I’ll have done something with pottery & organising a class for Monsieur Gleizes. If I could go to Paris for a few days I’d find students sans them knowing it, but I’m too shabby & old fashioned already to go to Paris even if I could manage the fare. My hats look like the hats at a country show [and] I dare not wear anything but a beret now the cooler weather is coming. Moly-Sabata is only for people with private 21 César and Mido Geoffray. See Personae. 22 Mrs Gibson was perhaps a friend of GC’s (see p. 83) and Nell a client; Lawsons was a Sydney art auctioneers.


46

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 46


incomes—I’ve only earned £1 a week since I came, 25,000 francs in six months, & it will be quite another month before I get another penny. Living costs about 12/- a week or a bit more when one counts the things which have to be replaced & renovated as they wear out. About 7/- a week for train fares, haircuts, stamps, paints, medicines and clothes, it’s absurd. ‘We give you a nice home, it’s for you to find your pocket money,’ says Madame Gleizes, but the nice home & garden take up a great deal of time. ‘You will have a very big honey field [and] you must ask all your friends to buy,’ she says. What friends have I in France who want honey? Oh it’s a funny life! . . . Thank God for my precious mate. Your Anne.

K c.1930 23 . . . Two terrible responsibilities have been lifted off me—you & Ruby’s terrible fates—& I can begin to think about my own future at last.24 I didn’t know until today that I had always (since I came over) sort of pushed any definite future of my own aside because you two dear ones had a worse plight. Yes Smudge I’m sure I’ll find a way slowly. Gleizes is being terribly severe on me & he doesn’t love me a bit or my work either. He thinks he’s struck a dud (you know I never shine at first with a teacher), but I know I am more of an artist than either Pouyaud or Miss Jellet though a lesser one than Miss Hone. Gleizes is the worst judge of character on the face of the globe & Madame not much better. Gleizes doesn’t like me, that’s certain, but he will. Madame would if someone would boost me a bit (oh if only Mrs Gibson could come over now). Miss Creed is a wretch [and] never gives me credit for having taught her a thing & pretends she never heard things I told her at Wamberal a week after I landed, for what others think means a great deal to Madame Gleizes.25 In the meantime I bide my time with a good deal of uneasiness for they change like the wind. One day they tell me I’m the only person they’ve ever had with the right ideas for Moly, the next they say they don’t want people at Moly who have artistic interests, they only 23 Annotated by GC and dated 1930, the first page is missing. 24 AD is possibly referring to money that GC received from her father which meant that she didn’t have to go to Toowoomba as a teacher. 25 Estelle Creed had previously been taught by AD on a sketching trip at Wamberal in New South Wales, but refused to acknowledge this when she arrived at Moly-Sabata. She was als critical of AD to Mme Gleizes, who clearly accepted this criticism at face value. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 47

1930 –1931

47

want people with agricultural interests & that you were too hasty in sending me the cable [and] you should have explained that Moly is only for Le retour à la terre [the return to the land].26 Damn it I can & do garden better than any specimen they’ve had here! St Francis was a dear beautiful example of patience & calm & order, but he didn’t rejoice in the birth & growth of his plants & give them the luxury they need & call for. They were a duty to him but to you . . . Grelin is really the joke of all Moly’s queer orphans.27 He sponged on me for two weeks & didn’t do a tad to help me—got up at 9.00 AM & went to bed directly after dinner before the washing up. Never chopped wood, or pumped.28 I told him pretty straightly what I thought of him— for his coming & keeping him cost me over 200 francs of my bicycle money—one night & he was very injured. He can do nothing at all. His wife arrived last Tuesday, with one baby twenty months old & another three weeks old. Straight away Miss Creed & I moved to the tiny kitchen on the other side of the house & we are awfully cosy. Madame G. is a good looking peasant of twenty-eight & do you know she gets up every morning & chops wood, lights the fire & feeds her babies & gets his breakfast before he gets up!! And she looks as happy as the day is long. I like her, although she’s an out & out peasant . . . I said, ‘Monsieur Gleizes asked me to teach Mrs Blake last June so he has a different idea of my capacities as a teacher.’ In fact I can see Gleizes is training me with all his might & I’m learning with all my might, & I bet if any pupils do come in his absence they’ll get Gleizes’ methods better than Miss Jellett or Pouyaud could give them because Julian Ashton taught me to teach, to give my all & never think another was less worthy to receive than myself. Well dear I’ll post the colour book the 1st March. The colour discs I’ll have to keep till next opportunity as they are terribly heavy [and] cost 9 fr. by post from Paris. The great thing Forichon29 teaches is how to obtain light through colour. Pouyaud’s essay & diagrams will aid you greatly. I’ll send them with the book. Dorrit’s work lacked all light & was very immobile. Yesterday Gleizes did a lovely exercise for Miss C., he covered a long narrow panel with cobalt. He put her drawing down & made the centre orange red & then he worked out of the centre one side with orange–yellow, yellow–green & on the other red, crimson, violet. 26 27 28 29

For more on Le retour à la terre see Introduction. André Grelin. See Personae. Water had to be pumped out of the river. F. Forichon was Professor of Drawing at the Lycée in Nîmes, France.


48

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 48


But so gradually! And in such tiny morsels of the bright colours near the centre! Then the border lines he just used black & white & they looked quite near enough to the complementary [colours] . . . Oh thank heaven you haven’t got to go to that awful girls’ school!30 And you haven’t got to teach ungrateful, self-centred, half-dead Australian art students! . . . I don’t know if I’ll ever return to Australia, [though] if I got an offer to pot as I like there I would go in a few years perhaps. Ruby’s family & the sunshine & the way Gleizes’ theories have made me see the possibility of living sanely & happily anywhere [mean that] sometimes I think of putting up a two-roomed humpy at South West Rocks & fitting out a pottery & growing pineapples & bananas to eat (the climate is ideal for these).31 When I’ve got five years of knowledge. Goodbye my wonderful Smudge. What if you get the Archibald prize on top of Daddy’s gift?32 Dear old girl! I’m so happy tonight—if only the Bird would get better! Bless my brave fine Smudgie. Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 9th January 1931 Dearie, I have been reading the Celtic poems Evie sent me & loving them. I can’t send the book as I don’t know whether it is a gift or only lent but I have copied some of the things I love instead of writing a letter this week. My heart is full to the brim of my darling & how I [can] show her . . . [my] reverence for her great heartedness. Smudge dear I am a coward when I think of the responsibility of your trust in me, you who know how father wasted mother’s & grandmother’s & his father’s substance. I feel I dare not take a step. ‘The Breastplate of St Patrick’33 hangs on my wall beside my bed. I adore it, so I send it to you too. 30 The Glennie School, Toowoomba, Queensland. 31 AD often referred to her inherited land at South West Rocks on the Macleay River in New South Wales where she owned sixteen lots, 50 ft x 50 ft. From time to time she tried to sell the land when she required money. 32 An annual portrait prize held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. 33 Annotation by GC: possibly the poem ‘The Lorica of St Patrick’ printed on a missal. St Patrick lived in the fifth century AD and wrote two major works: the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and the Epistola, a denunciation of British mistreatment of the Irish. As can be seen from her letters, AD was very pro-Irish.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 49

1930 –1931

49

‘What can I send Smudge?’ I wonder all day long. Last night I went to bed before 8.00 o’clock as I was terribly tired, [but] I wasn’t sleepy when I got to bed [and] after half an hour’s rest I got my Celtic poems out. All the while I read I wanted you to talk them over later—5th century I think. The copy of the ‘Breastplate of St Patrick’ is set to music, which Evie gave me today on the wall, [and] is much shorter than the one in the book, which is long. So I have taken from both in sending the poem to you. St Columba was much later, 7th century I think, and he a king of Ireland’s son rather loved to fight as his forefathers had always done so.34 He was punished for taking part in a battle after he had become a monk by being sent to Scotland (Alba) to found a monastery on the Island of Iona & to never return to his beloved Ireland. However he was permitted years after to return for a short visit. Evie lent me his life & his poems but I was stupid & didn’t copy the letter, & the Celtic books’ translations are very different, nothing like as nice. So I just send a wee bit of one of his poems. The Book of Kells, Durrows & Lindisfarne35 are [by] Columba’s monk . . . The poem on the months is 6th century. The funny King Cormac things much older. The tercets 6th century, ‘Irish triads’ 9th century (I send you also Triades de Barbisme which as far as Pouyaud knew were the ‘articles of Celtic faith’). Also a little about the life of St Patrick. I am sending to Paris for a tiny magazine called Regeneration to be sent to you. It is about Gandhi but do try & get Romain Rolland’s Life of Gandhi as you cannot realise the enormity of the task he has taken & the beauty of his methods.36 The questions asked him at his conference at Paris are stupid & make it disconnected. His answer concerning the doctrine of Christ I was glad to read. He does not seem to consider the man Christ Jesus needs to be dwelt upon, [rather] it is the message & doctrine of love which is the real meaning of Christ. So dear I send you the thoughts which I think as I tap, tap at pochoirs day after day. The Gleizes are still at Cavalaire.37 The Irish girls come 34 St Columba, 521–97 AD, also known as Colimkille and Colm. In 563 AD he went to the island of Iona where he established a monastery and began his great mission as ‘Apostle of the Highlands’. He also founded monasteries in Ireland. St Columba’s feast is celebrated on 9 June. 35 These medieval books and missals were much admired by Gleizes’ followers and used as models for design and abstraction. 36 Romain Rolland; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. See Personae. 37 Cavalaire, where M. and Mme Gleizes owned a house, is near St Tropez on the Mediterranean coast between Cannes and Toulon.


50

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 50


in three weeks. The Geoffrays are off to Paris for a holiday (life is a round of holidays for these children). France groans over poverty & hunger & unemployed & yet everyone seems to go off for holidays etc. Sweetheart how I wonder how you like your job? Oh I do trust you are going to have a healing time as I dreamed that you [were] here with me. It is hard to pick up the threads & continue the big task I felt beyond me when I found the Geoffrays too were here merely for their own benefit & that Gleizes’ work was all on my feeble shoulders. With you I felt I could struggle on—then you were taken from me—oh I was angry. But if that Madame Gleizes was nice to you perhaps I was wrong in doubting her because she was cold & rude to me. Perhaps I was beyond anyone’s patience in my unwillingness to believe your coming was unwise. Anyway dear even if the Gleizes do no more they have done something very big in trying Moly-Sabata. Perhaps my work is here still. Perhaps if I make a much greater effort than I have made I will be able to interest Monsieur Gleizes enough to give artistic & spiritual help in the work. This is what I want from him. His knowledge & culture to back me up. But I haven’t shown off—it is necessary to show him a picture I have painted that will surprise him. I have thrown down the job I knew to conquer a craft I had only studied a few months & he judges me by my pottery. So I’ve decided to paint two pictures. A landscape & a composition I have made from the plan of Le roi du monde and Axe du monde.38 Smudge I want to stay. I don’t want to go to Frensham.39 I want to prove to Gleizes I understand even if I’m not a European, & I want to prove to Madame Gleizes that she must trust me & respect me. Smudge I’ve been a winging [sic] coward. I am lonely but we all are. Gandhi in prison! Isn’t he lonely? Poor great saintly Gandhi sixty years old with such a dream to fulfil, how must he feel as the long idle days drag by. I feel like sending him ‘The Breastplate of St Patrick’ but his strength is even greater than St Patrick’s for he has no need of a breastplate. You my darling are lonely & Gleizes is lonely & Madame Gleizes is very lonely & perhaps poor little king George is very lonely when he thinks of this solemn holy movement in India directed against his servants’ ungodly, ugly brutalities. Poor self-righteous England! What an indignity to have 38 Books by René Guénon. See Bibliography. 39 Established in 1913 by Winifred Mary West (1881–1971), Frensham was a progressive girls’ boarding school at Mittagong, New South Wales. It had an advanced approach to the teaching of art and was the first school in the state to teach pottery.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 51

1930 –1931

51

her shown up so to all the world. It is twenty past midnight forgive my jumbled letter but I can’t stop . . . Well dear I’ll go to bed as my toes are freezing. I feel awed at the responsibility you have laid on my darling. Is it you who have put me to my test or is it a power directing our way? It is this thought which prevents me from even daring to say or think what to do next . . . The civilisation of today is changing & sometimes I feel even God sees what a failure man is & is giving woman a chance to redeem Eve’s weakness by letting her expand & spread wide that only part of him she possesses— her love! If she possesses more of this quality than men, why then she is more a part of God than man isn’t she? Gandhi says woman must conquer this feeling of inferiority, even as the caste feeling is a fact if believed in & not so if not believed in by the individual.40 Bon soir chérie it is ten to one & ooh I’m cold . . . Bless you dearie, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 20th January 1931 My dear mate, What a wonderful thing it is to have you always, always—others drift in & drift out but you are beside me & I am beside you & distance doesn’t count. Yesterday a flood of exhaustion swept over me about 10.00 AM & I sank into a chair while an overwhelming desire for you made it impossible not to speak & I cried, ‘Oh I want Smudge!’ Miss Creed was frightened & said, ‘You are ill, you are going to be ill I’m sure,’ but I wasn’t ill & I’m not ill. I only wanted my own trusting, never failing soul mate & the thought of her wasted out there bore me down to the depths. Is it really true that you have to take a position in a dreadful boarding school at Toowoomba, my poor darling? It is too dreadful! I thought the wise old mother Bird had quite a cosy nest egg & her little bits of money very well invested . . . [I] realise Monsieur Gleizes’ doctrines demand a deeper chord but one helps the other & I am not always deeply enough moved to express in Gleizes’ method. I’d love you to study his violons 40 In other words, that nothing is but thinking makes it so.


52

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 52


[pochoirs] for I know their understanding reveals a unity between heaven & earth, man & God, which gives one a steady peace when they can keep it in mind. When one needs it one finds it in all things but I let every blessed little thing hide its light. Still I know I have gained a breadth of understanding which I hadn’t a year ago. Thank you, my own darling. I want tea. But I want you to have it with me. I’ve made a lovely apple cake. Oh Smudgie WHEN? Poor dear little mate, my lot is so much better than yours. Now I feel wretched for you. What can I do to help you? Miss Creed says ‘Glennie’ school Toowoomba is a den of snobs & horrors! Good Lord deliver you! Must make tea & go to Serrières & post this. Bless my darling & may something happen to you. Remember the impossibility of immobility; toujours les choses tournent [things are always revolving] slowly, slowly, in the cold outside but you have drawn near the centre dear & have felt its warmth & power & the force which it alone controls. Talk is so useless one feels & yet it is through talk St François & Monsieur Gleizes teach. I love you more than every other person I know put together so there! Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata January 1931 Dearest one, No letter this week fills me with trembling for fear you have gone to that dreadful school in Toowoomba. The state of affairs in Aussie is too dreadful! . . . How strange it is to be here in old Moly-Sabata. So much older than that recently discovered land. Even the Gleizes’ trim house I see was built eighty years before Captain Cook found Botany Bay. Isn’t it wonderful to think of the thousands of years passing by that great silent sunny country! How scornful it must be of these heedless ignorant creatures which wrack its surfaces & think they own it! Today we had the heaviest fall of snow I have ever seen & the garden was fairy land with their roofs & verandahs with great cushions of white. The old hills were startling white and the buildings of Serrières nestled below huddling close against one another. Grelin (the vegetarian fanatic who has come to live here) arrived back from the Alps with his wife & two babies . . . Miss Creed & I have taken the tiny kitchen & left the Grelin family the big


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 53

1930 –1931

53

one. Comme ça nous sommes très calmes. [In this way we are all very easy.] Poulette came at once to us of course. I am doing my third colour gouache with M. Gleizes. I have done three black & whites as he found I depended too much on contrast of tone to give force. My third black & white he liked very much. I’m not telling lies darling, this painting is the answer to all my searching & for the first time since I was with Moore-Jones41 at nineteen years of age I feel satisfied & FREE! Yes, free to do what I like but responsible for all I have ever learned. Free to paint landscape or still-life sans route [without a plan] but constructed to conform to my outside shape & yet move & live, & this construction of moving living form made with colour not made with drawn forms filled with colour. I don’t feel Gleizes’ is the only method of painting or the last word by any means, but I think he has touched the reason why painting is such a life absorbing thing & with his principles one could choose a thousand roads leading up to—God? Je ne sais pas [I don’t know] but it’s where we want to go. This method of building in pure colours instead of following a fancy scheme of safe greys leads one to make terrible poster like things at first but already I know I have gained power. This is just to show how one can go across to meet the complementary. Always when I draw you a little design it is so immobile. This is a very grave fault which constant reference to a schema will rectify. I’ve got as far, at last, as to see an idea first & then put it under a piece of paper & draw a schema to suit it. Then do a good drawing over the schema, then a rough sketch in colour & lastly a careful gouache which I hope to enlarge & do in col (glue & powdered colours on canvas) which is really fresco. J’ai sommeil ma chérie. Je fait du tisane et va me coucher. Bon soir [I am tired my dear. I am preparing my cup of tea and am going to bed. Goodnight] & bless you bless you bless you! Dreamt about you last night—such a happy dream . . . In three weeks the Irish girls will go & then I’ll send you some of my floundering attempts, until then I want to learn learn learn. I love Miss Hone & Miss Jellet is a grand girl but too English. Miss Hone is a saint & yet a sweet naughty tease. But although her work which isn’t realistic is lovely, her realistic work isn’t as good as Madame Gleizes or even mine & yet England accepted these & chucks 41 Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones. See Personae.


54

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 54


her great organ recitals.42 Oh I must go to bed! Bonne nuit. Florence Blake has written asking to return, not to study, just to live on Schaeffer’s good dinners at 9 francs each. I’m sorry she is quite out of place, n’est-ce pas?43 Poor little wandering rich woman! Saving her money for what? Hoarding £2000 worth of furniture at Beard Watson’s [store] because she cannot find a place to rest. Why she hunts me up I do not know. We have nothing in common—she’s been painting with Pissarro!44 Didn’t you think he & his sons & grandsons were dead & buried? Well I can’t say she can’t come . . . Goodbye darling . . . Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 10th February 1931 Sweetheart! It’s so cold & grey & drear outside these days, but my little room is quite cheery with the stove aglow. The Irish stew softly simmering, Poulette on a cushion beside the fire & me attired in Smudgie’s sweet cosy thoughts—the little lavender bed jacket & on top the darling cream wool coat from Rome. How wonderful that I have a friend who cares how I look & how I feel, comfy or wretched! I’ve just told Miss Creed I want her to go to the Hotel. I’m sick to death of her. Sulks & rudeness when for 25 francs per day I have to run a first-class hotel for her. She has got so rude (she always was rude over food) that if I asked her would she have more of a dish she wouldn’t bother to say a word, would just grunt upwards or downwards. Her empty self-indulgent existence is altogether out of keeping with Moly’s principles, & the strain of having to live publicly her life & yet following my own in snatches when I had a moment to myself has made me do neither well . . . She has a despicable way of pretending to Gleizes I taught her nothing. Never once has she said, ‘Yes, Miss Dangar taught 42 Mme Gleizes was a painter but as she had trained with Maurice Denis, the Nabis painter, she did not really have an understanding of cubism. See Personae. 43 M. Schaeffer and his family ran the local hotel. See Personae. 44 Camille Pissaro was a French impressionist painter who became a father figure for the neoimpressionists.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 55

1930 –1931

55

me that,’ when he’s asked simple things I’ve told her ten thousand times. The other night she said, ‘It’s so much easier to learn here because you learn from intelligent people. [But] I know nothing about the spectrum.’ I cried in horror, ‘But I gave you special lessons on colour.’ ‘Oh I didn’t listen.’ . . . I don’t want the Gleizes to know that we are sick of each other. There’s not a soul in France to tell them they haven’t drawn a dud & they’ll be sure to blame me. Oh if ONLY Mrs Gibson or Nancy Hall or—I believe that’s all except you darling who will always stand by me— you, the sole person on earth I know loves me. Thank God for my darling. Gleizes is pleased with my composition but I can’t manage colour well at all. I know the system but I can’t keep it going in all its fullness at all & get it all jerky & thin. Gleizes described rhythm this week. He spoke of Poussin45 & how his big compositions were full of rhythm, that Lhote taught routes [paths/perspectives], but those Renaissance methods were dangerous because they made one use stylisation to fit an object to fit the route. Stylisation was a mannerism, a mode of speech, a set phrase etc., [which] hindered imagination’s growth. Painting must be free. Certainly discipline is necessary but to arrive at rhythm one must be unhindered; fixed routes give arrêts [stops] in certain fixed places. He uses the word ‘cadence’ a great deal. The dictionary definition as applied to music is quite in keeping with Gleizes’ use of the word. The measures following one another really make your composition, but those measures lost through the power which they have conducted you to the thought behind is what he calls ‘rhythm’.46 Miss Jellet has corrected Dorrit’s ‘violins’ & I have written some thoughts which I think may help her to proceed another step . . . Oh sweet-heart, this wretched Miss Creed (fancy her never asking me to call her by her name, I think she considers herself vastly superior to me) is taking all my thoughts. I’ll have to do pochoirs now to keep myself, but I can do twenty-five in one fortnight in the hours I gave to waiting on her & still go to Monsieur Gleizes every day. In fact I’ll have more time than when she was here & earn enough to keep me fed. Then in April I’ll go to the dear old pottery again & be with those simple folk whose little child minds fill me with peace & happiness. Mademoiselle Alexandre wrote this week begging me to come to Paris to stay with her, to pot with her.47 It was a quite genuine invitation ‘for 45 Nicolas Poussin. See Personae. 46 Gleizes had a complex theory of the development of form in painting and often used musical analogies to explain it. 47 Susanne Alexandre was a close friend of AD’s. See Personae.


56

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 56


a month or six weeks’. She said, ‘Try & come at once as we have a good maid but if you can’t come, just when you can. If we are without help I know you will help mother & me & we’ll always be able to go off to the pottery about 10.00.’ Of course I can’t go; have never bought a dress (except for the kitchen) since I arrived & my grey velvet coat is pitiably shabby now. Mrs Gibson has ordered a landscape at 12 guineas (£1 will have to [be] in frame)48 & when I do that I’ll save 6 guineas for a winter coat for next winter which will last five years. I’m not a scrap afraid my landscapes will not have improved under Gleizes’ system. Miss Hone’s naturalistic work is weak; that’s strange for her non-representative work is very fine. Miss Jellet draws much better than Miss Hone but poor Miss Hone has such poor crippled hands. They are both very very nice but Miss Hone is sweeter & deeper in character. Am I cruel to keep longing for you to be here next winter & telling you so? Poor darling I know how impossible it seems but sometimes I feel I can’t go on without love. Nobody loves me. St François loved the reflection of his beauty in my eyes, but because he saw there also a grave doubt of his act of breaking his six-year contract with Monsieur Gleizes he loves the reflection a little less. Smudge you are the only friend who loves me in spite of my beastly sin of judging. I wish I could only see people’s good side. I love so many but when I don’t admire they all don’t want my love . . . Has nothing St François & Gleizes given me this year the power to drive away these paltry torments? I’m LONELY—so are you darling—love is the one cry of lonely hearts. It’s curious isn’t it, human love does seek admiration & yet we know God doesn’t admire us & yet we are always wretched unless we are going towards him? That’s why I know your love for me & my love for you is LOVE. God we both adore the other to admire but we have got farther than that & are glad no weaknesses are hidden from one another.49 We know each other’s faults but they are not worth a flip of the fingers in the You & Me. I think that is how God regards faults in those who are real saints like Monsieur Gleizes. I saw him in an absurd rage but it doesn’t alter his beautiful character. Oh I do wish I could find time to read & think. It’s the incessant filling of one’s mind with butchers & turkeys & hot water bags & coal expense & things like that, 48 In other words, the frame will cost £1 on top of the price. 49 AD is saying that they both love to have the other’s admiration but their friendship has gone beyond that.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 57

1930 –1931

57

[which] make one stoop to being tormented by silly, vain, empty people’s insults. That is where real convents help n’est-ce pas? Goodnight my blessing. I bury my neck in the soft white woolly collar & pretend it is your dear arm. But my glasses get wet & I can’t see, for it’s only the collar you placed round me. Bless you, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons 7th March 1931 I sit beside my little fire & gaze in amazement at seven gaudy pictures which have been produced by no other person but Anne Dangar. They’re very strange creatures—two each of three compositions & one only of another. I want to do every composition again. Monsieur Gleizes is very complimentary but I don’t pay much attention to the dear thing. But Miss Jellet who is a most severe critic said yesterday, ‘You have come on by leaps & bounds since Miss Creed left; you have a great knowledge of composition I see.’ Well the feast is over, les Irelandaises sont parties ce matin [the Irish women left this morning]. The Gleizes go tomorrow but promise to return for Easter & thank heaven Easter is in three weeks. No Smudgie my colour is not nice—Monsieur Gleizes has forbidden the greys altogether & I get clash bangs without greys—but that’s just what he wants, to force me to harmonise in pure colours as they all can do now. I want to surprise him in three weeks bless him . . . Perhaps at that period of religion when the seed of a new faith had to be born, in that winter time when the tiny shoot was just forming a master named Jesus lived & gave them the ideas to write. But to Gleizes that doesn’t matter, every word has another significance than the material & the personage does not count. It is a way of belief very easy, for everyone can believe in God, but the belief of God giving the seed of himself to the womb of a Jewish girl was the thing that I could not believe. But the spirit of God dwells in each of us or we could not be so certain of his existence & the mythology of the gospels is perfectly in accord with our beliefs. How curious it is dear to be living in a time when one sees obviously the rule of Anti-Christ & the approach of the second coming of ‘the light’. Every week we hear of scientists & thinkers who scent the failure of materialistic proofs & confess a mind (outside or within) all things.


58

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 58


The poor curé (le Père Meyer)50 of Serrières looked terrified last week when Monsieur Gleizes pointed to a pretty, pretty, little, good shepherd statue he had raked out from the attic [and said], ‘Look at that poor little weak personality & tell me if you saw a man with a silly little face like that would you believe him to be a man let alone God?’ [And] then turning to his great revolving chants of uplifting praise he said, ‘This is the art of religions, that is a mockery.’ ‘Albert,’ says Madame, ‘let’s go to the house, I’m famishing for tea.’ Bon soir ma chérie—Oh j’espère avoir une lettre demain . . . [Goodnight my dear—I hope to receive a letter tomorrow . . .] We went to the pottery last Thursday & Miss Hone bought MolySabata 200 francs worth of pretty things. Two dozen & eight plates of different sizes—two dozen breakfast bowls, two dozen soup bowls, four salad bowls (lovely) and une service de thé [one tea set]. It is green with a red brown stripe & apricot orange linings to everything. I love it! Madame Gleizes wanted us to take the coffee set instead in black with cream decoration [that] I did. She was awfully absurdly flattering over my work which is still terribly clumsy beside les ouvriers [the workmen]. I gave les Irelandaise each a big plate I had made & they were truly truly fond of them. It’s strange, I liked Miss Hone by far the best at first but the Creed business showed me what a splendid sterling type of girl Miss Jellet is & I like her just as much, perhaps more, than the sweet dreaming Evie Hone. M. Gleizes has an enormous respect for Miss J.’s judgment & she criticises his work like an equal. In fact he says she has helped him paint more than half his pictures . . . The Rhône is over the quay in parts & I have to go to Serrières in my sabots. I find them the most comfy things I have to walk in. The ones we bought in Brittany are impossible things but these are much lighter & have woolly linings. Darling I’m not going to become a blooming naturist but really & truly Estelle Creed’s crisis has scared me51 . . . But all vegetables are not good. Tomatoes grown chez vous are good but not in excess quantities. They are very very acid & cause rheumatism. Yellow flesh potatoes & turnips are much better than white. Lettuces grown by the million but eaten with very little lemon juice not vinegar, which is poison unless made from fruit or honey. Carrots very young & raw are lovely if cut very fine in salad. Apples, raw carrots, & nuts, & cold, 50 Abbé André Meyer, the priest at Sablons, commissioned several works from AD and Lucie Deveyle. 51 Estelle Creed had a nervous breakdown at Moly and had to be accompanied by a doctor back to Sydney.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 59

1930 –1931

59

cooked potatoes make lovely salad. Pears, beans, spinach, & silver beet are excellent. . . . Don’t smoke much dear. I’ve been reading the great Dr Carton’s 52 book & he described exactly (from his experience in Africa) the sort of food your mother lived on always & the collapse just like hers . . . Bless you & take care of your precious self, Anne.

K St Désirat juin 1931 Dearest, No letter this week, the days are long in between each Saturday! I received one letter from Mademoiselle Creed’s sister—a very nice letter but it’s unfortunate that a young girl of twenty-six who is wealthy is so poorly educated. Her letter was full of inexcusable mistakes. I’m embarrassed to show it to Mme Gleizes53 . . . Eve sent me a great bundle of cuttings from newspapers about her show & three photographs from different papers of her & her picties [sic]. The critics of Dublin are really most intelligent, I am amazed. I doubt if in Paris one could find such truly understanding critics . . . The Geoffrays came to see me at the pottery yesterday (it was Sunday but I was obliged to come & work on pots which were demi sec) & I feel so encouraged by their enthusiasm. I do hope the Gleizes will like my work for this is the first big chance I’ve had to express my love of pottery. Nicholas has promised to pay me today—I’ve been chasing him for four days as I haven’t a franc left & I had to borrow 5 fr. from the Geoffrays.54 And yet as I ate my pathetic lunch (dry bread, three raw carrots & some strawberries) my heart swelled up in gratitude for the miracle of being here. I Anne Dangar actually working in this great pottery of the 14th century! There is a beautiful old Celtic poem in the collection Evie sent me written on ‘consider the lilies of the field & the birds of the air’.55 But in spite of all the wonderful things which have 52 One of many books by Dr Carton on natural medicine and diet, possibly L’art medical: l’individualisation des règles de santés, Maloine, Paris, 1930; or L’apprentissage de la santé: histoire d’une création et d’une défense doctrinale, Brévannes, 1937. 53 This first paragraph was originally written in French. 54 One of the potters at St Désirat whose kiln AD used. 55 Matthew 8: 20; Luke 9: 58, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978.


60

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 60


been given me I am a coward when I think of the near future when all my clothes will be worn out, for I have never earned enough to buy a pair of shoes since I came, & when I’m ugly & withered the Gleizes will never realise it is poverty which has altered me. Still—‘consider the lilies—they toil not yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these’. This miracle is enacted always always & maybe miraculous things have come to me. I should have faith.56 Later: Have been paid!! Ears and face are blazing from the battle & a sick headache will be the result—for the making of three dozen plates, some six dozen pots à confiture [pots for jam], four dozen goblets, the decorating of two hundred plates, one hundred and fourteen huge jars & the trimming of over six hundred cheese moulds. Monsieur Nicholas offered me 140 francs. I had counted on 150 for sure but agreed on for selling. His wife came down & stormed, raged nearly had hysterics & offered me a 100 fr. I said it was not just. After half an hour’s haggling I managed to get 120 out of them & for selling 220 fr. worth of goods they gave one four jam pots. Poor miserable old wretch—it is she who owns everything. Three farms, the pottery, everything. She is sixty-five & the dirtiest most pitiable looking old beggar woman couldn’t match her for misery & filth. What a fool of a thing money is! Ah well, let’s change the subject. The Geoffrays took three photos of me in the pottery yesterday for a journal Madame Gleizes is writing for. I had a filthy blouse but perhaps it won’t show. I read Gwen’s letter to you & was astonished at her liking that book My first 2000 years.57 So much I read & thought the author missed chances all through & what a shame such a subject was not being handled by someone with a true & sensitive appreciation of the great of history. It was clever but made me most impatient as Bêtes, hommes et Dieux 58 is also making me at present. I am reading it because Guénon in Le roi du monde says the author of this book has given a good description of the people of Mongolia & Tibet as a voyager would see them. But I find the book terribly boring with its breathless adventures etc.—I want to present it to John Singleton (my brother-in-law) or some such type. Geoffray has WONDERFUL books, enough to satisfy me for years, but 56 ‘Think of the flowers; they never have to spin or weave; yet, I assure you, not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these.’ Luke 12: 27, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978. 57 It has not been possible to locate the book My first 2000 years. 58 Ferdinand Ossendowski, Bêtes, hommes et Dieux [Animals, men and God], Dutton, New York, 1923.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 61

1930 –1931

61

nothing on a subject I wish very much to study—the ancient peasant pottery of France, the costumes & handcrafts of Ardèche & Isère. The mammoth job I have begun needs a thorough background of this knowledge & if I had the money I would go to Lyon for a fortnight & live in the bibliothèque & musées [library and museums], then visit the towns renowned in these books for crafts & costumes. Oh to be able to really [pursue] a practical demonstration of Albert Gleizes’ vaguely expressed but inspired & inspiring dreams! Oh Smudge my friend pray that some way will open for me to earn. I am staring at the future in terror for there is NOTHING & this 120 fr. I got just now I must hand over at once to pay my month’s bread & the coal I have been owing over a month. Evie in speaking about prayer one day said, ‘I don’t think we ought to pray for material things for ourselves or others,’ but darling I’m frightened. I’m so old & I work with all my strength from 6.00 in the morning till ten at night & never paint & only read in the train, but I earn ten francs a week & spend 50 in living & tram fares. There’s nobody to heed or care. The Gleizes urge me to do pottery but they give me no definite command [sic] for it or make any arrangement with Nicholas. If they’d even say to him ‘We’ll buy the clay & pay for the firing of all Mlle Dangar makes,’ I really believe I [could] make & sell enough to bring me in 30 fr. a week by working three days a week. They with my three regular students & 10 francs a week—[that] my last 140 fr. brings me in—I could scrape along. The honey would bring me 200 francs at least once a year, [although] the cherries only brought me 11 francs this year [and] last year I got 60 from them. Pochoirs? Monsieur Gleizes has paid me for 300! I have not commenced because Grelin’s youngster emptied 30 fr. worth of vermilion and garance & I have never been able to afford to replace them. Three hundred pochoirs! Six weeks constant labor from 8.00 AM to 7.00 PM! When can I pay him! Darling I’ve torn up one letter I wrote to you this week & now I’m writing one just as bad. I’m the greatest coward & the wickedest woman in the world—if only you knew how ashamed I am—for even in my despair I hear ringing in my ears promises & reassurances, ‘consider the lilies, etc.’. ‘If then God so clothes the grass which today is in the field & tomorrow is cast into the fire how much more he will care for you, oh ye of little faith. Fear not little flock for it is your father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom—fear not—fear not little flock’, etc.59 59 Matthew 6: 30, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978.


62

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 62


Without one trying to recall helpful things, the story of the children of Israel & how manna was sent, of Elijah & the ravens, of the widow & the creuse of oil, come to my thoughts all the time & yet I am impatient & afraid.60 Was it wicked of me at my age to take this plunge & come when Gleizes called? No, I can’t think so for you & Gleizes & I did not bring that miracle to pass. It was this way dear—I suddenly got a deep desire to draw nearer to God. Sydney, Mr Ashton the commercial outlook on art, Gibbons etc. shocked me after Lhote & the primitives & Chartres & Italy & my three pure & vision years & my whole thought was a prayer to be rescued from that dreadful throng.61 I find myself amongst La peintures et ces lois,62 although so hard to understand was to me the one confirmation of my belief in art being God’s creative spirit, therefore my hopes clung to the name of Albert Gleizes. You were sent to Gleizes, you sent for me to come—I was already there in mind— distinctly I heard the command, ‘Go, Albert Gleizes will help you to find God.’ I know I am in my right place beside the Gleizes—I know—but they don’t know yet, & Madame Gleizes reproached me one day for having done such a risky thing as to come, I wasn’t brave enough to tell her why I came . . . Thank you Smudge my one & only friend, Anne.

K Postcard of Quartier du Pont de Saint-Sornin63 Serrières December 1931 Shortest day thank heaven. Only a card this week dear as I have so many foreign stamps to send. No letter from you this week. Christmas in three days, twelve people invited to dinner! The Rhône is frozen in front of Moly [and] when we throw stones they dance over the ice & sing a long clear vibrating note. The sky is clear & soft blue & there is a wind temperature zero 7° at 10.00 AM. We went out cutting wood in the woods today, it was really lovely. Bless you, Anne.

c 60 61 62 63

In other words, at the moment of greatest need a miracle happens to save the righteous. Henry Gibbons. See Personae. A book by Albert Gleizes. See Bibliography. Serrières was divided into three districts, with Quartier du Pont de Saint-Sornin the central one, so-called after the church and the bridge, St Sornin.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 63

2 Movement Towards the Centre, 1932 –1933

In her letters Anne Dangar described the trials of daily life at the commune. The Geoffray family—César, Mido and their two children Gilka and Luc—were not only the favourites of Mme Gleizes but refused to do any manual work because they were musicians. It was fortunate for AD that the Geoffrays’ maid, Lucie Deveyle, left their employ and joined AD in her part of the house. Lucie helped with all the chores and provided AD with constant encouragement in her solitary struggle. She also became a fine weaver and through this craft she followed Gleizes’ and AD’s teachings. A number of AD’s pupils have examples of Lucie’s fine woven articles, which are described proudly by AD in her letters. Dangar also wrote about the Dublin artists Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone, who had spent the summer season working with Gleizes and had become her close friends. Almost all the letters are punctuated by money worries that were only temporarily relieved by regular monetary and practical presents from Grace Crowley. AD’s ‘crisis management’ economy was a constant theme in her correspondence and this often makes her letters seem carping, but it is important to bear in mind that Dangar lived a subsistence existence. She slaved hard with very little remuneration for her labours, and therefore found it galling when others took advantage of MolySabata. The Jewish women, Estelle Creed and Madeleine Israels, were dealt with in a particularly savage fashion by AD who was enraged by Mme Gleizes’ insistence that she support them. Although not generally


64

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 64


anti-semitic, AD was reactionary by nature and had no doubt been influenced during this period by Gleizes’ right-wing views. With the onset of the modernist period in France there had been a reaction to radical movements, such as cubism, from a traditionalist and Catholic press, which had often singled out foreigners and Jews as being responsible for modernism. For instance, at the Fauves1 exhibition in 1909 the Catholic newspaper l’Action Française wrote: Foreigners and Jews, by whom the Salon d’Automne has let itself be invaded in fantastic numbers, exploit this approach which is in keeping with their barbarian & imperfect souls.2

Gleizes, along with many others, blamed the Jewish art dealers in Paris and other centres for what he saw as the decadence in painting. In Australia, Lionel Lindsay, a conservative but influential artist, repeated similar opinions in his book Addled Art where he made the claim that contemporary art was a plot hatched by Jewish art dealers.3 Unlike Grace Crowley, I decided not to censor AD’s occasional diatribes since these racist views are part of the period. Basically, it was Gleizes’ reactionary views about Jewish art dealers in Paris and other centres, whom he blamed for what he saw as the decadence in painting, that influenced AD’s anti-semitic outbursts. Furthermore, AD was not as racist as some of her comments would indicate, as two of her best friends—Mathilde Camli who painted with her at Mirmande, and Susanne Alexandre whom she met at Viroflay where they both studied pottery together—were Jewish. Given her closeness to Susanne in particular, it is strange that AD did not perceive the irony of her diatribes against Jewish art dealers and individuals such as Estelle Creed. To begin with, AD had an uncertain time in her first two years at Moly-Sabata, and Albert Gleizes seems not to have been overly impressed with her as a painter. Realising that Gleizes was a harsh critic, Robert Pouyaud, Gleizes’ pupil and disciple, suggested that AD try to produce pottery at St Désirat. AD had expressed an early interest in traditional pottery and had studied it briefly at Viroflay in the 1920s, but when she began working at St Désirat she was really beginning from scratch and felt very anxious about the results. Her early work is very 1 The Fauves. See Personae. 2 William Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1989, p. 407. 3 Lionel Lindsay, Addled Art, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1945.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 65

1932 –1933

65

heavy and crude in appearance although it does have a simple charm. As her skill improved in this medium and as her decorative work on the body of her pots became more elaborate and reflected Gleizes’ designs, the latter became more interested in AD and she therefore became more assured of her future at Moly. However, as Gleizes’ interest in AD’s work grew his wife became more antagonistic, often interrupting their conversations and devising ways of drawing attention away from AD. In her first years at Moly AD had hoped for a visit from GC and was bitterly disappointed when Mme Gleizes opposed it in no uncertain terms. Juliette Gleizes ruled her husband’s affairs and the latter was not able to contradict her. Juliette was generally accustomed to having her own way and this made AD feel helpless as she was a victim to her moods. Mme Gleizes’ eccentricities are described by all who knew her, and there are many accounts of her always carrying ‘a revolver, a dagger, & a few lumps of sugar’, the former for the ‘mad dog’ communists.4 She also had a cane with a concealed stiletto which, on one occasion, she used against an offending dog.

c Moly-Sabata 2nd January 1932 Oh Smudge! Your letter just vanished! If ONLY ONLY I could let you know not to send the money you’ll need much more than you have my poor precious one. Darling I’m terribly alarmed it’s just staggering after all you did for that studio! I’m astonished. I know Dorrit chokes me, but I thought you had a real affection for her & that I was wrong & perhaps unconsciously spiteful & jealous & that was why I didn’t get on with her.5 Of course I don’t blame you an atom. I think your honesty & pluck just wonderful & oh it’s a relief to hear of such clean straight out indignation. . . . I will send you everything I get hold of, mighty little I know, but all the same I do keep in touch with the movement a wee bit. Smudge one thing is important—artisanship is a force in the movement & any 4 Letter from AD to GC, 18 July 1937. 5 GC and Dorrit Black had a falling out in 1931, which led to GC leaving The Modern Art Centre and setting up a rival art school with Rah Fizelle.


66

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 66


successful school must realise this. For this reason you must have decoration classes & ‘Fiz’ show the children how to apply their lessons straight away. You know what a duffer I am with a needle, all the same two of my pupils are doing most exciting & beautiful needlework—a boy is working in wrought iron & a wee chap has made in wood a chest, a tray, a carved picture frame, a penholder, an elephant, a goose, a little negress & a matchbox in one month.6 . . . I am sure you will get on a great deal better with only Fizelle but the start will be terrific. Oh how I dread you sending me money! It’s too late to cable now. Monsieur Gleizes told me to come & work for two months three mornings a week. I started on New Year’s day! Madame invited me to dinner at night. It was the most ideal meal (as far as food & drinks) I ever sat at, the table lighted with four tall silver candlesticks, wines aged fifty years and sixty years respectively etc. etc. Monsieur Maher (a very interesting Swiss gentleman who has come to live at Serrières) & I the only guests. I wore my little blue Breton dinner jacket. But Smudgie I am quite out of my element at the Gleizes’ dinners. I find absolutely nothing to say. The conversation is all of the great political doings or French literature which I have no possible chance of getting acquainted with. They think me an ignorant lump. In the studio I am at ease but their dinners terrify me. . . . It is more than a month since your upheaval! What has happened? Where are you? You didn’t say how Dorrit took your outburst? I see her (in the green apron) eyes bulging & mouth at zero, hair in streaks. Or did she weep? I am terrified people will think you wanted to get alone with Fizelle or something rotten. If only you could get someone really decent to commence teaching some craft one or two days a week it would stop gossip & spite . . . [Here at Moly I continue to do] all the flower and fruit garden & half of the work of the bees. The Geoffrays do nothing for the common interest & the Gleizes won’t hear a word about all this. Something will happen to put it right. I see how WONDERFULLY I have been helped in spite of the malicious & cruel people who have attacked me, I lose faith & cry out to the only ears who will listen, (Smudge) but it is miserable of me for always I have been watched over & saved just as I thought I was utterly forsaken. Even the Gleizes’ apparent warmth towards 6 M. and Mme Coste at Roussillon have a number of wooden carved items by students of AD.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 67

1932 –1933

67

the Geoffrays I feel is a cloak to cover the fact that they are looking on & also hoping for something to happen that will relieve my position here. . . . Oh my darling with all my heart I wish you the best. ‘All things work together for good, Amen.’ God guide my darling & help her.7

K Moly-Sabata Sablons January 1932 Smudge chérie, Your letter with the cheque came just now. Smudge I feel shy8 with you since this solemn gift. I hardly let myself think about it—I have a curious still feeling of being quite apart from this big thing—a tool which is going to be used for some work, what & where I don’t know. One thing I implore you not to send more. Let us wait & see what is ahead. Perhaps this money will be meant for a kiln here; perhaps the Gleizes will do something about a kiln & I will terribly need other things & will feel I should spend your money on these things, for example, sieves & tools. Madame Gleizes whispered the day she came to say goodbye, ‘We have hopes of fixing you up with a pottery but can’t say for certain yet.’ I know if they do this it wouldn’t be wicked to put your money into the concern also. If they put in 2000 francs I would not fear to risk 2000 of yours, but if they won’t risk their money I won’t risk yours either. The £25 will change in France for 2100 at least. Perhaps dear this money will mean me being able to have a home here. Perhaps it is meant for a very different purpose. By the same mail I received from Harold Stewart a plan of my land at South West Rocks.9 It is much more than I thought. Sixteen lots 50 feet frontage each & ranging in depth from a hundred feet to over two hundred feet. He says it would be impossible to sell at £1 per lot at present but that the land is very fertile, will grow anything & 7 This letter annotated by GC: ‘I must have joined up with Dorrit in 1931 for obviously this letter shows that Fiz. & I are contemplating starting our school but have not got round suitable quarters.’ 8 AD is transliterating from the French j’ai honte, which in this context means ‘embarrassed’. 9 Presumably Harold Stewart was a friend of AD’s in Australia (but not the famous poet of the same name).


68

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 68


the view magnificent. That there is excellent pottery clay on the lower Macleay but none on my land. There are well made roads fronting all the blocks. . . . The Geoffrays are in Paris for ten days & Lucie & Gilka in Lyon for four days . . . I have had a glorious time dyeing, washing, pressing & arranging every article I possess. Ruby made me a pull-over & skirt for Christmas. Oh Smudge it was AWFUL. Poor old thing, how different we are! It was a Salvation Army red with a blaze of white around my forty-four year old middle & [such] a modest neck I could barely get it over my head. The skirt was the same violent red flannel. Red does not suit me since my operation. Well the skirt was nicely cut & nicely made . . . [so] I treated it to colour science. First I washed it & washed it in soda water twenty times to draw out as much red as possible. Next I made a very strong bath of emerald green (to kill the red with its complementary) & two packs of royal blue. Result exactly what I wanted. A lovely midnight blue skirt. The jumper is navy—I couldn’t draw any red from it. However it was too high in the neck to ever be nice & I can wear it over an old navy dress when it’s awfully cold weather. I love my little skirt & if I can buy two white silk blouses in the summer it’s all I will need . . . Already primroses are peeping forth . . . Perhaps I have to work out my salvation in pottery all alone & you will come when the struggle is through & we can have a home together here near Gleizes . . . With all my love your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 26th January 1932 My dearest, I see it is Anniversary day in Australia. Why was that great silent land discovered after all those centuries—what good is it? Europe & America & the Orient make up the world. Australia is unnecessary—right outside. As Monsieur Gleizes talked about art the other day I was mentally struggling to write this detached form & colour patch to the rest of the world—it was out of place—that pale grey & pinky form surrounded by the blue of the Pacific, the Indian & Southern oceans. Certainly it


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 69

1932 –1933

69

can’t be joined up except by many intermediate tones to the rich dark greens & earths of Europe. It is like a great subtle grey helping to show off the brilliance of the Orient. But I must give you Gleizes’ thoughts not mine. He was very excited when I went over to tea on Friday. Lhote has written a sort of confession in a modern magazine. He didn’t have the pluck to say outright. In 1926 [he] wrote ‘One should build one’s art upon the old masters methods & not presume to go off on another track alone. One should not search within oneself but outside of oneself. The idea of art being merely a path leading to religion is that of feeble & timid artists,’ etc. etc. in this strain. But he now writes an absolute contradiction. ‘One may draw inspiration from the past but the real artist of each epoch is he who has the courage to search within himself & go forth alone upon an unknown path as Cézanne did.’ Nobody asked Cézanne to reconstruct art, nobody wanted him to do so. His life was spent without sympathy or understanding from outside. Art is something which can only be found after long search of the inner man. It is not the religious subject which moves one so deeply as one regards the works of the great early Christian painters. It is the state of the spiritual mind. Poor Gleizes! He needs a man like Lhote to corroborate with him—he was in an ecstasy of delight. ‘César refuses to believe non-representative painting has a religious force.’ I said ‘that is because he has never considered what is the meaning of the word ‘religion’ ligare—to bind reback [strengthen]—or again objects which are not connected have no religious meaning.10 This cup, this jug, this plate & this screen are separated. How can we unite them? Only by art. Geometry is art or religion. The cup has 8 centimetres, the jug 12, the plate 15, the screen 150. The word centimetre dispensed with we have 8. 12. 15. 150. Still separate but much closer than before. But let us add them together 8–185 is the united whole. That is 1 12 13 14 15 1 10 Religare, meaning to bring together. See Albert Gleizes, ‘Spiritualité, rhythme, forme’, in Gaston Diehl, Les problèmes de la peinture, Editions Confluences, Lyon, 1945.


70

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 70


how our painting is based. We write every particle into a whole. But we start with a clean white surface. It moves us & fills us with joy, why do we break it up into particles just try to unite it again? Ah, that is life! That state of purity of the great untouched canvas cannot satisfy us. We have to work out the problem each in his own way. While I paint I think only of writing, writing, writing. That thought is a purely religious thought therefore our painting is the most purely religious. I am aware how disconnected my work still is—the Gregorian chants are perhaps the most religious creation of man known. In them the particles are all gathered to the whole, the whole needs every one of them but as one listens one cannot divine where one morsel begins & another ends. ‘What do you think about symbols Monsieur,’ I asked. ‘Symbols are already a sign—St Thomas demanded a sign—they are a step from faith to intelligence.’ ‘Guénon has a tremendous respect for symbols hasn’t he?’ ‘Because Guénon is an intellectual. He searches religion by signs all the while. The purer religion is the less it needs signs & objects I am sure. The earliest Celts had no art, we have no proofs of the earliest Christians having art. Bye & bye the Celts began to make rhythmic lines & forms & expressions of emotion that began to need expression & so on.’ . . . 27th Must run & post my letter. . . . Oh I do do hope you are happy & appreciated my precious. Bless you always & always. May we see each other soon, Amen. Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 17th March 1932 Chérie, Because I went to bed at nine, because I had had three consecutive midnight bed goings I have wakened at four & as it is now after five & I can’t sleep I’m writing in bed with an eiderdown round me. Pas de lettre [no letter] from my poor darling on Sunday. Oh Smudge I’m so frightened you will get whooping cough & be terribly ill. I have talked & talked to Mainie & Evie about you coming over & what they think of war etc. They say there is no talk in England or Ireland as far as they know but


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 71

1932 –1933

71

that there is a steady newspaper propaganda influencing the public subtly & gently against the French & that it is possible that that is England’s way of preparing. They say that it is perfectly true that the Gleizes do know tremendously important people in every country who are in touch with the capitalists & politicians scheming methods to bring about another war. Still, Germany & Poland both sent most cordial invitations to Monsieur Gleizes to go & lecture and to hold a one-man show. We are begging him to do so but he’s the most wonderfully modest man I ever met. He knows he has gone further than any other painter for four hundred years & yet he shrinks back from a huge exhibition & says, ‘I want to go so much further before I make such a statement—I don’t know enough yet— I am not ready. When I die they can show my effort but until then I feel I have too much yet to do.’ We tell him the thing he has done is the beginning of perhaps four hundred years of thought & technique in art, that there are others dimly thinking as he thinks & that if he showed they would also be able to express. He is a dear Smudge, he says ‘I’d rather show with you. I don’t want this work to appear as an individual’s idea but as a school of artisans. I want to work on your pictures & I want you to help me with mine & no names appear at all as it was in the middle ages.’ . . . He is very very kind about my work & says I have added a new quality of calm to the group’s work. I have done four gouaches in the ten days, two are from old ones I had & two are new. Oh sweetheart will you hate my ‘violins’. If I send you a couple to see? Send them on to Dorrit. She never thanks me or shows any interest in our effort but I believe she is also making an effort so I would like to help her any way I can. Nancy Hall says Dorrit’s studio is the only source of inspiration & opening to a wider vision Sydney offers to art students & she begs me to write to them & send them help.11 I would do it with joy if I believed Dorrit had the spirit of giving all as directly from Gleizes instead of keeping back for just herself or giving out as if it was her own knowledge. Humility is the main necessity in our work & that’s why poor Pouyaud is doomed to failure. I went to the pottery on Friday & nothing had been touched. I got out there at 8.30, saw the four [kiln] hadn’t been closed or even quite finished, turned on my heel & walked straight back to Gleizes’ studio, nine kilometres. Got there at 11.15. They all gaped when they saw me 11 Nancy Hall; Dorrit Black. See Personae.


72

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 72


for Madame had told me to telephone & say if she could come & get a load of pottery at two o’clock. There is an exhibition on the Côte d’Azur on the 24th & she was dying for us to send pochoirs, Geoffray’s music & lots of my pottery—Hélas! I don’t know what I would have done darling without your money. It’s dreadful I’m using it to live. I’ve taken 370 francs already because I couldn’t do anything else. I am earning 221⁄2 francs a week & living costs me over 60. They had to buy seeds for the year’s planting & they cost nearly 80 francs, my shoes were all broken—I got two pairs mended—another 40 francs. But I do believe I will be able to make a living out of pottery when I get with a potter who bakes regularly. Mainie & Evie say that I must send modernly designed work to Ireland the next time they have an exhibition & that I’ll sell as easily as puff. I’d also sell in Australia I’m sure & Madame Gleizes says I will on the Côte d’Azur . . . The books of St Augustine & of Guénon have been in our minds a lot. Monsieur Gleizes compares Plato’s Republic with St Augustine’s City of God & Guénon’s Autorité spirituel et pouvoir temporel.12 They all have the same idea—God the axis—the brilliance & force going out from the centre & the temporal world the background ‘comprenez vous’ [do you understand]? We have turned this idea in many ways. I commenced a composition with a pure pale yellow & a greyish yellow ochre background. Monsieur Gleizes said they had never done anything like that, that they had always gone from the centre colour to its complimentary or from white to black. The problem has occupied our thoughts all the time. And this is how we have solved it. With the yellow centre we departed to orange (1) to red (2) to yellow green (3) to emerald (4) to blue (5) down to (6) violet, or perhaps I should turn & make violet (3), blue (4), emerald (5) & yellow green (6). Another way was on the right above centre we departed with a blast of the whole spectrum coming from the pale yellow centre. As light colours like pale green have to be joined with dark colours like violet one has to make many hues of yellow, green & violet. These hues at once neutralise the colour. St Augustine explains how the City of God moves unitedly but appears all mingled with the temporal world. We tried to move the pure spectrum within the neutralised spectrum in a connected way without showing the separation. Poor Monsieur Gleizes struggled for four days with a gouache no bigger than this sheet of paper. He said one night he was two hours getting to 12 St Augustine of Hippo, 354–430 AD, wrote the twenty-two books of the City of God, from 413–26. He was influenced by St Ambrose and St Paul’s epistles.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 73

1932 –1933

73

sleep trying to think it out & that he woke before daylight to struggle again. He hasn’t quite done it but we have learned much from his battle. One thing we learned was one can enter from one spectrum to the other by the same value of tone. A dark colour like violet won’t jump if a yellow green of the same tone comes against it, both will intensify. You may think dear these gymnastics of colour are not anything to do with religion. Gleizes thinks art is not an end in itself, it is a spiritual force, a stretching upwards. He says thought, prayer, music, painting etc. are all the beams of the central light. For the painter colour is the food which he must digest & turn into flowing life-giving blood. From two years of listening to his talk I have gathered only these crumbs on his religious ideas. He says so much but he is not clear . . . Mainie thinks I should return to Australia because she knows Monsieur Gleizes has no idea of responsibility & Madame lets her caprices dominate her sense of responsibility very often. Evie thinks I should wait for a direction to be pointed clearly to me & as none is she thinks my place is here. I feel Evie is right but I can’t understand why, oh why, my mate can’t come to me. I call & call all the while. God keep my darling safe & give her strength to stand the awful life in Australia until she can come, Anne

K Moly-Sabata 21 mars 1932 My precious, No letter again—I’m terrified you have whooping cough—only one letter from you in two months! My poor darling life is dreadful for you but truly we have not been idling. I told the Irish girls how rotten your life is out there—how lonely I am for you—how brave you were writing to Madame Gleizes about me and how Madame G. had been so cold regarding our friendship. They both talked most tactfully to Madame G. with the result that she invited me to tea the day they left & for the first time since months commenced to talk about you. We had a lovely open talk. I told her how lonely I would always be without you, how I’d never feel settled until we were together that nowhere could be my home without you. I explained that you were surprised that she had been so willing for you to come & that you had written about paying only because you were absolutely disgusted at the women who come & do nothing for Moly or


74

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 74


for the community. That you were wholly sympathetic & understanding that you even thought of learning weaving (‘Ahh, that would be interesting,’ she interrupted), that you quite meant to help me with my share of the garden but naturally you didn’t want to learn agriculture & fruit tree pruning etc. etc. She thawed altogether & was very charming & apologetic. She said she couldn’t advise anyone to come to Europe [as] it was inviting them to come to certain danger. She told me that she quite understood how I felt [that] I couldn’t settle to anything if you were not working with me but that quite probably they wouldn’t pay Moly’s rent after the six years lease is finished (October 1933), but that as far as I was concerned wherever they went they hoped I would come too as they saw I was exactly the same in ideas as themselves & the type they needed for their work. That they were going to try & sell all the property they have at Serrières because of the usines [factories] which have cropped up everywhere, but when they started another Moly perhaps the world would be less uncertain & you would come etc. etc. Anyway since then we have talked of my darling like we used to & I am HAPPY. Smudge I’m going to do my very bestest [sic] for the Gleizes. I do love them & when they get at last used to the idea of me being no more a politician than Séraphine or Eugénie or Riket13 they’ll begin to love me for the simple old fool I really am. I’m going to work & work & perhaps I’ll have a pottery connection in October twelve months & you & I will be able to say to the Gleizes, ‘Yes we want to follow you & do your work with you but we will find a little home for ourselves near your group.’ Community life without a group where every member is wholly without egoism is impossible. Is there a soul in the world today who isn’t an egoist. Madame G. tells me I am because I can’t be intelligent over politics, I know I am because I want a life of quiet study & thought. But I would be willing all the same to do a terrific lot for the community if I didn’t see I was being imposed upon in the most disappointing way. I move to the little kitchen tomorrow [and] have told Mido [Geoffray] I will look after the grande pièce one week if she will do so the next, that I can’t take all the responsibilities of bees, strawberries, flowers, fruit trees, terrace etc. etc. any more. She was furious but I said I felt absolutely worn out—that I feared only vegetables had made me soft etc. etc. She said they wouldn’t use the grande pièce any more. I said she was ungrateful 13 Gleizes’ servants: Séraphine and Eugénie were the cook and the maid, and Riket was the chauffeur and odd-jobs man.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 75

1932 –1933

75

to the Gleizes who had furnished & arranged it, that I was only one & they were four that I couldn’t see the justice in having the whole work of the huge floor of that pièce. She gave in after ten minutes very unpleasant fight & consented to take over half this responsibility but the fruit & flowers I didn’t continue to discuss. The bees she promised to feed the next time if I told her when to do it. It’s every ten days & it’s to remember the right day that is the worry. Well darling we had a heavenly time painting. I have done five gouaches for pictures & four for the pottery decoration. Monsieur Gleizes likes my work. He can’t see the pottery idea but I know he’ll like it. He’s a dear! There’s no doubt & Madame is quite a dear too but ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven’.14 Monsieur Gleizes has helped me tremendously . . . First M. Gleizes told me to bring all the gouaches I did last year. He chose one [and] told me to start it over again with another gamme des couleurs. I chose a clear yellow centre & a yellow ochre background. After I had plunged about for two days he took it & in a few minutes strung it together & made a delightful thing. Parting from clear yellow I went towards green one side & towards orange on other but sensed that I had to mingle the clear colours with the neutralised as if they were two separate circles intermingling. The problem thrilled M. Gleizes & he commenced the same colour scheme comme ça [and] within these two arrows he put the whole spectrum of pure colour. You will see the purple by the dark square. You can easily see the connection of the beams of light going out from the centre—the authority spiritual & the temporal power—the struggle of uniting the two circles was almost beyond him. While Madame was tragic over unscrupulous managers at St Rémy & a thieving gardener here he lay awake four nights & gasped & sighed & nearly wept four long days.15 He found out this, [that] one could enter from one circle to another by passages of exact tone. Beside purple he placed a warm grey of exactly the same value & lo it kept its place. A bluish white did the same when it touched clear yellow. The problem brought about much interesting talk. The pure colour took up about onetenth of the whole size. One-tenth of the population of the universe compared to nine-tenths who did not give forth but diffused & dim light. After that Geoffray came for a day’s lesson. M. Gleizes devoted all his 14 Matthew 19: 24, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978. 15 The Gleizes had a house at les Méjades, St Rémy-de-Provence.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 76


76

time but we all profited. He used the same composition but placed white in centre. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

yellow green blue orange red violet

It was just a simple lesson in going by translation from white to black by the spiral. Mainie wanted to do a thing in a high key like a Cézanne water colour. She objected that all our work was the same tone scale. She did a lovely sketch. M. Gleizes said it couldn’t be done in a finished thing. Three days she pegged away copying her sketch & pushing it further but she didn’t have enough interest. Monsieur Gleizes grabbed the gouache at last & with fast dripping grey he slapped into it & made a very charming study but Mainie told him it was not a scrap what she was after. I see her point & I’ll bet she’ll do it in spite of Monsieur Gleizes, bless him! Evie was a perfect pet about a green picture I did, she wanted to order a big oil of it. I said I’d love to have the order next year but I wanted to do some oils again before I took her order. My pottery enamels are quite my own idea & Monsieur Gleizes says he can’t help me as he can’t get hold of it but that my designs are delightful. Isn’t he a goose? All his geese are swans & all Paris is going to fall on its knees before my enamels—Rosenberg & Povolozky will fight for the sole agency, etc. etc.16 Oh these Gleizes!! Meanwhile Nicholas fires not.17 Dearie I’m sending you & Flo each a copy of ‘Eve’ for the dentelle en laine [wool lace].18 It isn’t that I like what I’ve seen immensely but with Australian beautiful wool it will be pretty for winter & is much worn . . . Monsieur Gleizes would like me to become a naturalised Frenchwoman but I refused. I said in five years I would feel more certain what life was bringing me. Hurrah for the man who opened the bridge, he was plucky.19 16 17 18 19

Paul Rosenberg; Jacques Povolozky. See Personae. M. Nicholas was a local potter at St Désirat whose kiln was used by AD. Flo was a relative of AD’s. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932. It was a spectacular event and a number of Modernist artists painted the bridge at various stages of its construction. The man who AD refers to is Francis de Groot, a member of the New Guard, who rode forward on a horse and slashed the ceremonial ribbon before the Premier could do so.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 77

1932 –1933

77

22nd March 1932 The pottery is baked!!!! We went this afternoon, Madame & Monsieur Gleizes, Madame Raymond et moi.20 I saw the wood had disappeared long before we [were] there, I couldn’t walk, broke into a run & we all four ran up the hill like a pack of kids. Who couldn’t love the French who are always kids? Monsieur got right up the kiln & Madame & Madame Nicholas & all we other women prayed [sic]21 him from below not to touch as if one thing tumbled in the four there might easily be a few hundred broken. But all radiant smiles he handed down Povolozky’s soup tureen, Evie’s teapot & about twenty pieces. Tomorrow I go to help Nicholas & Thursday the Gleizes will come for a car load to take with them to Cavalaire on Saturday. They were wonderfully sweet about the things, simply couldn’t have said more & I know they liked them really. Monsieur searched with all the critical interest of a master towards his pupil & said ‘I find nothing whatever to correct, the design is just perfect.’ Smudgie your Anne hasn’t disgraced you. She was scared of this métier she learned when she was forty but it’s alright I wasn’t a fool to learn . . . Oh my treasure if only you were here to come & see my things tomorrow & give me wise counsel like the true daughter of the wise Bird that you often are. Bon soir dear I’ll try not lose my head, I’ll think of you all day as I demand prices from Nicholas, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 10th July 1932 My precious, . . . I am glad you like my gouache a little bit. The proportions are too equal but I don’t agree with you to it being too diagonal. Our aim is very far away from the Gothic. The Gleizes I sent you is ancient—when he was only just beginning to awaken to the superiority of the 14th century to the 15th & 16th & that picture was done on the route [in the manner] of the Cimabue in the Louvre.22 It was only in those months between your first & last lessons with Gleizes that the truth of Celtic art was 20 Mme Raymond was a neighbour of the Gleizes’ at St Rémy. 21 AD has transliterated from the French elles ont priées, meaning ‘they begged’. Mme Nicholas was the wife of local potter M. Nicholas. 22 Cimabue, c.1240–1302, an early Italian Renaissance artist considered to have begun a new age in painting.


78

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 78


revealed to him. He was afraid of it, for the more one studies it the more one sees that all art is the human craving for God. In it he finds a means of expressing stirrings within him deeper than words. AND (this is the truth we shrink to face) if we were wholly filled with the joy & one-ness with God we wouldn’t have need to search him by this means. The early Christians had no art—writing or recording was the nearest approach.23 In the 5th century when Byzantine art flourished the direct contact which the apostles had was dying. Life & worship was their whole absorbing interest. The psalms of praise were mystic rhythmic, circular, involuntary—the first written music (4th century I think) was over written in characters all joined together, circular & in a wavy line. [And] just go to St Mary’s when you see it advertised they are singing the Gregorian chants & listen dear if there is one straight line in that maze of interweaving immeasurable soaring circles? Monsieur Gleizes has books on calligraphy which would thrill you!! The Celtic church at first had no need for art, but as early as the 3rd century I believe—perhaps the second—they began to express on stones absolutely non-representative yearnings. In 500 AD the sophisticated art shown by the ‘book of Qurran’ was written, some think by St Columba himself, others think by this monk. The stones of Moubihan (oh Smudgie to think that we were at la Pouldu24 & didn’t know all this & go & see them!) & many parts of Ireland show carvings of the first stirrings of prayers expressed graphically. I will trace you a few precious little tracings of reproductions from a book Evie sent Pouyaud. I think you would adore to read the history of the Celts & the Druids also perhaps. As Mainie says we can only blindly see for we are the products of a dying civilisation (I suppose complacent Australia does not admit this last) but isn’t it WONDERFUL dear that we are so privileged that we see that out of all this headlong rush to destruction those deep wells of Albert Gleizes’ eyes have had revealed to them the promise of unity, simplicity & a spiritual civilisation. Is it the fulfilment of twenty centuries [of] prayers: ‘Thy kingdom come on earth as it does in Heaven’? Wasn’t it wonderful I bought that book of Celtic art at Belfast? Monsieur Gleizes has it firmly fixed in his head it was brought out from Ireland by my grandmother & I let him think so if he wants to.25 It is really a most valuable edition. Mainie & Evie 23 Early Christianity followed the Jewish and later Muslim proscription of figuration in art. 24 La Pouldu, Brittany, a favourite resort for artists at the end of the nineteenth century, was where Gauguin painted his religious pictures that described the ancient customs of the Breton people. Paul Gauguin. See Personae. 25 AD’s family was of Irish origin and her grandmother came from Ireland.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 79

1932 –1933

79

say it is superior to the seven guinea edition we saw in Dublin, that the colours are much richer & that the plates show the plates as they are instead of all turned round the opposite way as in the other book. It is on my knee now as it is nearly every day. To think of this beautiful work being in existence four hundred years before the mosaics of St Mark & two hundred years before Ravenna!26 And in our dear familiar old Ireland! Oh Smudge I wish we could sit together in the little church of Champagne. I went in there out of the rain & stayed about an hour a month or so ago. They do not know its date [but] as it is mentioned in a history of Le Puy27 they think it is 11th century. It is just like a Gregorian chant. The walls are not straight, the arches come back into the floor, the whole is a united bewildering chant of greater, smaller, smaller smaller, smaller, smaller arches all soaring lifting you away up up & upward! That is what I said in my last letter, [that] Lucie was nearer the real construction of a Gleizes picture & of the universe than we were. Toiling (as Adam was taught to toil) she is HAPPY & her pretty birdlike voice rises in natural carols of joy as she digs. I feel instrumental music played with hands which must be kept like white will NEVER be the acceptable gift of that grand peasant’s song. I see César lying nude in the sun reading as Lucie & I do all the manual work of the place. I hate pianos & violins which claim the manliness of great frames like that; he is an awful shape but looks a different being in clothes. His hands are white & cared for till they make me ill but Madame Gleizes says ‘of course the Geoffrays can’t garden because of their hands’ . . . Goodbye darling . . . Bless you always your Anne.

K Sablons 26th July 1932 Dearest one, How lovely of you to send that lovely letter par avion to congratulate us on the exhibition. It is a thing of the past & has not borne the fruit it promised yet but all the same it was a declaration of our presence & perhaps by degrees students will come. Smudge your warm generous 26 San Marco in Venice, a Byzantine cathedral; San Vitale, a Byzantine church in Ravenna. 27 An ancient region south of Sablons in the Auvergne.


80

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 80


pleasure in our little success just made me feel wrapped about with soft radiance, bless you my wonderful darling . . . Really I think you have done wonders in your Modern Art Centre in so short a time. It is a huge responsibility & a courageous profession to make in Sydney. I feel I should send your Australian centre more than I do from the fountainhead, but life is filled with keeping house, self & garden fairly clean & patched up, & now I have your kitten. Yes, I didn’t want the little wretch, I begged him for you last year & the poor old woman was so overwhelmed with joy when her cat produced the exact request ‘black, a male & affectionate’ that I couldn’t explain it was too late now. I missed the motor bus on Monday & had to walk eleven kilometres after a long heavy day at the Roussillon pottery (I work there now as St Désirat has no clay)28. . . I am sitting outside the baker’s shop waiting for a milk wagon to take me eight kilometres towards Roussillon. I have to walk the other three and a half. At night I have to catch a bus & I have six and a half kilometres to walk. Darling I’m going to let you buy me a bicycle. I am killing myself with walking like this & besides I pay 4 fr. par jour in fares & often don’t earn more than 5 fr. Yes I’ll have to let you send me another £25. I went through a crisis when I was ill & then I saw I must accept another £25 & make another effort. I had been ill five weeks, one night I felt desperate. I thought I must return to Australia . . . I fell on my bed with a sort of agony of despair crying (inwardly) for help of some sort. Still in blackest despair I went to my bathroom, said goodnight to the Geoffrays & returned to my room. It was most curious. As I opened my door a wave of strength seemed to be awaiting me & flooded all over me. It told me the door of Australia was closed for the present, the way was here & here only & in the continuance of just the work I had commenced. Pottery ideas were given me one following the other. Roussillon was suggested to my mind clearly. I must let Smudge help me again, I MUST MAKE GOOD! Two days later my sickness seemed to pass away, I still cough but that awful dopey numb feeling has gone & I am strong again . . . The Gleizes passed through Serrières last night we were invited for 9.00 PM. Madame was bung eyed with fatigue. Monsieur lively as a cricket & storming against traction engines, harvesting machines etc. etc. He showed us La forme et l’histoire.29 Oh Smudge I wish 28 AD worked at Roussillon with the local potter M. Henri Bert, whose kiln she sometimes used for firing. See Personae. 29 Gleizes’ major book illustrated by Robert Pouyaud. See Bibliography.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 81

1932 –1933

81

I was rich & could send you a copy, it is very beautiful. Ah sweetheart you must always love the Gleizes, I love them more than I know. Knowing them I have learnt there are different grades of human beings . . . They are dears. But never never again must we think of them as human beings. Madame has many human weaknesses such as adoring important people but she must have made a big advance to have become the woman to win the affection of good Albert Gleizes. Of course it was he who won her affection & she who pointed out to him what a necessary person Juliette Roche was to him, but all the same the peasants tell tales of her childhood & girlhood which show what a long way she has climbed. Some day Smudge dear I will free myself from this feeling of living on charity [and] we will be together again & independent of Moly’s roof. . . . The Gleizes will never respect me while I’m tired & ill but I know really the Gleizes are only dear weak human beings representing something big & noble. This is what I want to devote my life to just as they are devoting theirs to it & at present I must submit to my humiliating position or desert the cause itself. Thank God you & Mainie & Evie understand & some day the Gleizes will understand also. . . . We had another pair of dreamers to see us last week—they stayed four days—he, Monsieur de Maratray, is a journalist, a Buddhist, and a wonderful linguist who has translated Indian & English books by the thousand I think.30 He loved Dowel O’Reily’s little book & is going to put two poems into French & give them to me.31 He writes & lectures on Le retour à la terre [and] as we went round my vegetable garden he asked me what this dear little white flower was. ‘Why potatoes,’ I gasped. ‘Really I had no idea potatoes had a flower!’ Oh funny France, professions & dreams are reality but practice absolutely beneath notice.

K Moly-Sabata 1st August 1932 Poor Sweetheart! How your letter made me smile a really understanding, sympathetic smile & made me wonder why life has separated us for we have so much in 30 M. de Maratray was also a musicologist and author of German romantic music. 31 It has not been possible to locate the text AD refers to as ‘Dowel O’Reily’s little book’.


82

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 82


common. It was the letter about Dorrit’s wrinkled woollen stockings & [a] tea table without a cloth. Dare one suggest to her painting is merely one tiny member belonging to the solemn profession she has proclaimed representative of modern art in Australia? That modern art is the intellectual & spiritual effort to put art & life in order? That we who claim to follow it are responsible & have to show in our homes & persons how greatly it has changed us already from the scrap bag disorderly beings we were in impressionist days.32 There is one thing very grave in your arrangement with Dorrit—that you take only the life students. You should each have your special days & let students choose which professor they like as in Paris schools. . . . Gosh Smudgie if we had a bit of capital we should start a school at Canberra or somewhere where there is good clay & we’d make things HUM!!! I’d teach pottery & the children’s class & you’d have all the big students but I’d hob nob with them & add fuel to the fire by coddling the more stupid ones when they made you switch your tail. I’d prepare the kids for you & hand them over at fourteen. But I feel the time has come when art must be looked on as the foundation stone of the new civilisation & that a school to succeed must now teach many crafts. That boys who like handling tools must be educated to become beautiful carpenters. We can’t teach the métier but we can get them to draw furniture & point out the good & bad lines & proportions. That girls who like sewing need colour knowledge & the critical judgment of line & form & space filling etc. Don’t you think so? Painting as a means of livelihood is a thing of the past already & the fact will shut all art schools in five years time if the art schools don’t show that art still lives, that it is the strongest influence against the reasons which brought about the crisis & that civilisation is returning to the application of art in home life . . . The arts & crafts crowd are very dreadful but Miss Sulman its president is an intelligent woman.33 I gave a lecture on modern art there & she was really interested. It might be worthwhile asking her to tea saying you were interested in the part craft took in the modern art of France. . . . Oh darling if only you & I could live nearby & have our own furniture & home & someone to wash & iron & scrub & garden THEN we could show the Gleizes! But one wastes life doing the work they don’t 32 Modernist artists were reacting against the impressionist diffusion of objects by the activity of light. The post-impressionists used Cézanne and classical painters as examples in order to achieve a solid construction in representation of nature. 33 Florence Sulman. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 83

1932 –1933

83

know exists & gives a sick & weary body to the only work they are interested in. Sunday I washed, today I scrubbed my kitchen, long corridor & ironed & cooked for the Jew girl & myself, for tomorrow I go to the pottery, walk home seven and a half kilometres to be here to receive the Jew girl at 6.00 PM Wednesday & I’ll have to help her settle in & I expect she will share my kitchen.34 I have no coal & no money to buy any so she can put up with the réchaud [hot plate or portable stove] or buy it alone. No word from Mrs Gibson yet it’s over four weeks since your letter saying she was staying.35 Have been lent a bicycle but haven’t learnt to ride it yet. [My cat] Pierre the vénérable is very sweet but a wretched feeder. Blessings on you my one joy in life, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 22nd August 1932 Smudge darling, . . . Sue & I went especially to St Vallier on Friday to see the many potteries there & ask the potter how they packed.36 We left Serrières at 7.30 AM by motor bus for 2 francs we were taken to Sarras (halfway to Valence) in la Drôme. There was a little dream village way up on a mountain above Sarras—some day I must visit it for the church is circular & very old we could see. We crossed over the bridge to St Vallier & found out the potteries were all at Ponsa & St Uze, two towns each six kilometres away & six kilometres apart also. On seeing some awful vases in a window & learning they were from St Uze we decided to go to Ponsa. Ooh it was hot. At Paris the thermometer reached 34° (93° farenheit) in the shade & Sue & I were walking along the asphalted route nationale without any shade. At Ponsa we visited a huge pottery lying idle. The big strong potter with his life’s knowledge (a man of fifty-five, I should think) can only manage to find a sale for vile little ducks, swans & cats made in moulds. His shelves are covered with unbaked household pottery, common stuff all made in moulds nearly nine years ago. There 34 The ‘Jew girl’ was Mlle Madeleine Israels, a Jewish woman and visitor to Moly-Sabata for whom Anne Dangar had an immense dislike. 35 Presumably Mrs Gibson was an Australian friend or acquaintance of GC’s who had promised to look AD up when in France. 36 Susanne Alexandre. See Personae. St Vallier was a village south of Serrières in the direction of Tournon.


84

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 84


are four kilns, lovely wheels & everything one can imagine for an ideal pottery. The one thing lacking is imagination enough to make objects which would attract the clay.37 [This] made Sue & I nearly bend the knee in reverence—neither of us had ever handled such holy ground. The handsome potter & his charming wife showed us everything & were so interested [in] us being potters. This clay is Grés stoneware & would not be suitable for services & things like that perhaps. We went to the next pottery, about four doors farther on. Here we found them very busy [and] a man of thirty perhaps was most courteous & took us all round. The hard unsympathetic work was awful after St Désirat. You know those brown cafetières or white ones with stamped blue flowers one sees all over France. Well this is their birthplace. They are nearly all made in moulds & joined. The others are made by throwing clay in a mould & a machine turns the inside until it is smooth. All the work was hideous . . . We asked this man how he packed. He said he never used cases as in shipping they were so often dropped & smashed! He uses open cages for even the tiny objects he makes. I’d be scared to. He says barrels are terribly expensive & are also dropped.38 It was midi so we took our lunch to a cafe & bought a demi-litre de vin rouge [a half-litre of red wine] & stayed there two hours. Then we faced the scorching white road leading up the mountain to la roche qui dance [the rock that dances] four kilometres farther on. About 3 o’clock we felt really sick with the heat & lay in the shade of a big walnut tree for a while. At last we reached the pinnacle where la roche rests on another rock on its point & when a great wind blows it rocks. It is about sixteen or eighteen foot high. After eating all we had—three tomatoes, a lemon, two lumps of sugar & one plum (no bread)—& getting new life from the breeze on the top of the mountain we descended to St Bartolamy a tiny village with a glorious fountain in which we nearly bathed. Then we went on to St Uze to catch the 5.30 PM tram back to St Vallier. We missed it & had to walk another six kilometres! The road beneath huge mountains & beside a swiftly running little river was wonderful but the sun in our faces & our sore blistered feet & the knowledge that we had missed the motor bus back made us dull towards our surroundings. We got a train at St Vallier to St Rambert, went & had a really good dinner (paid 9 francs for it but we were desperate) and had the courage after to plunge into the lonely 37 Meaning to be sympathetic to the clay. 38 Barrels were often used as packing crates.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 85

1932 –1933

85

two and a half kilometre long river path leading to Moly. I was nervous for it was 10.00 o’clock & black as pitch & gypsies camp there often. However, nothing molested us & we were bathing our swollen feet in the river outside Madame Cornet’s gate as the clock struck 11.00 PM.39 Then we made tea & drank it out on the balcony. It was quite an adventure for me to go off to see new country again. Sue went back to Paris on Sunday. I like her very much. She is sincere & so thoughtful. It seems as if the nicest French people are those who have had long experience of British ways & morals—Mrs Pasley, Sue, & Madame Gleizes.40 For one month I have a delightful little pupil for English & drawing. I am paid 10 francs an hour for him (I have to go to him) & give him four hours a week. As I have a dirty Jewess in my kitchen I have to get Madame Doyat one morning a week to come & help me do my washing.41 This takes 10 francs but I couldn’t go to the pottery if I didn’t get her. This Jewess has broken my coffee pot & a darling little jug made at St Désirat thirty years ago. She hasn’t told me she broke them. She never pumps or goes for coal or water, never lights the fire, & leaves her dirty dishes three days. My kitchen swarms with flies . . . Of course she has never swept the kitchen since she arrived three weeks ago & uses rags for tea cloths & such rags!! She has never changed a sheet yet! It’s hard to be a good submissive nun dear . . .

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 4th September 1932 . . . I’m worried over Fizelle’s ‘secret’. Smudge he’ll think Gleizes insincere (& he isn’t) because Madame Gleizes is no longer interested in having specimens from Australia, she’d like a Chinese or Esquimo to come along now. Monsieur lives in the books he is writing & she directs his every movement outside them. She may decide that poor Fizelle can only call for half an hour’s talk & that talk may be on raw carrots, or perhaps on 39 Mme Cornet was a neighbour of AD’s. 40 In a fragment of a letter in the Grace Crowley Papers, AD mentions that Mr and Mrs Charles Pasley, who had a place at Cronulla in Sydney, were talking of coming to Serrières to farm there. 41 AD is again referring to Mlle Israels.


86

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 86


the number of people who have worms. One can never be sure which of Madame’s pet subjects will occupy the precious hour you have waited six months for I am weighed down with the burden of a dirty unscrupulous Jewess because the idea of an unconverted Jewess in a believing Christian convent tickled Madame’s fancy. Smudge she doesn’t know she’s ruthless, life is an exciting game to her & human hearts & bodies are her dice to play it with . . . Your picture of Ellen Gray sounds very beautiful.42 If human sitters bring forth such exquisite & spiritual thoughts I think it quite right for you to express through them dear. . . . Monsieur Gleizes wrote me a very nice letter, but alas it doesn’t offer to pay for the feeding of all these visitors. I am sure I am 300 fr. out of pocket through the dirty Jewess. The girls are waiting for me to show them the little house on the quay—do you remember it? It is next door to the Gleizes’ & has most of the windows broken. Goodbye my precious, all my love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 5th October 1932 Darling, I know you’ll be anxious if I don’t write each week but really there is nothing to tell. The Gleizes have not replied to my letter—it was perhaps too human & too much your wild Irishman for their fancy but I don’t care if Madame isn’t nice to me. I will cable to Ruby to try & send me the last of my money & I’ll go back to Australia & live in a shed at Mondrook & hunt for pupils in Taree or do anything. If she apologises for her letter I will stay on here for I think this episode is going to either awaken her to the fact I am her equal in birth & upbringing, although deprived of this fool European education she places before everything in Heaven or on earth, or finish my venture here. I remember that awful night out on the little balcony I found myself saying over & over J’ai besoin de quelq’un [I need someone]. . . . somebody has arrived. It is a very well known writer—he is Belgian. He is thirty-two but he seems much older. He has come from Cavalaire. 42 GC had painted the portrait of Ellen Gray, a student of hers who was married to the artist Sydney Dattilo Rubbo.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 87

1932 –1933

87

He was with the Gleizes during the storm and during this storm the Gleizes thought of Mademoiselle Israels whom he knew in Paris. He said that she was very intelligent etc. etc. and the Gleizes spoke against me I am certain. Despite this he came to me twelve hours after his arrival to beg me for a place in my little kitchen. I refused since Mr Poulain is with me here and I don’t have enough room for someone else and Mr Gleizes said in his letter that Seuphor would do his cooking with the Geoffrays.43 But Mr Seuphor said to me: ‘I can’t live with the Geoffray family—I can’t!!’ I replied: ‘Sir you will be much more comfortable with the Geoffrays than here. I am very disagreeable, I hate women’s work and I can’t look after a kitchen with an additional two people in it—it’s impossible.’ ‘Mademoiselle I know the whole history of Miss Israels, the Gleizes told me all about it. I’m afraid that the comments I made to the Gleizes about Madeleine Israels hurt you. But I see that you are a woman who cannot tell lies and I believe everything you have said in your letter to the Gleizes.’ . . . After this I couldn’t refuse him & I don’t regret it—yet at any rate he is a gentleman! It’s almost impossible to believe for he’s the first person of my own class who has come to Moly unless [I count] Charchoune who is a friend of Monsieur Seuphor44. . . I told him I had the colour to do my kitchen since 1st of June but my illness & then visitors had prevented me. He said he’d adore to help me straight away. We started Monday & here I sit in a sweet smiling little kitchen of ochre jaune walls, grey green cupboards & doors & windows, emerald & cerise raffia (at last I can utilise the piece Miss Creed chose for me in Paris. Open the cupboard doors & you’ll see emerald green papered shelves with creamy & ochre red jars full of groceries, the table legs are also emerald (not a sickly pale emerald but a real vert emeraude) & the great chimney a sort of emerald green black. I am going to make a rug out of a piece of hessian the Pouyauds left behind & Monsieur Seuphor (who is as hard up as I am) is going to buy some kapok & an emerald green border. I’ll just make a huge bag & put about two inches of kapok thickness, stitch it through in lots of places & bind it all round with black (hessian dyed) with the green cloth border . . . The sunset painter [M. Poulain] is a perfect darling of an art student. He has chopped me ever so much wood & really if Madame G.’s cruel 43 M. Poulain was a Beaux Arts student who came to stay at Moly. Michel Seuphor. See Personae. 44 Serge Charchoune. See Personae.


88

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 88


letter wasn’t hanging over me like a guillotine always about to drop I would be having the best time I’ve had since I came to Moly. Darling you must not take a dislike to her for it. She has absolutely no psychological power whatever. She has it firmly fixed in her head that I am one of those rag-picking mongrels of the Grande Chaumière who are now being given one meal a day to keep them from dying of hunger. If Mrs Gibson or someone very charming came from Australia & told her I was given a huge send off & a purse of £33 when I left for France & that on my return I was welcomed by a hundred and seventy people who gave me a dinner party she would see me quite differently, but because she sees me shabby & helpless . . . she thinks I’ve always been so.45 She is just a poor spoiled rich child . . . Blessings on you my support & star of hope, your Anne.

K In the Milk Car 46 12th October 1932 Poor Dearie, I fear I have upset you greatly with that letter of sheer fright I wrote. Things have calmed down through the presence of two other men— decent men—in the house. The Gleizes have arrived but I haven’t seen them. Madame wrote me a second letter, much less brutal but not a word of regret for having ruined my summer & insisting on scolding me for talking behind people’s back, although I said in my reply ‘I did not talk about the Geoffrays to Mlle Israel. I am not a liar, slanderer or hypocrite. Have my forty years of life printed these traits on my face?’ If they can’t read character why can’t they look at facts? Israel—arrived Moly 10th July—came to Dangar’s kitchen (in spite of Mme Gleizes’ consent to see Alexandre sharing kitchen with D. during summer) because the Geoffrays didn’t in any way open their doors to her. Lived wholly on Dangar’s garden for 6 weeks because never told by Geoffrays she could take from theirs. Poulain arrived Moly 10 September. Came to Dangar’s kitchen for exactly same reason. Was told by the G.’s he could 45 Mme Gleizes was rather impressed by wealth and social connections. 46 AD was often given a ride by the milk cart that stopped outside the bakery at Sablons and travelled to Roussillon, but she still had to walk 3.5 kilometres to the pottery. At night time she caught a bus and had to walk 6.5 kilometres back to Sablons.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 89

1932 –1933

89

take vegetables but that ‘Mademoiselle Dangar has beaucoup de legumes, nous somme nombreux vous savez’ [a lot of vegetables since there are a lot of us, you know]. He felt such a grudging offer made that he hasn’t taken a single vegetable from their garden. He leaves 15th October. Seuphor arrived 1st October. Monsieur Gleizes told him to go to big kitchen. Monsieur Gleizes wrote a letter to community of Moly saying ‘It seems to us it would be best for Seuphor to use the big kitchen with the Geoffrays’ . . . The Geoffrays have never offered him a single vegetable or that he should take from their garden so he also has lived & must live on the garden of this tired middle-aged woman. Result? Dangar has to buy thirty kilograms of potatoes for winter, her cabbage bed of eighty cabbages is reduced to three, her carrot bed (large enough for two people for the whole winter) won’t hang out until Christmas. Again, who supplies crockery & saucepans & house linen, soap for cleaning & washing up? Who has to turn up cupboards to make room in this tiny kitchen? Why Smudgie if I didn’t think of the feeding of the bees, say every time necessary we ought to feed the bees, we ought to give the bees their blankets, we ought to buy straw paper & cover the honey . . . I warrant that the only work done regarding the bees in the whole year would be the taking of the honey. The strawberries (a continuous care) are never touched by anyone but this fool . . . All the same if the Gleizes realise even a tiny bit that they have wronged me I will be outwardly on good terms with the Geoffrays, avoiding any intimacy but living in peace for the sake of Moly & the Gleizes whom I love in spite of Madame’s cruelty & Monsieur’s indifference. They are only blind fools, greatly because their ‘book-learning’ has prevented them from having time to study human beings. ‘Knowledge puffeth up, charity edifieth,’ says St Mark [sic], & St Augustine likens knowledge to ‘a great destroying tumor’ when he himself was perhaps the greatest scholar the Christian church ever had. My male companions are quite good & very scared not to do their part in the kitchen. Alas Seuphor remains for always hopelessly incapable while Poulain is as good as myself, which says a lot, n’est-ce-pas? However M. Seuphor is very interesting & Poulain is only a Beaux Arts student.47 Seuphor has written a book on Flemish painting, another on El Greco.48 47 Both AD and GC had a strong prejudice against students from Les Beaux Arts, the French national academy of art, because the tuition was academic and conservative. It was generally avoided by artists interested in modernism. 48 El Greco. See Personae.


90

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 90


He speaks five languages & is as gentle as a mouse. All the same I saw the other day that he sees through the Geoffrays a bit already but like a man thinks all the fault is Madame G’s. This is not true she is more dangerous & a better liar than César but he is even more stingy than she is & much lazier. . . . One hundred and fifty-six pieces of my pottery have just been fired [and] all are a howling success. At last I have succeeded with blue & I know WHY. Darling I talk so much about myself & yet I dream of you every night always comfy sweet dreams. It’s strange my dreams are all lovely & yet I sleep little I am so sore & worried over Madame Gleizes’ lack of sympathy & hardness. I lay awake trying to find a way to leave Moly & go home to love & trust . . . No letter from my Smudge.

K Moly-Sabata 27 October 1932 Mon amie! No letters from Australia, they become rarer & rarer & it is my own fault. I have only one real amie. All the others I have let go gradually & I make no new ones, but few have been given a cadeau [gift] such as mine & with all my heart I give thanks for my wonderful gift. My extraordinary position has not changed. I am in disgrace. Monsieur Gleizes looks grey with disapproval. WHY? It is a crazy world & upside down. I have loved & slaved & taken all responsibilities & never once been disloyal, but France is a strange country. Truth & honesty & frankness are mal adresse, mal-adroit [badly brought up, clumsy] . . . With all my love your same old proud Anne always. I will do & say NOTHING. I await for this injustice to be completely righted & it will be. Seuphor & I went to Thorrenc the other day.49 He insisted on me playing for half a day, ‘Come & gather enough chestnuts for all winter & get away from work.’ The glory of autumn was like a great choir rolling its music through the valleys & mountains. Thorrenc (you know it don’t you?) rose up in all this splendour of gold with a majesty only time can write on nature. We sat at the foot of the mountain & all my doubts were smoothed away. TIME!! Time has adopted every 49 Thorrenc, a mountainous beauty spot in the Ardèche.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 91

1932 –1933

91

stone placed upon that hillside & the Château is ONE with every humble house, every shrub, every door & window. The roofs are drawn up & turned to meet the dominating tower of the great château. They were not built like that—TIME has bent & curved them to serve nature & united all the separate parts to make this triumphant composition. So it will be with us. That great construction erected by Monsieur Gleizes cannot rest cut off from the humble buildings clustering around its knees. We are all new & ugly yet but TIME if left quite alone arranges all the awkward lines & colours & masses in the ungainly efforts man makes. Some day the work of Albert Gleizes will rise up like Thorrenc & the faithful humble little group which cluster round the seigneur will be so welded & united in the whole that one cannot be parted from the other. Amen! . . . Later: Had my children’s class this afternoon. The Gleizes arrived with seven visitors! Monsieur Gleizes wasn’t grey, he beamed at me with his dear benevolent smile once more & put his hand on my shoulders as he shook my other hand & said, ‘You’re wonderful with these children, my heartiest congratulations!’ Thank God but it isn’t all over yet I know. The potter at Roussillon is getting married on Saturday & has left me three day’s work to do for him. I am so excited being trusted with the actual work of a French peasant pottery. We make a fire of charbon du bois [wood coal] in the middle of the pottery & I bake potatoes for my lunch in the ashes or chestnuts or Barcelona nuts & make toast & we heat bricks for our feet when we have to sit & decorate or put handles on. It’s wonderful how happy I am with these simple folk who are good & honest & interesting . . . I am selling my work & really believe I’ll work up.

K Moly-Sabata 10 November 1932 My darling one, . . . I am having an exposition at Annonay musée tomorrow (Friday) until Sunday. Then next month there is a huge exposition at Tournon which has allotted a wall space & table of terrifying dimensions to my pupils & to me. I commence a winter class for decoration (free of charge alas! no hope of any pupils if I ask even 1 franc per lesson) for the girls of


92

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 92


Sablons. I went to Lyon last week & bought a lovely yellowy maize paper for a huge table cover. I will start the girls with this work—they must decorate it with cut out paper flowers. I’ll have to work out the main plan tomorrow morning. I got glorious papers & you would be astonished at the pictures my babies make. Charles did a composition thirty by twenty-four inches of huge mountains & a wee house with a tiny group of little white sheep which is really very fine in conception & all made with twelve pieces of coloured paper. Raymond did a merry-goround which is a jewel of delicate colour.50 Madame Gleizes pounced on it & bought it at once for 25 francs. I was glad & sorry. The picture was done with love—now commerce has been introduced into the mind of this little lad who is so poor he has to help his father fish all night after his lesson in drawing & go to the market next morning white & want to sell the fish. All the same the money bought colours, paper & a brush for him & he needed these things badly. I have twelve pictures of the children in my kitchen & Lucie made me a gay abat-jour [sun-shade] of transparent green paper with petunia & black opaque paper motifs. Really the little kitchen is charming & so fresh & gay! The Geoffrays were jealous & did up their kitchen but they have quite lost the fresh clean scheme Pouyaud gave to it. They have lots of red & black [and] it is rich & warm but dark & heavy. Seuphor leaves on Monday. I am going to miss him very much. He was just the right companion for me during the dark weeks. The Gleizes are deliberately blind to the situation & refuse to look at it. They are more gracious to the Geoffrays than ever before & cold to me. WAIT. They sell my pottery for me & show interest in my class but none whatever in me personally, they want me to realise I must make no demands for protection from them . . . The whole work of ‘common’ rooms is divided in two [and] Mido & I do an equal share of it. The Geoffrays are four in family always & every second week six. I am one. This is the just arrangement in the couvent [convent] d’Albert Gleizes. The Garden is never touched by anyone but Lucie & me. The part not used for vegetables is a HORROR for I have no time or strength to keep it clean & Lucie has more than human strength can supply to feed all those great Geoffrays. Seuphor will never work. He calls my conscience une faiblesse du pays nord [a weakness of the northern countries] (Ireland) & says God gave us our lives & the world for an ideal garden of Eden life. I told him the mauvaises herbes [weeds] didn’t grow in the garden of Eden, he says they are not mauvaises, that they are also beautiful 50 Charles and Raymond were young students of AD’s.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 93

1932 –1933

93

as flowers if we rid our minds of conventionalities. So he sits in the sun & makes poems & writes philosophies while I plant onions & lettuces enough for four people after the stored carrots & turnips & pumpkins are finished & before les petits pois & pomme de terre nouvelles [peas & new potatoes] fill our tummies. Oh these French & Belgians & Spanish & Italians!! Are they right? Is life really a smooth lake if we don’t ruffle it by having forethought, a sense of honour, & anxieties? Look at Seuphor. ‘He toils not neither does he spin.’ My coal warms him (he does cut petit bois [kindling] for me) My garden feeds him, friends give him warm clothes & he tranquilly writes poems & considers he has found the secret of God’s gift of life. . . . I hate making other people’s ideas in pottery. They put me out of my path. I admire their ideas but his are always literary & in pottery I find I have drowned myself in the teaching of Albert Gleizes c’est la forme qui donne le décor [it’s form that creates decoration]. Every decoration arrives like a gift given by the love of the form created on the wheel. I make no previous drawings now (at least very rarely) but take my little bowl or jug with happy expectation, place it back on the wheel, & in a moment it tells me what it needs. Why shouldn’t pictures arrive this way also? I begin to hope that they will when I paint again . . . Bless you my precious. I’m shutting ears & eyes to pride & paying no attention to the Gleizes’ snubbing. The French are too fickle to take seriously & no other way is indicated to me but the work awaiting me immediately. Blessings on you darling mate, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 15th November 1932 Chérie, I have just arrived from the pottery. Poulette & Pierre were both waiting at the gate when I got home & I had to make their soup before taking off my coat or beret. Pierre is really beautiful! You would go crazy over his beauty. But Seuphor is like a man of seventy instead of thirty-two & one wonders what he can do if he goes on living another forty years. He has read & studied everything & come through believing effort is futile— nothing is worth being sad over—human love & friendship is only a


94

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 94


burden, oneself being the most interesting being in the world. He thinks anxiety over material things a weakness of faith etc. etc. Many of his sayings were very good. I was chattering against ‘communism’ (a subject I have never studied & therefore have no right to talk about it) & he said ‘communism & Christianity are one & the same, but they are communism in poverty, not communism in riches as the Russians believe’ . . . The exhibition was a great success. Your Anne was invited to dinner at a beautiful château & driven to the musée by the Bêchetoilles. All the Bêchetoilles & the Mongolfiers turned up & ordered plates with balloons, suspension bridges & locomotives!!!51 One family ordered a ninety-five piece dinner service for next March. The musée bought ten more pieces of my work—that’s thirteen they have now! I only actually sold 57 francs worth but I got orders for nearly 600 francs worth—[and] went to tea each evening at the Director’s home. He is a common old nouveaux riche but the musée is his hobby & a credit to him. The Gleizes came to the exhibition the opening day & drove me home. Their genuine happiness in my orders on Sunday night was quite touching. Isn’t it strange darling how they refuse to see the real danger & meanesses I am subjected to, are cold & sarcastic when I ask them to protect me or give me their council but are all warmth & friendliness over a trumpery country town’s appreciation. They don’t understand anything but this outside world. Il a oublié parcequ’il parle trop, et parcequ’il sait trop. [He has forgotten because he speaks too much, and because he knows too much.] Smudgie once more I want to remind you about my Bible & prayer book. I’d love to have them if you have found them. . . . Am working at pottery every spare minute as the potter wants to close down for two months; he can’t wash clay when it is too cold, it freezes in the pits. I made some nice tobacco jars today. I find myself much less tired & much more proficient on the wheel. It is a long while since I had a long talky talk with you my mate. I miss you always always. Never do I cook a nice dish without regretting you are not here to partake of it, never do I enjoy the fire without wishing for your presence. It is four years since I left you in Naples.52 I am weary for you dear. Bon soir & may you have a lovely cool Christmas my darling, Your Anne . . . 51 The Bêchetoilles and the Mongolfiers were two of the most notable families of the region. The Mongolfier brothers Joseph and Etienne invented the hot air balloon in the last years of the Ancien Regime at Avignon. In 1783 they became the first people to travel by hot air balloon. There is a statue of the two brothers at the Place de la Liberation at Annonay. 52 AD and GC had said goodbye at Naples where AD boarded a ship for Australia.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 95

1932 –1933

95

K Moly-Sabata 23rd November 1932 Darling, . . . It is the foire de Sablons aujord’hui [Sablons fair today].53 I love la foire de Sablons. It is the only genuine old time fair I have ever seen & it is immense. Horses, mules & donkeys are ranged all along the quai almost to Moly. Sheep, pigs & goats are on each side of the road leading to the cemetery. Turkeys, guinea fowl, chooks, ducks, & geese cover la place in front of l’église [the church], while cows, heifers, calves, bulls & bullocks have their kilometre on the route to St Rambert. All in between places along the streets are filled with stalls—ropes, ladders, etc. etc.—being demonstrated by tug of wars, waffle irons turning out hot waffles free to anyone who will stop & listen to the jabbering cook, stalls where little straw hats are sold for the youth who like acting the goat comme ça. Men playing seven instruments at once, gypsies making & selling baskets, brioches with pink lollies stuck on them being wheeled about in wheel barrows. Men inviting one ‘Goutez Madame donnez un coup d’œil, goutez Madame’ [Taste it Madam, have a look, taste it Madam], & when you give the coup d’œil you find he is only selling socks & stockings. . . . Well Smudge dear the Moly question is much the same. The Director of Annonay Musée got excited over the name & as he is a rich old man without anything to do he wrote all over the place to find out the real meaning of the name ‘Moly-Sabata’. He was vibrating with excitement when he heard it was probably a Moorish name meaning Repos des Seigneurs or as we say ‘Rest in the Lord’. But later evidence shows plainly it is very ancient French for sabots mouillés. The signification of my tumble regarding Moly & these two names is a droll coincidence. If Moly stands for sabots mouillés is it worth while devoting one’s life to her cause? Madame Gleizes’ unjust attitude towards the whole affair of the Jewess—the garden, the housework, the honey—[and] the wicked spite of the Geoffrays against me (Pouyaud has also written begging me to tell him whatever has happened to Moly as he received a letter from Geoffray making such impossible accusations against me that he knows something serious has happened; Seuphor told me before parting that the first night 53 The Sablons annual fair is an event that continues to this day.


96

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 96


he arrived here the Geoffrays precipitated themselves upon him to pour out abuse against me which he had proved by six weeks acquaintance with me to be absolutely false) has made me BOIL & search every possible & impossible way to escape. One evening I almost went to ask Madame Schaeffer to take me as maid for a year so that I could earn my passage to Australia. I wrote & asked Mainie what she thought of the idea & she wrote a splendid letter. She understands the French better than I do. She said she was certain the Gleizes knew they were being unjust, that they were being so deliberately because I was helpless & the Geoffrays [were] noisy blustering spiteful people who would use newspapers & all sorts of publicity to injure the Gleizes & Moly if they (the Gleizes) didn’t give in to them. That the French place caution before everything. That she was certain the Gleizes would now secretly turn my situation over in their minds & with French cunning slip me from under the burden they seemed to have placed on me, in outwardly saying ‘of course the Geoffrays being musicians can’t garden; of course they must have their kitchen to themselves as they are a family. Yes, Lucie also could share the honey profits but the work of house & bees & garden must be divided in two—one part for Dangar one for the Geoffrays!’ Well, it is true. Subtly they are being so kind to me I can’t help but feel it is all planned & even more. They bought 200 francs worth of pottery. They bought a painting from each little student so that the children could buy colours & brushes—they boomed [praised] my exhibition, they came to it & drove me home—[and] yesterday (when they knew the Geoffrays were at Lyon) they came over ‘just to see Poulette’s puppies’ they said, but insisted on me going home to tea with them & Monsieur was told to take me to the studio to see his latest work. We had a long talk (never to the point—I know now the straight line is abhorred by the round Frenchies) & I said nearly all I wanted to. The emptiness of painting if not applied to life, the real force of training the children in the rules, the force these children will be in the district if I can hold on to them awhile. . . . And this is Anne’s life! You see dear life is just one long hard lesson. One has to unlearn all one’s parents & country taught one if one is drawn towards other people & another country, one has to learn new forms as right & wrong, [and] by the time one finds a balance old age has arrived. Oh karma says Smudge has such a naughty twinkle now, ‘Bless her’. I wish I could see it.

K


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 97

1932 –1933

97 Moly-Sabata 1st December 1932

Sweetheart, Your aeroplane letter arrived on the very day & I kissed & kissed the envelope with a thumping bumping heart when I found it in the letter box! Only Monday I received your other letter full of your full life— your portrait of Ellen Gray & your mate ‘Fiz’. Darling I am so very very thankful that you are happy & have found your real self again in your work. I too am working & losing myself in the work which is our only way of finding our real selves. Of course I am only potting not painting & I never am without the pain of wanting to paint. Still pottery is a sop, & while I am doing it I don’t think of anything frightening or sad . . . I really believe my longing to paint St Désirat & Serrières is the strongest tie holding me to Europe when I know I should return to Australia & find a job which would provide me for my old age. Again you tell me you ‘can do nothing more for me’ after you send me the rest of this dreadful money I accepted. Smudge what do you take me for? Miss Creed when mad said I only liked rich people & that that was why I had shown her kindness, that I wanted her money. Do you think of me like that? . . . Oh Smudgie help me dear to get back my old faith in everybody & oh if you have one tiny doubt of me I pray you to free me from accepting another penny of that money. . . . Charles is doing an excellent bit of work, a great big gouache of St Sornin.54 Raymond (who wants to be a Menusier) made a wooden chest out of boxes & carved the lid with a pen knife & painted it. Clear yellow outside, pinky lavender inside, with green, grey & black decorations. Lucie’s tapestry is very very good. These works will all be shown with my pottery in the Tournon exhibition on the 17th December. At 4.00 o’clock I packed off the children, went for bread & 50 centimes worth of meat for Poulette & Pierre. Then I had my birthday party. I heated the lessiveuse full of water, brought in the Degas ‘tub’55 beside my fire, made a huge soup for Poulette & Pierre & had a hot bath & got into clean (Flo) pyjamas & my petunia flannel dressing gown. Gave mes enfants their soup & boiled two eggs & made tea & toast. Madame Cornet gave me the two 54 St Sornin is the church at Serrières. 55 Edgar Degas painted and drew many versions of a woman performing her toilette in a tub. See Personae.


98

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 98


eggs not because she knew it was my birthday—she likes your Anne, the peasants do . . . Bon soir Smudge darling. Thank you for thinking of my birthday all by your little self & do love me ‘big & strong’ dearie always always please. Your grateful Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 14th January 1933 Smudge darling, . . . Pierre ill again—terribly worried—and worked up three exhibitions which have brought me clients & pupils until I can earn almost enough to live. In fact through these exhibitions I may get a day’s teaching every week in a school at Annonay, & if so I will certainly have enough to live on. But out of the money you sent me alone these exhibitions were inaugurated & I was kept. The first five months of the year 1932 I was earning 171⁄2 francs a week. After that I lost a pupil at 10 fr. (for English) and gained one for drawing at St Rambert for 20/- for drawing & painting. But since the Tournon exhibition I have gained four new pupils so that is another 10 fr. per week (they each pay 21⁄2 fr. you know) & I have sold quite 25 fr. worth of pottery per week ever since Tournon. So I reckon I have now about 55 fr. per week & with that I can almost live . . . So you see Smudge you have put me on my feet & those feet will stand firm. I am sure pottery orders will increase & increase . . . Voilà! I spoke to Monsieur Gleizes about La forme et l’histoire par Albert Gleizes with pen & ink drawings of primitive work by Pouyaud. The colour book is by Forichon.56 Pouyaud, after long study of it, wrote that treatise on colour which I copied for you, but I didn’t send you his beautiful gouache examples. I am posting the Forichon book with Pouyaud’s little gouaches (these I lend you for twelve months, he would be very hurt if I gave them away) & the discs . . . With the money that you sent me en plus de mon cadeau pour mon anniversaire et Noël [on top of my present for my birthday and Christmas], I hope to make & send a small barrel of pottery to the gallery Smudge & Fiz., but it won’t go for another six months perhaps 56 F. Forichon was Professor of Drawing at the Lycée in Nîmes, France.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 99

1932 –1933

99

as I have the Annonay dinner service & the order from Madame Steinbach for the March firing.57 . . . Smudge my fears & troubles are seldom now because I see a way ahead of me. It was you who paid for the bridge over the chasm which surely would have swallowed me. Darling you will be helped even as I was. PAINT. Yes dear, paint the pictures the public won’t buy & posterity will! . . .

K Moly-Sabata 4th March 1933 My Smudge, What are your thoughts these days? What do you talk about in your new studio? Who comes in that I know? Do you ever speak of Anne? Does any part of her live in that home you have made? And in painting do you march with us? I think so, very closely, when Smudge paints it is always from the secret places of her heart that thoughts are expressed & the beauty of the real Smudge revealed. Monsieur Gleizes has given me a whole morning, God bless him. A fortnight ago Madame was very very spiteful & beastly to your Anne. She accused me of every contemptible characteristic a being could have—it was all over that letter you honoured her by confiding to her better self which alas is buried beneath her father’s fat purse & her poor little snobbish mind. That letter is the only honest mirror anyone has ever dared hold up before her face. Every now & then she remembers it & brutally sneers because I didn’t commit suicide when I thought it the only course & was miraculously aided just as I had arranged all my belongings in preparation at my sentimental & exaggerated manner of writing to you—of the egotistical act of telling you I was in despair—she says [that] I said ‘the Gleizes went off without giving me a penny’. Smudgie, isn’t she a common ill-bred cat? That is what money does to a woman. Be thankful your father didn’t die when you were twenty, there is no influence so helpful as poverty & effort. This poor handicapped woman from birth has the most pure & high influence at her side the last twenty years, but in spite of that she tumbles into the ditch her father dug his gold out of (politics) every 57 Mme Steinbach. See Personae.


100

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 100


now & then. For quite two months she has had a wave of ugliness—her charming painting has become freezingly cold & hard & colourless, her eyes like flint, she flounces & bangs round and is impossible with Monsieur Gleizes. One day he rolled his easel across the floor & she cried, ‘Albert, I can’t stand it.’ ‘But Juliette . . . the light has changed and I have to move.’ ‘Please don’t make any sound while I work, if you weren’t in my studio, I would have more peace and much more space.’58 Monsieur Gleizes went out of the room. One day she held forth for hours on my melodramatic letter to you, my sentimentality, my childishness, lack of interest in the big things in the world & the importance I give to little things (the Geoffrays’ wickedness last October in repeating my just remark on the Jewess’s thefts) & my lack of the spirit of Moly in living apart etc. etc. She tried to make me wild & reply but I wouldn’t as I know she is only a paltry & badly brought up rich child. However I got a bursting headache [and] at one in the morning I started retching & continued to do so until eleven the next night. All the same I felt I must show no sign whatever of anger, I must show her that her spite couldn’t shut me off from Monsieur Gleizes & I went to the studio as usual on Saturday. It is nearly a fortnight ago. Monsieur has been very silent since. Thursday night I met them & they paid me 100 fr. on pottery they bought in December. Suddenly he burst forth: ‘Anne Dangar you are an example. I see everything and your effort is much bigger than I had previously thought.’ It was so sudden & so out of place at that moment that I was left blinking & wondering what next. Today he came up to his studio where I was decorating plates. He wore a little blue cotton suit like a French deck-hand & looked like a shy little boy. At first he was awkward & bombastic & then he gave me what he came to give—voilà! (I had told him Seuphor didn’t believe there was any religious signification in our painting.) ‘Venez ici. Seuphor would find that,’ pointing to his Crucifixion (1925) ‘religious because it has a religious subject but that is only the letter. Seuphor is a writer, he would understand that as it is a literal work.’59 To the right (I speak not of our right but as from the cross for God regards the four planes) then (St Matthew), below the action (St Mark), on the other side St Luke (I forget why he is symbolized by a bull), & above near the heart of the Christ the eagle (St John)—man-action. That is the side dominating today. The direct communion with God by the Spirit, by love, flickers on, but the balance 58 This conversation was originally written in French by AD. 59 Seuphor commented that he found Gleizes’ 1925 painting ‘Crucifixion’ religious in title only.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 101

1932 –1933

101

from our point of view is all out—man & action weigh throughout all the world. From the point of view of the cross the four planes are always perfectly balanced & in place but we have lost sight of the left side—the trinity is not comprehended as one. Man argues the ‘Father & the Son’ are not one—they are two separate beings but they [are] tort [wrong]— the father is not a father until he has a son is he? A son is not a son if his parents are dead, the son makes a father, his existence creates a father even as a father creates the son. And the spirit of love unites them. . . . Strictly speaking our painting is not religious—yet. The word religion means ‘to bind’ a group who form a company, following those principles it can be called religious.60 I paint not what my eyes see mais ce qui sort du cœur [but what comes from the heart] . . . Then he went on to talk about my work with the children & the influence it will have on them all their lives & the value of this painting in that it lifts one above the agitations all round—it being interior—the humility it keeps one in always. I know he was showing me he understood my attitude in not getting offended & stop coming to him. That the spirit of obedience is true religion . . . Seuphor is writing philosophy & I am cooking for him. No, I don’t find men ‘bigger & fairer’ except when they are saints like Monsieur Gleizes. I’m rather scared of Madame’s next move after Monsieur Gleizes’ praise of me in front of her on Thursday night. She may turn completely round & be all graciousness! I won’t pay attention to her. Who is Juliette Roche? I had never heard of such a person.

K Moly-Sabata 19th March 1933 Dearest One, Your letter made me long to write a long long cable of congratulations. Oh I am so happy over your triumph! Why it’s just a repetition of Mr Ashton’s victory when he left the old Art Society!61 It’s splendid dear & now you have the modern movement in Australia to grow out of your studio even as art in Australia grew out of the Sydney Art School. How 60 Religious in the sense of representing a group bound by ideals. 61 In 1895 the artists in Sydney formed the Society of Artists and split from the Art Society of New South Wales. The triumph to which AD refers is GC leaving Dorrit Black’s Modern Art Centre to form her own school.


102

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 102


can I help you? I who need help myself & who never talks with any other art student or painter, who cooks for Seuphor & digs a big garden, goes messages & sweeps & washes & irons & scrubs? All the same I should help more. When I read the silly things written on modern art out there I feel I should do more to help you enlighten the fools. Mainie sent me two lectures she had given but Monsieur Gleizes kept them so long I had to return them immediately to her. I am begging her to publish them with a treatise on composition & many many reproductions to demonstrate. Of course the poor old girl has no money but Seuphor hasn’t a sous & he gets his books printed by a publisher in Switzerland who demands fifty subscribers at 20 (French) francs each. I told Mainie & I said if she could get an Irish publisher to do something of the kind I was sure you & other friends I have would subscribe & find others willing to do so. When one sees the rubbish Rutter, Fry, & Wilenski62 write about modern art & when one tries to not throw Wilenski in the Rhône for his low common mongrel English, one understands why educated English & Australian people are so ignorant of modern art. Mainie’s dignified clear explanations arising from the fount of real knowledge & experience, her sincerity & broad mindedness would find a totally different class of readers . . . Mainie Jellet is needed for the honour of British art students of intelligence & sincerity. Smudge do you ever think how small is the group of this art nearly thirty years old? I used to feel impatient with Pouyaud when he talked about it only being for the ‘elite’ but I begin to see how impossible it is for the shallow materially minded people to accept it, [and] how literary people cannot do so either [as] they need a subject, a symbol or some literal meaning (Seuphor, Hoyack, Madame Hoyack, Madame Maratray, Dr de Marquette, Madame Gleizes, etc.). Only very great minds (scientists [who] have analysed matter until convinced it is nothing & all is spirit), very mystically inclined people, peasants, savages, & little children can understand it. Recognise one of these types in your class & you will know you have a convert straight away. Musicians should understand but they have a curious jealousy that another art should be as their own. You are right about ‘casting pearls before swine’. I often think of you preaching me that. I felt it was impertinence on my part to think others less able to receive than myself or less worthy to receive. But with this art one dare not show the pearls to many. Mainie is very wary of 62 Frank Rutter, Roger Fry and Reginald Wilenski were British writers and theorists on art. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 103

1932 –1933

103

doing [this] so she appeals to reason. St Thomas d’Acquin [Aquinas] (end of moyen age in Paris) says reason should follow belief not precede it, but I think that is true [only] for the very intelligent. Perhaps with lesser intelligence it is necessary to lead by reason, comparison, demonstration etc., [for] once they believe they need no reasoning, the act of pure creation is so convincing in itself all questioning ceases. I am reading a book on the history of calligraphy, illuminating, miniatures etc. What a splendid comparison could be made between the march of calligraphy from descriptive drawing to symbols on to purely non-representative forms to express thought. The universal comprehension of these forms, the power they have to the graphologist’s discerning eye to reveal character, state of mind, even state of health. The superiority of oriental writing to ours in beauty, rhythm & power to express. How the Chinese can write a whole poem with three or four forms—how these forms express by the manner in which they have been put down etc. etc. . . . Your lovely lovely letter just arrived with your prospectus . . . Smudgie forgive me for reminding you that the teaching of Albert Gleizes is not to make artists but happier simpler citizens with good taste & love of form colour & creation in everything round them. The crisis is real— it cannot pass away as long as human beings continue to work with the ideal of making money to be rich. His doctrine is to learn to love that joy in life money does not bring. Oh yes I know he is married to a money goddess but she bought him because he didn’t know his own value in those days. It was five years after his marriage that he realised art was nothing if not mounting towards the creator. It is astonishing now he is being borne away from that poor little wordly woman by forces on every side at present. She is nearly distracted for she can’t follow him. Philosophers swoop down here & talk of things she can’t comprehend—it’s happening so quickly—until this year she has pretended to be in accord but ‘more level headed’ (ye gods!). At last she has given up the attempt & openly declared she hates mysticism & fanatics & religious subjects & the Gregorian chants etc. etc. that they give her froid dans le dos [cold shivers up the spine]. Another two years & I believe poor Juliette Roche will have all the independence she wants in life, but she won’t have a saint by her side. Smudgie haven’t you heard about my little success at Tournon? Ruby, Auntie Jean, Fairy & Hastings have all written congratulations so I think my letter to you must have got lost.63 I won a gold medal & 200 fr., it 63 Ruby Singleton, Fairy Mills and Hastings Dangar, members of AD’s family. See Personae. Auntie Jean is presumably AD’s aunt.


104

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 104


was before Christmas. Your prospectus is very nice. I do hope it will bring you all the success you deserve darling. I must run to Serrières; thank you again for your grand letter full of love & beauty. Take care of your precious precious self for you are my one & only God bless you, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 30th March 1933 Smudge darling, . . . I sit in the window of the studio looking out at those hills more beautiful than any our Australia can ever show us—why? Because these have the story of man’s labour for centuries & centuries upon their surface & out there it is only nature sans art. Seuphor argues art is inutile [useless] but indispensable. Another poor soul has arrived at Moly. His wife & baby come from Paris today. I have left my kitchen & have gone into my own room with my saucepans & primus. Madame Gleizes will be furious [as] she insists on the idea everyone can have the same kitchen & refuses to listen to any reason against this fixed idea. Smudge I’m terribly sorry but I fear I am going to dislike Madame Gleizes in spite of three years of determination not to do so. I gave her my love, sympathy, understanding, forgiveness—all all all I have—she has kicked them back at me as spitefully as female mind can find means of doing. She has sought a mean & miserable intention behind every most conscientious & precious thought & act of mine, she has told me I am narrow, petty, priggish, & even dared say ‘you don’t state things exactly’. In other words she might just as well have said ‘you are untruthful’. I asked for an explanation on this statement & the two she gave were so idiotic & laughable I simply had to say ‘And your statement regarding the fruit trees—that we left 600 fr. worth of cherries on the trees & the same with the apricots a few weeks later—was that exact? You say it was a mis-statement for me to call my St Rambert pupil “my means of livelihood” . . . [but] the 20 fr. a week I receive from that St Rambert pupil is the only certain money I can count on. I think the surer & better way of preventing the young potter from copying [my designs] will be for me to give him design


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 105

1932 –1933

105

lessons & let him realise [that] the joy of creating is much greater than that of copying.’ Smudge I am not safe here. I’m sorry to make you uneasy but it’s very, very true. If you hear of any opening whatever in Australia I must return as this capricious woman can whip all means of livelihood from me at any moment. She dislikes me because you & I caused her one moment’s reflection regarding her irresponsibility. Since receiving your letter she wants to put me in the wrong all the while. Monsieur Gleizes is as powerless as a cat or dog in her house. He gives into her every caprice for the sake of peace & will always do so. For instance, the new arrival brought a huge sheep dog with him, the gentlest most polite animal I ever met. The Gleizes came over with Taboo, their slim young spaniel. Monsieur Gleizes threw a stone, both dogs ran after it & Taboo got it, Olive (the sheepdog) bowled him over & bullied him. Madame G. drew a great sword out of her cane & rushed at Olive—Taboo escaped & came to me—Olive yelled at the first prick & ran up on the terrace growling. The Gleizes both held forth for over an hour saying Monsieur Plasse must get rid of Olive.64 Plasse says he’ll leave Moly rather than be separated from Olive. And I know quite well the poor young fellow will never never never hear the end of this episode. Imagine Smudge her having a sword in her cane! I knew she never went a step without a revolver loaded in her bag, but I didn’t know she also carried a sword. What a poor wretched creature to fear her fellow humans like that! Perhaps I messed up my life by coming, but I came in obedience to a direct clear indication & will not leave until as clearly directed . . . I wish I could write you a letter full of joy & hope darling. Don’t think me a coward, I am not afraid, but I’m on my guard & haven’t a soul in France who would raise a finger to help one if this capricious woman threw me out of the house. In spite of all I still have a great sympathy for her & would be her true friend if she wanted me for there is a lovable side to her & money & publicity are to blame for her naughtiness. Poor little thing nobody loves her & she loves nobody; what poverty. How rich we are dear, your Anne.

K 64 Jacques Plasse. See Personae.


106

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 106

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Moly-Sabata 11th July 1933

Treasure, Your letter was the kindest, most loving, most sweet & generous that anyone has ever received in their lives. Great heart accept my deepest thanks for all you think & say of me. I received Fairy’s letter yesterday wonderfully kind & generous & tactful & affectionate. But dear you know my father stole the birthright of her grandfather—I must never never get into debt, especially with the Dangars.65 They suffered greatly through our branch. I’ll tell you what I think of doing—sending you out pottery every little while. You must take a percentage or I’ll not be able to continue. I’ll try to put any gain towards my return passage money, but I will have to always take out first all expenses. In this way Sydney will get to know my work gradually & when I come I must bring a huge exhibition with me. If anything very dreadful happens I will grab the lifebelt Fairy has thrown me but I hope & trust I will not leave that way. I want to go with the blessing of my master & his consent & interest to my continuation of work in his service out there. He is being most wonderfully kind to me at present [and] sent me Abstraction & Création—two copies!66 Also Sud (five copies) & one copy of Art & science.67 I will send you a copy of each of the former to keep [and] Art & science for a loan when I’ve read it . . . The idea of you saying you’d become my first pupil for design!! As if you don’t know every bit as much as I do!! Don’t be a loony Smudge. I want to POT in Australia. To squat down in a clay bog & just dig a good sound living out of it . . . We have had a week’s glorious heat. The effect of the exhibition is drastic. Every morning I have to do ten vases of flowers in the two exhibition rooms & nobody ever comes to it. I receive letters of apology—that’s all. I have made enough money to pay the potter, that’s all. But on Friday (the 14th July) I go to Annonay fête with Lucie & fifty balloon plates, paper lamp shades etc. I am charging 8 fr. each for my plates. If I come home with 400 fr. in my pocket I’ll dance a jig. I have four soup tureens & lots of tiny things ordered but 65 AD’s father gambled away the family’s fortune, which meant that her cousin Fairy’s family was left with a depleted property. 66 Abstraction & Création was the journal of the Abstraction–Création society. See Personae. 67 Sud, a periodical. Albert Gleizes, Art et science, Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons, 1933.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 107

1932 –1933

107

the people are getting spoiled here. I showed them too many things & they want the handles of this put on the form of that etc. etc. It’s funny I never can draw the real forms in a letter. Smudge for heaven’s sake don’t send me a penny unless you want the Herbin or Delaunay numbers of Abstraction & Création.68 I don’t need money at all in summer & perhaps this winter I’ll get more pupils. If I make 400 fr. at Annonay I’ll buy winter coal with it, coal is cheaper in summer . . .

K 18 July 1933 My darling, I sent you a tiny card yesterday by air mail to say I had received your cheque—thank you ever & ever so much dearie but be thankful I can say truthfully I do not need it . . . Well I took my plates to Annonay on Friday for the fête & sold 200 fr. worth in half an hour. Then an awful storm came & the balloon couldn’t go up & the thousands of Sunday best frocks were ruined, everyone was soaked to the skin & we had to go home. If it hadn’t rained I’d have sold the whole 500 fr. worth & have got orders probably. However I met a Monsieur Forot. He is a very important person especially in Madame Gleizes’ eyes ‘aux pigeoniers aux pigeoniers’69. . . You will read about him in Sud. Well he invited me to exhibit in August. It’s a frightfully exclusive & snob exhibition, nearly all from Paris. They have an open air theatre & all very good professionals from Paris & Anne will [have to] see how she’ll get home after the theatre. Heaven only knows. Le château is twenty-five miles from Annonay par autobus. But it will be an excellent opportunity of showing pottery to artistic people who will understand it. The little commercial people round here hate it, they say it’s thick & ugly & that they like fine porcelaine. M. Forot bought eight of my plates & was most flattering. The people of Annonay were perfect darlings to me. I had to take a car from Serrières 68 Auguste Herbin; Robert Delaunay. See Personae. 69 AD was referring to Théatre du Pigeonnier, a theatre founded by Charles Forot at St Félicien in central France that performed classical French repertoire as well as Shakespeare. It also held exhibitions and had its own printing press, les Editions Pigeonniers. See Fernand Perdriel, ‘Fêtes d’été en vivarais: Le Théatre du Pigeonnier’, Sud, Mediterranean, Marseille, n.d.


108

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 108


which cost me 30 fr. M. Grimaud had sent word I was to leave my packages chez lui.70 Madame G. took Lucie & me to a neighbour’s terrace to see the procession. It was beautiful Smudge. All the old aristocratic families took part together with peasants & townspeople & the costumes were not faked but the veritable dresses, hats & tiny parasols of their ancestors. Oh you should have seen Joseph Bêchetoille aged twelve in his white satin trousers with tiny pleated frill tight round his ankle & his shiny black shoes with silver buckles! His little jacket was of goblin blue satin & his shiny black hair fell to his shoulders, but his poise & his breed was what positively thrilled one as he marched absolutely unconscious that he stood out as a masterpiece from the past. His two big sisters had lovely dresses & sweet leghorn hats & tiny lace parasols, but they were hot & tired & the sabots (which even grand ladies wore when in the country) hurt. Mlle Séguin was wonderful.71 She has fair hair which she wore in long ringlet—she is very tall & elegant—& as she passed the monument to her great grandfather (Marc Séguin inventor of suspension bridges) she laid a huge wreath upon it & kissed the steps.72 The act was not ostentatious but dignified & impressive. Everyone in the procession wore costumes of a hundred and fifty years ago. The ‘peasants’ (mostly town girls) were sweet. They were filmed passing through narrow streets & funny old bridges & the police drove back the crowd with the very bestest [sic] French gendarme flourishes. We ate ham sandwiches & drank beer in Monsieur Filhol’s garden & then returned to M. Grimaud’s & were carried in his motor to the parc where a table awaited one en face de la porte d’entrée [facing the entrance].73 I quickly spread my blue sky paper nappe & the enormous ballon mes enfants [balloon that my children] had made [and] immediately I was surrounded by Mongolfiers, de Mongolfiers, Séguins, Bêchetoilles & Mignots etc. etc.74 They bought by sixes & sevens but a wild wind arose—rain, hail, thunder, lightening, lovely dresses streaming greens & purples— [and] une grande dame par terre, sa robe blanche [a great lady on the ground, her white dress] decorated avec a plum pudding very dark sur le derrière [on her bottom] & me with an ancient aunt of M. Bêchetoille in my care! I begged her to get under the table but she stood like a statue in pelting 70 71 72 73 74

Gaston Grimaud, a friend of AD’s who lived at Annonay. See Personae A young member of one of the region’s most notable families, the Séguins. Marc Séguin. See Personae. M. Filhol, a neighbour of AD’s. The names of the region’s most notable families.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 109

1932 –1933

109

rain & Lucie & I had to wrap ourselves about her & let the rain drown us. Marc Bêchetoille pranced round us lamenting . . . & I know that we screamed at him to keep at a distance, for we were in summer frocks. His three-cornered black velvet hat kept filling with water & having to be emptied & his white wig got all wet & the curls came uncurled & hung in drakes tails. . . . I sold 1000 fr. worth at my exhibition at Annonay. I paid the potter 500 fr. but I have another 1000 fr. worth here for sale & orders up to 250 fr. not counting Australia. I exchanged pots for eggs, fruit, garden manure & milk. Now I have a command [sic] for a six litre vinaigrier—that will be quite 30 fr.—but instead I’ll ask the peasants who gave the order to exchange potatoes for all [of] winter. I had a letter from John Pye at Tahiti.75 He loves it & is very happy painting in the country. Gauguin’s land will do him good & rub off some of poor Thea Proctor’s fashion plate ideas.76 Evie sent me all the articles on the centenary of ‘the Oxford Movement’ . . . [which] is the return of England to its former religion—Catholicism but not papism . . . It is the religion of the primitives & from Oxford is flowing a great stream of thought & study of this period which expressed itself in forms far removed from human images.77 I feel this movement identical with Monsieur Gleizes’ painting—non-representative, universal, solemn, mystic! I fear the crowds hungering & thirsting to understand. I fear the enthusiastic but not sufficiently cultured priesthood. The leaders realise the solemnity & miracle of the return to Christianity as prophesied, but how few understand primitive art, or primitive music, let alone the religion which they expressed! What a period we are living in little friend! Period? Why you & I have already lived three periods of history! Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, & now we are privileged to be right close to the prophet who saw the vision of this most wonderful REFORMATION of humanity twenty-three years ago! . . . Thank you thank you sweetheart, Anne . . . 75 John Pye. See Personae. 76 Thea Proctor. See Personae. GC shared AD’s dislike of Thea Proctor’s elegant drawings and fashionable subject matter, and in a letter to Daniel Thomas, then curator of paintings at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, expressed the following: ‘Why oh why such a fuss about Thea Proctor! She was certainly a very beautiful and charming woman, but her greatest contribution to the world of art as I see it, was to provide [George] Lambert with a perfectly stunning subject for painting.’ 16 December 1971, Art Gallery of New South Wales Archives. 77 The Oxford Movement was a movement for the revival of Catholic doctrine in the Church of England which began in Oxford about 1833.


110

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 110


K Moly-Sabata 24 July 1933 Sweetheart, I have received your letter with Orient line particulars & all the trouble I thought you have given to me. Perhaps it is all preparative & that I will be most grateful to have these particulars later on. At present I know I must stay here. But from yesterday I work to establish a future living for myself. That living will perhaps have to be here, but living it must be & for this purpose I am directing my thoughts to ‘best sellers’ & all sorts of things I never thought about. Is it right or wrong of me? I won’t paint to sell. Don’t think I’m about to make pink & green jardinières & lily vases—no. I won’t make vases—I refuse . . . In the mean-time dear let me send you pottery every now & then so that I will be getting known . . . I never paint. My pupils are babies. I’m not fit to tackle advanced students after nearly four years break. It’s simply sweet of you & Fizelle to offer me your studio which everyone tells me is so charming & so tasteful. But at Moly-Sabata I’ve learned a terrific lot about vegetable growing, agriculture, economy, pottery & the danger of being born rich, but although I’ve learned also a little technique of painting & much about the cause & effect of the crisis from Monsieur Gleizes, what I have learned would be considered positive piffle to the cocksure machine generation of young Australia. I believe Albert Gleizes a very, very great prophet whose visions have nearly all already come true . . . I don’t know why little Smudge & Anne are permitted to become aware—it is too wonderful! This new reformation of the Church of England is the most visible step away from materialism, but the twentytwo years work in Cubism has had perhaps a still greater influence in preparing thinking people for the great change already taking place all over the world. Is Australia on the map of the world yet? . . . ‘White Australia’ is a terrifyingly wicked motto, which makes me shudder when I think of the just Father of all creation’s rebuke.78 It is an awe inspir78 The White Australia Policy, the first issue dealt with by the new Parliament of Australia in 1901, was meant to keep Australia British and to keep out non-British immigrants. World War I further emphasised the importance of keeping Australia white.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 111

1932 –1933

111

ing study to go over the steps of the Mahatma Gandhi and note the growth of his power. England will cling in bulldog fashion to her grip on India—she cannot let go until her jaws lose power & fall apart of their own accord . . . Monsieur Bêchetoille came in one evening for a moment to say all my assiettes au ballon sont vendus [balloon plates have sold]. I had to pay the potter 1200 francs for firing & clay. The exhibition has only paid expenses & left me with 100 fr. for the food but I have lots of pottery over which may sell during the summer. Also it has advertised me greatly, but I had all the expense, risk & work for it. The others had the same advertisement through it. Besides the 100 fr. I lived on sales during five weeks & bought a cotton frock & 50 fr. worth of coal. So really I made perhaps 500 fr. profit in all & have quite 600 fr. worth of goods to sell. This means actual sales amounted to about 1700 fr., which is rather wonderful in a tiny country town. Au revoir chérie. I dare not dwell on what you say of soon having your dear arms round me. I must earn my boat ticket & a niche in Aussie. Bless you darling one, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons 1st August 1933 Chérie, Only a tiny letter tonight as I have to go to St Félicien with Monsieur Plasse at daylight tomorrow. There is an exhibition there & we are invited to exhibit. Monsieur Gleizes wrote to me to say he wished me to show the pochoirs, pottery & weaving [and] that he would pay all freight if I saw to the things getting there & being properly viewed. So off we go with a hand cart containing a clothes basketful of pottery, a big bundle of woven goods, a packet of pochoirs, four pictures & a porte-brosse in pottery & two huge lampshades. These have to be shipped on to the autobus for Annonay—at Annonay we change into another bus—& when we travel twenty-five kilometres we arrive at the town of St Félicien, but the exhibition is in a private château goodness knows where. I’m excited


112

31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 112


over the great adventure. Darling you are not angry with me for not coming home? You know I can’t accept a home from Fairy or Ruby. I have accepted from you in a way which is very very strange to myself. Dear the coming here was too great a miracle for me ever to be able to take a step in life without looking for that guidance which carried me twenty thousand kilometres in answer to my cry to be led somewhere I would find God. The teaching of Monsieur Gleizes was that way for me—others find the way by different routes—but for me I know I only understand through the language of painting. I’m narrow & dull—logic, science etc. befog me—but through paint the light shines for me. It was the man Albert Gleizes who would teach me. No, he is only a man, a dear, weak, humble vessel chosen because receptive, & because even the most high God must love him to have bestowed so much upon him. But one cannot find God through any man—only by losing self in the infinite, the All. The beginning & the end. In the anguish of finding Sydney so commercial—so common, so so vulgar, its American drink shops, pink ices & stale cakes in every second window, its crowded streets full of people who never never think of anything but where to go to lunch or tea—my deepest depths were shaken and I sent up that cry while pushing my way down George Street.79 A reassuring wave passed through me at once & in a few days I had your cable. Since then dear I make no movement without guidance. The money you sent me I accepted because I knew I was meant to do so. With all my heart I hope to some day do for you what you did for me. I don’t want you to ever be so poor that I’ll save you from bitter cold & even hunger, but I hope I’ll be able to support & carry you over all life’s big difficulties as you have me my wonderful Smudgelet. I will prepare now to return to Australia—someday. This is what I feel guided to do. But I am not sure at all why or when, or even if I will ever really be allowed to return. I find myself being more & more used by my master; I find myself able to see how to ease his wracked existence. He told Evie in Paris how difficult Madame made my life here & how deeply he appreciated me. She made me on my honour burn her letter & not send it to you, so I did although I longed to show it to you. Darling how can I run away in fear of this poor little Juliette Roche? Can she harm me? Smudgie did you really feel I was coming & begin to live me being there in your life & in yours & Fizelle’s studio? I know how I actually lived you being with me at Moly. When Juliette Roche wouldn’t let you 79 George Street in central Sydney was where artists had their studios.


31/5/02 11:42 AM

Page 113

1932 –1933

113

come (she couldn’t have stopped you had you been meant to come) I didn’t know how to take up the threads again.80 She stopped you because she feared we would be a great force ensemble on the side of the mission of Monsieur Gleizes. She got rid of Pouyaud for the same reason she wants to get rid of me. Dear I would like to stick to him, he needs me & she must be shown he is something more than a big advertisement to help her into an important circle. She is restless, fretful, miserable, frightened. She is terrified of looking at the signification of ‘non-figurative’ art poor creature! She’s over fifty—she wants gaiety, flattery, popularity— she married a much talked about Cubist. What a thrill! What an original idea!! Alas! He was the genuine article, a brain chosen to mark the history of this era. But that’s eerie & uncomfortable—she wants him to be a big success NOW—bother history when everyone one knows is dead; don’t let’s think about it. This Cubism is very dangerous—one gets mixed up with such solemn people. No, it mustn’t be allowed, it’s most dangerous. ‘Albert allez chercher mes lunettes je veux parler avec Miss Dangar sur le miel.’ [Albert go and find my glasses I would like to talk to Miss Dangar about the honey.]81

c

80 AD would have loved GC to come and work with her at Moly but most likely would have thought about this possibility more than GC. It seems clear from AD’s letters that there had been talk of GC coming to visit but that Mme Gleizes had been vehement in her opposition. 81 This last sentence, according to AD, is typical of the way in which Mme Gleizes interrupted important discussions by bringing up trivial issues, thereby gaining her husband’s attention and greatly irritating AD.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 114

3 Toujours les Choses Tournent, 1934–1938

Even after three years at Moly, Anne Dangar remained critical of Mme Gleizes and the many annoyances and inconveniences occasioned by the people invited by her to Moly-Sabata. Anne often complained to Grace Crowley of how unfairly she was treated and bemoaned the fact that Madame Gleizes overthrew ‘everything one builds up’. She even suggested that ‘all would be well’ if M. Gleizes had ‘thrashed her the minute they left the church when they married’.1 Fortunately, early in 1934 Lucie Deveyle left the Geoffrays’ employ and joined AD in her part of the house. Buoyed by Lucie’s companionship and support, AD remained at Moly despite her oft-voiced wishes to return to Sydney to establish a pottery and school. From the correspondence it is clear that a strong magnetism held her to the place and that she considered Gleizes to be her master, the focus for her life, and his work worthy of her sacrifice. Dangar never tired of explaining Gleizes’ theories to Crowley and her other correspondents, and she even summarised material from Gleizes’ most ambitious book, La forme et l’histoire, published in 1932. These lessons influenced a coterie of Sydney artists and resulted in Crowley’s advances towards abstraction at the end of the 1930s. In addition, AD’s reputation as a potter was beginning to grow by this time and people’s responses 1 Letter from AD to GC, 24 April 1938.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 115

1934–1938

115

to it made her feel that she was accomplishing more at Moly than she ever could in Sydney. On 26 December 1934 she wrote to Grace: ‘ . . . when pottery thrills me & satisfies me I often think that it is because I am only fit for a “minor art”, but it is traditional, dignified, close to nature & to nature’s movement, it is un chemin [a path], in spite of being such a tiny winding one.’ AD was also becoming increasingly interested in Gleizes’ religious theories in relation to art, which she attempted to share with GC in her letters, although it is clear that Grace did not share her convictions. She explained to GC that Gleizes’ theories did not derive from any religious belief, but rather that he had started his career as a painter taking Cézanne’s experiments as a departure point with the cubist analysis of pictorial form. In this way he was gradually led to the ideal form within nature, which in turn led him to the Catholic faith and Romanesque art and architecture. The fine examples of Romanesque architecture and sculpture in nearby towns such as Vienne, Lyon and Mirmande, and the landscape around Moly spoke to AD of an ancient history. As she observed to GC in January 1935, she was aware that her views on art might seem strange to artists in Sydney, whereas for her they were natural since she could enter into the life of ‘ . . . the historical Rhône, the primitive picture hills marked by curving lines showing man’s cultivating of les vignes century after century upon the natural contour of the earth, with the ruins of a feudal castle on the summit, old St Sornin still there with her secret of hundreds of skeletons huddled in her towers & cellars, with the ancient town whose roofs & walls dimensions in space have been carried along like supple living things bending against wind & turning towards the sun . . . ’.2 AD’s religious zeal predated her arrival at Sablons, but it was her introduction to Gleizes’ theories and work that gave her a vital focus. She often referred to Moly-Sabata as Albert Gleizes’ convent and no doubt would have seen herself as a nun. People who knew her at the time commented on her sober dress. She either wore white or black, had her hair cut short and, as some of her past students have noted, was careful to neutralise her sexuality. Certainly the potters of Roussillon and other towns treated her as an equal, which they would not have done had they seen her first and foremost as a member of the opposite sex. 2 ibid., 29 January 1935.


116

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 116


From time to time certain events made AD realise the extent to which she had become one with the life she had chosen to lead in rural France. In May 1935 she was invited by the British Consul in Lyon to attend the birthday celebrations of George V, later writing to GC about how out of place she had felt both at the Protestant church service and at the Consul’s reception. She made unfavourable comparisons between the British Consul with his ‘cherp cherp voice’, as she put it, and her French friends M. Bêchetoille and Gaston Grimaud. After the reception she fled into the streets of Lyon feeling much more at home there than in the Consul’s house surrounded by British citizens. Similarly, on a rare trip to Paris in 1937 AD went to see the International Exhibition at the Trocadero. She described with mock horror the Australian Pavilion at the exhibition, with its bales of wool, stuffed koala bears and opal brooches. Her final comment was, ‘Poor, ugly common little pavilion.’3

c Moly-Sabata 4th January 1934 Chérie, Another year marked off, they roll on & on, where? Monsieur Gleizes writes & talks of le temps all the time now le temps qui existe [the time that exists], not le temps that passes for if it exists how can it pass? Time which was not recognised in the painting of the Renaissance, which was dragged forth about fifteen years ago by some scientist, Einstein I think. I remember someone who came to Craigielea & talked very learnedly about ‘the fourth dimension-time’.4 But has painting four dimensions? It has the length & breadth of the surface it animates. What is ‘time’ in a picture? Time in music is understood merely as slow or quick movement but ‘time’ in painting is not that, although that life breathed into a picture which unites it with creation, tradition, the long past & the long future may take expression in slow movement or quick movement, but I think time is really expressed by the continual circular movement of all time. This is only ignorant Anne’s definition. If ever I get Monsieur 3 ibid., 8 November 1937. 4 AD, GC and Dorrit Black lived at a house called ‘Craigielea’ overlooking Neutral Bay, Sydney, when they were students.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 117

1934–1938

117

Gleizes alone I’ll ask him do I grasp it at all by my simple explanation. He writes & talks in parables I can’t read. He says that when time was rediscovered by science the Cubists’ arguments were one continuous uproar. He grabbed a glass on the table (for I was invited for both Christmas & New Year dinners) & shouted ‘They said this will destroy this glass, therefore the glass can’t exist as it will disappear, matter doesn’t exist. But others replied matter does exist; the matter of this glass always existed, it has changed its appearance but if the matter cannot pass away, it is dans le temps. If I break this glass (Oh non non Albert!!), I say if I break (oh non) THIS GLASS until it is a powder it exists, burn it, it still exists, liquefy it, it is—yes, it is a liquid.’ You will read other comparisons he makes in Art et science, & Delaunay. These two books will cost about 10/- if Monsieur Gleizes doesn’t give the copy of Art et science that he promised. Did you ever write & thank him for writing in La forme et l’histoire? These things count immensely with them, also any praise or interest in the book. At present they are almost crazy with excitement because Hitler has spoken with praise of La forme et l’histoire, on account of its doctrine of unity & attacks on individualism. Hitler you know has forbidden modern art in Germany because he judges it as individualism. As not belonging to tradition. In many cases he is right.5 There are a great number whose only interest in modern art is the distraction it offers. They are weary of everything & so make picture puzzles with scraps of scientific hearsay just to distract & be distracted. And young painters who have also heard tell certain scientific phrases seeing these in the paintings credit the works with some profound & vast significance, whereas they are merely an idle play of words. Monsieur Gleizes finds Picasso nothing but a clever trickster with good taste (which he often abuses for the sake of making his vast public gape) who has sold his soul to the dealers. He writes spitefully of Picasso & sarcastically of Lhote (whom I think too cautious, almost a moral coward regarding Cubism) & acts furious when I reply to his demands for my opinion by saying I can’t help wishing he wouldn’t bother about them, that [it] is only the ignorance of the public which makes them clamour over Picasso as the Jew dealers pull their strings, & time will show the true spirit of Cubism when these little gods are dead. 5 AD means by this that most modern art did not follow important traditions. She was critical of Picasso in particular, whom she considered too much of an individualist and his art driven by his ego.


118

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 118


That is how I feel about Miss Proctor & Dorrit & Roy de Mestre (who by the way has wriggled into a book on modern painting showing all the most celebrated modern sculptors & painters of Europe). He now is called Roi de Maistre!!!, by himself I suppose6. . . Good bye darling, how near you seem tonight. Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons 11 mars 1934 Chérie, . . . I get much praise from the Gleizes for my work, but now & then I get a criticism which does me good so don’t fear to tell me your whole opinion. Monsieur Gleizes is insisting on me joining Abstraction et Création Société & told me to tell you. I didn’t tell him but I am not sure if you ever paint non-representative work? One has to send three works to be judged & it costs 150 fr. to be a member. There is a shop, also a gallery where exhibitions of members’ work is exhibited. The magazine is sent to members each month & members in Paris meet & converse, conferences are held in the exhibition room etc. etc. Monsieur Gleizes said he would invite Dorrit to join. Of course Mainie, Evie & Pouyaud are members—there are 400 in all. Lucie left the Geoffrays two months ago & I am glad to have a simple unpretentious little girl to share a kitchen with after my experiences with the motley crew here. . . . Monsieur Gleizes is in Serrières. He spent two or three hours in my little kitchen the day [Madame] went away & told me all his thoughts about painting since I had a talk with him just a year ago. He asked me to come to his studio next day & see the work he had been doing. He has been working on the nine things he did last year when I worked with him. Do you know Smudge I’m glad not to work with him this year. He told me he was sorry but that Madame Gleizes couldn’t work when there were too many in the studio. Well, I don’t want to work too much under his influence. I would adore to have time to work now for two months. My mind and heart are full to the brim of what I long to put down, but his wife’s constant sneers at my ignorance paralyse me in her 6 Roy de Maistre. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 119

1934–1938

119

presence. I am glad to be free from her company. She tried to gaol me as she has gaoled Piquet her cat, Taboo her dog, & poor Monsieur Gleizes. Monsieur Gleizes has been passing through a very strange experience in his work. He says the first week in March 1934 will stand out in his memory as the most important week of his career. He thinks he has discovered the secret of moyen age [medieval] art. I looked at his work for an hour or so. He has encircled and bound every picture with a grey line of even dimension and perfectly neutral tint—a firm relentless, inflexible line. The effect is very fine. The pictures possess an austerity & a unity such as I have never seen except in primitive art, but since Friday I have looked & looked & looked at Jacopo Bellini’s Madonna.7 Monsieur Gleizes explained his revelation. Hoyack—a professor of philosophy from Holland—came & spent a week with him.8 He is a heavy university brained creature who can understand nothing until it is put on the dissecting table & cut in morsels. He said he couldn’t understand La forme et l’histoire at all. He demanded explanations of the words used: ‘space’, ‘temps’, etc. etc. Monsieur G. made [Hoyack] define these words because he said M. G. was wrong in saying God was not in either space or time because God was unchangeable & space & time were changeable. Hoyack said space was unchangeable then when demanded to define it he said it was the distance from one object to another. M. Gleizes said, ‘Well, take the flower in your hand for instance & its distance from me—a dimension. Now how long will that flower endure if you keep it in your hand? ‘Two days perhaps,’ Hoyack replies. ‘Yes in two days the space will have changed because the flower will be dead’ etc. etc. etc. But M. Gleizes went to his studio. He looked at his pictures, the lovely dimensions of colour, the rhythm, movement, time. But the unchangeable? He realised he had missed the very thing he had been searching [for] since 1921. He sent me word he was going to burn all his work since 1926. Knowing the French temperament I only missed two hours sleep & had wild dreams one night. He didn’t burn them—he reflected long & I think prayerfully for he spoke of his Gesthemane on the nature of God. In two days he had this revelation. But although I see & feel the architecture complete of the Roman period9 there is something lacking. Jacopo Bellini gives all Gleizes gives but also that golden 7 Jacopo Bellini was a fifteenth-century Venetian Renaissance painter. 8 Louis Hoyack. See Personae. 9 By Roman, AD means Romanesque. She is no doubt translating from the French word Romain.


120

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 120


light of pure love & a one-ness between the symbol (the virgin mother— the sheltering body of the church) and the spirit—also the humility of the painter offering his all in worship. Ah we are far from the spirit of le moyen age we pauvres analystes [poor analysts] of 1934. Goodbye darling. Your little black boy is on my knee & sends you a sweet song. Bless you dear, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 13th April 1934 Dear little mate, Your letter full of interest in your pupils, of your unselfish life, was like pure crystal. We are submerged by a wave of naturisme.10 Madame G. arrived back from Paris with twenty of them. Poor Monsieur is bored stiff, last night I went to hear them. They can talk of absolutely nothing but the body & things of the body—poor Monsieur Gleizes is on another planet. It is terrible for him to be hobbled & tied to a peg, when in every part of the world there are beautiful young, sincere, superior beings hungering for the food he has in abundance to give. Madame arrived Sunday, she told the two maids they must take four days holiday, from Thursday to this Sunday, because they were not naturistes & she only wanted those in sympathy about. So Lucie took Eugénie’s place & a German girl from Alsace was brought to do the cooking. On Tuesday the Gleizes bought a sucking pig & had a glorious feed Tuesday & Wednesday. Wednesday night the first vegetarians arrived & Madame became a hard & fast vegetarian but Monsieur, though forced to live those four days on vegetarian diet, said last night with violence, ‘I’m not a nature lover, I love old wines and good steak and I partake of them with pleasure.’11 You should have seen the self-righteous naturistes’ faces! The whole twenty of them were there. Pooh! It’s all tommy rot! It is healthy to eat quantities of fruit & salad & nuts but it’s bunkum to say meat & wine (taken without exaggeration) have a demoralising effect on character. It is unhealthy & disgusting to think & talk of only food, these people only have stomachs, no brains at all. Today the Doctor de Marquette gave a 10 Naturisme is a form of alternative medicine—homoeopathy—based on herbal remedies. 11 This sentence was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 121

1934–1938

121

lecture in the woods beside Moly.12 Frightfully poetic & charming you know but absolute piffle. He says the greatest peace force in the world today is naturisme because war is caused by national greed & egoism. Natural greed & egoism is made up of party greed & egoism is composed of individual greed & egoism. Greed & egoism are the products of rivalry of cities of commerce etc. Naturistes leave cities & go to the country, each cultivates his own foodstuffs, therefore he saves his country from having to export & so he saves it from commercial rivalry etc. etc. Your clear crystal letter telling of ‘Betty’ (whoever she is) & the Saturday talks & the eager listeners was with me as I looked at those self-satisfied naturistes & the grands peasants of Sablons sitting about us on the grass. Your ‘Bettys’ & young men seeking so earnestly the bread of life Albert Gleizes has been given charge of & those thick earthy old peasants who also possess it, simply because they fulfil the command to replenish the earth & so live always in close communion with the creator. Monsieur Gleizes said one day ‘I am so happy!! Oh Cubism is pure joy for it is light & life. If one lives in the life one fulfils man’s destiny to be made in the image of God. Cubism is creation, the Cubist is a creator, the son of the Father Creator!’ Then he almost muttered, ‘My wife lives . . . in death, she doesn’t understand life, you are fortunate because you can feel what it is like to be alive, you live life, your work is to create with the hands of your spirit.’13 It is so true. This poor rich woman playing with one toy after another searching distraction. The naturistes welcome the daughter of Jules Roche Ministre de Finance & flatter & toady her.14 They let her meddle with their magazine because probably she finances it. But oh how she talks & hobbles Monsieur Gleizes in shedding the light! When I hear her interrupt—turn the subject—or cry in her high voice, ‘Albert, don’t speak about it, no one is interested.’15 I wonder how this doll will be permitted to stop the way? I am always glad this [naturistes] congress came & fed Monsieur Gleizes up to the eyes. Now he goes to England where the Oxford Movement awaits him—religion & art coming together again after so many years of separation! And what is very beautiful & wonderful they meet just where they dwelt together before—in that dwelling place of mind & spirit, when all the centuries of materialism have never entered, & do not count at all. Smudge do not confuse the 12 13 14 15

Doctor Demarquette was a homoeopathic doctor. This sentence was originally written in French by AD. Jules Roche. See Personae. This sentence was originally written in French by AD.


122

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 122


Oxford Movement (which is a movement towards the return of the Apostolic Catholic faith to which England was converted in the 5th century & Ireland in the 3rd century) with the Oxford Group. The latter [is] an American revivalist affair quite individualistic & without technique or tradition. . . . Darling I love Australia because of her beauty & forms & colours & architecture. But the true sincerity of Australians is pure & sparkling & I love Australians MUCH MORE than the French with one exception—Monsieur Gleizes! No Australian could become an Albert Gleizes alas, France alone can produce art leaders, they are built on tradition & tradition is in Europe. Bless you dear courageous little mate . . .

K Moly-Sabata 1st May 1934 Chérie, Guess what Anne has been doing? Somehow I can never believe I am not still the dunce of the East Kempsey public school, the stupid one of the family & the shame of my Sydney aunts. Well she’s been translating the resumés of the two lectures of Albert Gleizes to be given at the London University! Hmm! IT WAS DIFFICULT!!! But I was so proud of Monsieur Gleizes giving it to me to do I wouldn’t let it best me, especially as he said ‘Only you & Mainie could do this, one would have to understand my teaching au fond to give the true meaning in English.’ Oh I hope I haven’t made mistakes! I sent Mainie & Evie a copy which they’ll send on to Dorrit & I’ll tell Dorrit to post it to you after she has shown it to Ruth Ainsworth & any other Australians she can interest.16 They are going to be WONDERFUL lectures. The old Slade School (Professor Greenwood says all the students are already talking about Gleizes coming over but they little know what they’re going to hear) will get the shock of a canon on its foundation stone of democracy & caution.17 The students of science will get a hit that will make them see stars for a month, & the theologians of England will receive light upon their path which they will welcome with a great doxology of praise. 16 Ruth Ainsworth. See Personae. 17 Professor Greenwood was a teacher at the Slade School in London.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 123

1934–1938

123

. . . Have received an order for a plaque en terre with a virgin & child. I will love doing it in spite of not agreeing with the belief of the virgin being worshipped. I will try not to be influenced by the Renaissant [sic] prettiest woman possible idea (& making of woman an idol) but use the images in a purely symbolic way. The plaque is to be placed on a wall covered with ivy at the end of a terrace belonging to a lovely old home & garden. The people are a bit scared of me, they said ‘I don’t want it to be too grotesque please.’ They intend standing flowering pot plants beneath the plaque . . . Goodnight my darling, care for your precious self . . . Blessings on you my sweet precious one—dearest soul in all the world. Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère July 1934 Smudge dearest, At last I can write you a business letter but if it isn’t quite clear blame the weather. I am streaming perspiration & having to rub arms, neck, legs & feet with lavender flowers all the time because of biting flies & mosquitoes. We have had the nearest approach to a drought France has known for fourteen years & today we have been blessed with two thunder storms, very little rain so far, but the heat & mugginess must bring more to pass. Your Albums Drouet only came last night I was getting anxious about them.18 They are very fine, I am sure you will like them immensely. I also spent twelve fr. on a copy of Arts et décoration for you as it had Lhote’s very latest work.19 I find he has changed very much in the last things. He seems to be caught in the swirl of the circle at last but he has not yet realised the axis which is immobile, unchanging, absolute. I like earlier works of his better than the two last, but the fact that he is charming pleases me. The portrait (No. 13) is nice isn’t it? And some of his compositions, Convalescence, la Brodeuse etc. are delightful. All the same dear I don’t want to send you all these pictures of Pouvoir Temporel [temporal power] until I can also send a few photographs of that chosen of l’Autorité Spirituel’ [spiritual authority/power] . . . 18 La Maison Drouet is a famous art auction house in Paris. 19 Arts et décoration was a French decorative arts journal.


124

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 124


What the writer says about Lhote is good. M. Gleizes often says Lhote’s ability is his drawback. That nude lying down constructed by Cubism is a magnificently built thing isn’t it? Nobody could deny that it has a knowledge & power behind it that Metzinger, Picasso & Gleizes do not show to an equal degree in their works of that period (certainly in 1921 Gleizes & Metzinger had quite given up that way of working [as] they worked in that manner in 1910–1912 & abandoned it for the flat surface in 1913). But after all Lhote only uses all that analysis of plastic form to make his painting of a nude woman (below) architectural & plastic, & yet natural. For him Cubism is a means but not an end the writer says. Monsieur Gleizes says the same thing but a means to what end? For Gleizes Cubism is the means by which one separates one self from objective form & enters the realm of creative form! The realisation of being [made in the] image of the Creator, a part of the absolute, unchanging eternal. The nude woman, perishable matter, does not merit the breath of life of the artist creator, it is that divine respiration itself which is the means, & in the deep study, & reflection, & communion in this means one is lifted up from the surface of forms before our eyes . . .20 Goodbye darling & God bless you, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 15th August 1934 What do you think darling? I’ve just been packing up to go on a sketching trip for four days to Thorrenc. I’m terribly excited. I’ve packed a canvas & three gouache outfits, & have all my paints & brushes, umbrella, overcoat etc., but all I can fit in to eat is twelve lumps of sugar, some salt & pepper, & a little tea. One can buy nothing to eat at Thorrenc (the old feudal château) & the market town is St Désirat, three kilometres each way & a mountain to climb. I think I’ll find eggs & goat’s milk & figs but I must take bread & butter somehow. Monsieur le curé has lent me his presbytery. Is it quite proper? He doesn’t live there now, lives at Annonay & the house is empty. 20 Maurice Denis in his ‘Definition of Neo-Traditionalism’ wrote: ‘Remember that a picture before it is a war horse, a naked woman or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours arranged in a certain order.’ From Théories: 1890–1910, L’occident, Paris, 1912, p. 1.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 125

1934–1938

125

Thorrenc!! Who was Thor, Smudge? Wasn’t he a great German chieftain or something of the kind who came & took possession of northern France before Charlemagne’s time? I can’t remember but I’ve an idea he was a great & good warrior. What am I going to do at Thorrenc? Landscape I want to study under father time to find out how he manages to turn & wind & wrap together the whole village with the château roofs bend & curve & lead upwards, walls simply ignore man’s idiotic belief that stones are dead immovable things. I think these four days will be my best lessons in Cubism. Then Thorrenc has another side where one doesn’t see the village—it is a Chinese silk decoration.21 Perhaps I’ll put it on an umbrella stand cylinder, I don’t know. . . . My garden is a dream. I fixed it all up so that I could go off with a fine conscience. I have a splendid stock of vegetables for next winter. At last I’m getting into the way of providing in four months for the other eight. One can’t plant or sow seeds till April & not after the end of July . . . Goodbye darling, I feel as if I’m going off to Mirmande for three months. Take four days off soon, you need them before the muggy days of November come along. Blessings on my precious, Anne.

K Series of postcards l’Hotel à Mirmande undated Dear little mate, How near you are when I return to the places we saw together!22 Johnny Pye came along on Saturday & insisted on me accompanying him as far as Nice. We left Monday & went by the lovely mountain road commencing at Loriol. It was the road we two innocents thought of going by on foot to Italy. One mounts to 500 feet. The flowers on the high two mountains were a miracle. It was a perfect day & the dazzling yellow broom against the blue sky with patches of purple & pale heliotrope, campanulas, white daisies, pink convolvulus etc. etc. kept us in ecstasies. We came through Grasse about 6.00 PM. Then in Johnny’s lovely car 21 As Thorrenc is a hill town, when it is viewed from the other side of the hill there are no buildings in sight. AD thought Thorrence resembled a Chinese landscape painting. 22 Mirmande had a special place in AD’s heart as it was where she and Grace had painted together at Lhote’s summer school in the late 1920s.


126

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 126


we were soon in the midst of dazzling panoramas on the beach at Cannes. It was 9.00 o’clock and we sat down to a very nice meal on the esplanade at Nice. Then I had to see about a car to bring me back. I would have liked to have had the morning to look round Nice again but my car for northward left at 7.00 AM next morning. The route was most exciting, it followed the sea shore from Nice to St Raphael then branched off to St Maximin & Aix. We only stopped five minutes but I scuttled round the corner to see the old wall beneath my terrible nightmares. The old yellow cathedral towered above the city as we went out by the road below Cézanne’s house. All the time you were my companion. We reached Avignon at 1.30 PM & I found I had to wait till 5.00 PM for my bus. I was glad but as I passed the antique theatre at Orange I was furious that I didn’t take a bus to Orange and wait there.23 At 7.00 I reached the road branching off to Mirmande. I had decided to sleep there & see the potter at Cliousclat.24 The country about Mirmande is richer & more lovely than I ever saw it. More of the land has been turned into fruit culture & the peach, apricot & plum trees are weighed down with fruit while all the fruit at Sablons was damaged by late frosts. Oh Smudge, Mirmande is unique!! It was marvellous last night! I had to get to the hotel as the mother & daughter were outside & recognised & welcomed me. But it has greatly improved, the food is very good & they have a terrace & ice chest & tiled floors & mosquito & fly blinds etc. . . . Today I went to ask the potter could I have a firing here to try to catch up my orders while Bert gradually fires all the things I have waiting. It will frighten the Gleizes, they’ll think I’m returning to Lhote & it will do them good . . .

K Moly-Sabata 15th September 1934 Smudge darling, . . . Have finished at the pottery after exhibition. Have made quantities. Never, never have I had such a huge stock—I do hope it will sell, I have 23 Orange is a town in the south of France just north of Avignon. 24 AD apparently always slept at Mirmande—‘the most beautiful town I have ever seen in my life’—when she worked at Cliousclat. From AD letter to Dom Angelico Surchamp, in Surchamp, Anne Dangar . . . , op.cit., p. 82.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 127

1934–1938

127

six huge jars. There are two huge lamps & Madame Plasse has made the stuff for the shades. One is a black bowl & the other much rounder— cream with black decoration & the abât jour is salmon with a little black for the black bowl is in many gay stripes. Whole dinner service—modern. Madame Plasse made the table linen to match. Another smaller service for an ancient maison de campagne. My plaque with Noah & the ark isn’t nearly as rich as la vierge [the virgin]. I fear it is too close to the schéma, I hadn’t time enough to develop it to a sufficient richness, but I think the lettering is good. ‘I will not abuse the earth because of man. As long as the earth survives, the sowing, the harvests, the cold, night and day will not cease.’ God’s covenant with Noah. There are six ravishing tea services & all sorts of darling things I’ve forgotten I made. Now I’m doing the drawing for the fireplace & will do about twenty tiles of it (a detail) for exhibition. Work is thrilling, but life other than my work is horrible here. I shut everything out but my work. Absolutely no companionship. The people of Moly hate me because they know I despise their hypocrisy, lies, cheating meanness. The peasants like me & are sweet to me, that’s all . . .

K Moly-Sabata 11th October 1934 My precious Smudge, How refreshing it is to get your sincere straight out letters! . . . Oh Smudge life is a bitter pill. The jealousy & spite I live with is inconceivable. I suppose it’s very good for my soul to have to endure like Job but if I had the sympathy of one single understanding person I could bear it. The exhibition opened on Sunday, it is by far the best yet. Oh Smudge how I’d love to pour out the whole story but it would take too much paper & all it would do would not advance Cubism; that is my purpose in life. Instead I’ll brag, for alone I did it except for the poor collection of weaving show. The big studio contains six big canvases of Gleizes, five entrancing gouaches executed at Cavalaire this summer. Five decorations in étoffes appliquées [appliqué fabrics] designed by Juliette Roche & executed by Lucie Deveyle. One done by Lucie in étoffes appliquées, six charming gouaches by Lucie & a little landscape in silk made with silk patchwork & embroidery. Also two cushions by Lucie & an afternoon


128

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 128


tea cloth. Seven oil paintings by Mlle Garnier Moutonet, my St Rambert pupil. They are much closer to Lhote than Gleizes but her colours sing with youth & Cubism. A big Cubist decoration in papier découpé [collage] by Anne Dangar & one by René Surzac with the motto of Isère, ‘Rien ne vaut comme la terre.’ [Nothing is as good as clay.] In clay I have panels about three feet by eighteen inches, one of la vierge et l’enfant Jésus [the virgin and child] . . . I have two big holy water stoups (Cubist), four huge jars, one with gargoyles & monsters that is très excitant [sic], two umbrella stands with the château de Thorrenc engraved & the village winding up to it. I have a complete Cubist dinner service of fifty pieces & the Plasses made the table mats, serviettes etc. It is all in golds, yellow greens, grey mauve & a little bronze black on our yellow green table. Autumn leaves & mauve chrysanthemums in green jug are on top of the table. There are seven tea services, one chocolate service, a soup service in dark blue & cream. There are about fifty jugs, perhaps two hundred plates, eight lamps, two huge bells with French songs & all the innumerable things of pottery. There are three rooms (counting the studio) filled with the work of M. & Mme Gleizes, my pupils & myself. The Plasses have l’atelier de tissage where they show about eight nice, natural coloured pieces for ammeublements [furniture], eight scarves, & perhaps six dress lengths. They sent their work to Paris instead of keeping it to exhibit here. The children’s work fills my room & looks lovely on my blue, blue walls. Gilka Geoffray is in charge & plays tunes on goblets every afternoon. Surzac (a Parisian here for a few weeks) helped me hang the three biggest pictures of Gleizes & bring them over from Serrières. I framed all my pupils’ work (Gleizes lent frames), bought six or seven glasses, bought two hundred invitation cards & sent them & paid Lucie 75 francs to help me with the hanging. Neither Geoffray or Plasse drove a single nail or spent one farthing on the exhibition. Geoffray though, arranged a very nice musical program for the opening. The Plasses behaved disgustingly & yet they benefited more than me [from] the opening day. They got new orders for eight hundred francs worth & the confirmation of a doubtful order for another 1000 francs worth. I sold 400 francs worth & received orders for another four hundred francs. Dr Buisson bought my vierge for one hundred francs. Mrs Duivon bought [the] Noah [plaque] for seventy francs & the following morning her husband dropped dead so perhaps she won’t take poor old Noah.25 Praise & compliments showered your 25 Dr Buisson and Mrs Duivon were clients of AD’s.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 129

1934–1938

129

Anne. My Annoniens came in flocks & I’ve enough invitations to lunches in magnificent châteaux to last me six months.26 But I like these Annonay folk. The Plasses call them snobs but they are not, they are old aristocratic families brought up to love works of art & books & flowers & music & poetry but not to mix with common theatrical people like the Geoffrays & little Plasses. I thought Madame Plasse superior but her mother came for a two month’s visit this summer & I saw they were all tarred with the same brush. In the people of Annonay I find sympathy & interest, not real understanding or comradeship but the nearest approach to these that [I] can hope for here, & I know not one of them would come near Moly-Sabata if I left. They never invite the others chez eux. It was good darling to see the whole house packed with interested people, golden autumn sunlight lighted up the pictures & pottery & I’m sure everyone carried away a memory of light & colour & richness . . . Goodbye my blessing. I’m glad you’re going into the country for a few days. My love to everyone who remembers me & my dear, dear love for my mate, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 29th November 1934 Darling, Here I am late with your first lesson for the mail this week. This time it’s Monsieur Gleizes’ fault & I’m happy about it. He is très intéréssé, but wants me to tell you & the others who are with you that you must put into practice the exercises I give. He wants to supervise all I send you while he is here & he wants me to show him your regularly posted drawings, he will give you his opinion on them so that I can tell you. I am thankful to have him at the back of me. I felt I had done so little painting since I came over that it was hardly fair to pose as a teacher to you who practice all the while. Certainly I apply what I learn to the simplest little bird plate I make—space, dimensions, movement etc.—but there is nothing like downright painting to make the intelligence clear. Tomorrow Monsieur Gleizes will look over my first lesson & then it will go off. He is finding me a wonderful old book on the technique of religious painting in the Middle Ages. I have spent two glorious hours in his bibliothèque 26 Annoniens are residents of Annonay.


130

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 130


with it & him, it is terribly dogmatic, the master dictates to his apprentices—do this & do that. No reason why often, but we who have studied under Gleizes can understand the reason. . . . Another terrifying birthday will be upon me in two days but it finds me doing work I could not do twenty years ago. Today I had to go to Serrières gare for a hundred kilos of pottery in two huge cases & bring it here in a hand cart. Of course I had to get into the shafts like a horse & pull & put the brake on in turns exactly as if I was one. This pottery went to an exhibition at Lyon but very little sold. It poured with rain all the while the exhibition was held & nobody went to it they told me. Serve me right for showing at such a commercial affair. I lost about two hundred francs through doing so. I’m not a bit discouraged. I see that my pottery is liked & each year I sell more. In fact now I gain my living, & am kept as busy as I can be. Oh Smudge whatever would I have done here without this métier? What a heaven sent thought came to me at Quimper when I felt I must learn pottery . . . I’d love to spend a week at Lyon just sucking in musées & book shops, but when I go it’s always a mad rush from the moment I get up at 4.30 AM to catch the ten to six train until I crawl home at 11.00 PM limping & stumbling along the dark quay in my city shoes. I hate Lyon as a city & I hate the Lyonnais but there are beautiful things to see there all the same. My old potter of St Désirat, Pignault died last Saturday. I am so thankful to have worked with Pignault, for I fear he is the last of his tribe of grand old workmen of a bygone age. Certainly he was the best potter I have known, & I owe him all I know regarding real pottery. ‘Pottery is not made with a glance, nor with the hands, it is constructed, it’s the movement of the form which controls successful pots.’ 27 Imagine that from an ignorant old dirty workman! One could look at his rows of pots & see the same movement in each one of the five hundred & the result was the same pleasure to look upon as the parade of magnificently built beasts at the Easter show. Thank God I was led to old Pignault, he always got drunk when I needed him most, he caused me every species of despair known, but he made me understand pottery & much about the true meaning of Cubism. For what is Cubism but ‘le mouvement de la forme compris’ [the movement of understood form]. . . . Bless you my precious & may you have a lovely Christmas & wonderful new year. Don’t put too much faith in Lhote, his last works are 27 This sentence was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 131

1934–1938

131

sloppy Turners, Monsieur Gleizes says I insult Turner by saying so because Turner is gras [thick] & Lhote thin & weak in his Autumn Salon work. I was shocked when I saw them. I fear the crisis is making him paint to sell. Pierre is screaming at me for his soup. Goodbye darling & blessings on you, your Anne . . .

K Moly-Sabata 26th December 1934 Treasure, . . . Oh darling when pottery thrills me & satisfies me I often think that it is because I am only fit for a ‘minor art’, but it is traditional, dignified, close to nature & to nature’s movement, it is un chemin [a path], in spite of being such a tiny winding one. But this week I received the annual Home [magazine] from John in all its gold & Will Ashton cover.28 I opened it & turned over the pages [and] saw there were beautiful photographs but the most terrible, terrible, shameful evidence of the vulgarity & baseness of the type of creature daring to call himself a painter out there. I felt choked & ill as I cut out all those coloured reproductions & the cover & put them in the fire. Is it any wonder Gleizes satisfies me? To whom can one turn in this filthy world but to this man who by twentyseven years of sincere search for truth, & truth only, has been rewarded by finding more than he could ask or think, & to know anatomy or hair’s breadth accuracy in visual surfaces, what can it serve?29 Gleizes didn’t start out to seek religion when he turned from copying what he saw. He saw that Cézanne had another conception of accuracy in drawing than surface, linear shape, & he saw as you do that drawing created by reason & emotion are much more powerful & valuable than those arrived at by knowledge & study & observation of material form. It was only after twelve years of very profound study of ‘form’ in many of its significations that he was led to his great astonishment to the understanding of ‘form’— God’s expression of the world, the sky, man, are one means of this expression, one tiny side. Time, reason or, religion, etc. the other sides. 28 Sydney Ure Smith founded Home, a stylish magazine that espoused modernist views, in 1920. Sydney Ure Smith; Will Ashton. See Personae. 29 Gleizes realised that art had to go beyond faithful representation of the external world, and Cubism began the task of breaking up the picture’s surface.


132

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 132


These are the forms studied & expressed in sculpture & painting of early Christianity. By symbols they tried to express as the first fire of inward vision weakened, & by symbols we who are so blind & ignorant can sometimes understand the meaning behind [them]30. . . They lived in the ‘present’, not in passing time or in dreams of being rich next year, possessing this or that in the future, etc. etc. The Roman Catholic church in the Middle Ages was constructed upon the most perfect visible form of that inward & spiritual grace. But if the Vatican still possesses the treasure of the history of the origin of the form & harmony of man and other sacraments those in authority at Rome do not teach or follow the spirit . . . Do not think Smudge that I am turning a Roman Catholic. I never think of such a thing. But I can’t but feel excited & eager that in England the church is meditating upon the same period as expressed the fresques of St Savin, the tympan de Vézelay, etc. etc.31. . . If one really belongs to the spirit one can’t be individual, it is nothing else but the making of a whole unity. And it is that which makes us believe it is the spirit of the second coming of Christ, as foretold after the period Anti-Christ.32 I’m so afraid you will resent my preaching but you tell me you want Gleizes’ ideals. You know your cablegram came to me four days after the most earnest prayer of my life that Albert Gleizes would teach me to know God. Dear Albert Gleizes! . . . Do you know it is only since October that we, who often look through books of illustrations of the Middle Ages, did not see that the rainbow, God’s promise, is the interpretation of the Roman arch, perhaps of the aureole, for now (only since ONE week) we see it in the fresques (which are all in earth colours). The great circle used behind the Christ or Virgin commences with green (blue being generally the background) & on to yellow ochre to orange, red, grey violet & then surrounded by that grey line Monsieur Gleizes has been employing since last March wholly on his own interpretation of immovable, unchangeable light, one-ness—unity of all. And the rainbow? What made stupid old Anne get Noah & his ark on the brain all through summer? It wasn’t Gleizes. Nor was it l’Arche33 (a blessed little revue which I am going to take & will send on to you), but I didn’t know it until after I 30 Early Christian art substituted symbols for realistic representation. 31 The portals of Vézelay are important examples of Romanesque sculpture often cited by Gleizes. 32 Belief in the spirit and in the Church’s teaching will enable the second coming of Christ. 33 L’Arche, a 1930s French journal. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 133

1934–1938

133

had done my plaque with the arc en ciel [rainbow] it was that we all who are working towards the understanding of unity will have the same thoughts.34 Monsieur Gleizes had never thought of the rainbow until in l’Arche he read that chapter of Genesis & was struck with the thought that God commands his little group to build an ark that is now in preparation for the destruction (not of the entire world as the rainbow promises) of the Occident. The ark l’Arche points out is the same really as that of La peinture et ses lois,35 & the idea of Moly-Sabata: to express the unity of form instead of copy the visual material side, & to work in perfect accord with nature, eat natural foods, keep natural hours, work with hands & reason. In fact return to thoughts & habits such as they were before Leonardo & his perspective, machines & all the other things that have brought about the crisis & individualism . . . Blessings on you, don’t be angry with me. I love you more than ever, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 29th January, 1935 Darling, Your ‘Glen Riddle’ letter has just come & fills me with you & home36. . . Smudge dear I’ve been ill for a month & have had to have Lucie look after me. It was an influenza resembling the Spanish but not so terrible. It has swept over our two little towns carrying off babies & old people but until yesterday there were no deaths among the strong. However yesterday a man of fifty died from it & I hear another has been given up by Dr Buisson . . . Snow has been swirling & whirling down for four days & it is terribly cold, but the crisp air is better for sick people than damp, & in another fortnight we’ll see the first primroses perhaps. Monsieur Gleizes says they always appear the 15th February. . . . I fear how you & your friends will take my ‘talks’. Your surroundings are so unlike these old unchanging principles. Here with the 34 Presumably AD realised that the arc of the rainbow that she had been thinking about was a symbol common to a number of religions. 35 A book by Albert Gleizes. See Bibliography. 36 ‘Glen Riddle’, GC’s parents’ property.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

134

Page 134


historical Rhône, the primitive picture hills marked by curving lines showing man’s cultivating of les vignes century after century upon the natural contour of the earth, with the ruins of a feudal castle on the summit, old St Sornin still there with her secret of hundreds of skeletons huddled in her towers & cellars, with the ancient town whose roofs & walls dimensions in space have been carried along like supple living things bending against wind & turning towards the sun, it is only easy to see the undeniable truth of his teaching . . . I know you love the Primitives dearly, dearly, Smudge. For this reason I know you have already entered into the spirit of the circle. It is that dome of sky & time & space moving together in rhythmic music which makes fear of the future melt away, we feel time passing in sure orderly march, but the present remains unchanging, immobile. Yes, I understand your love of living alone. I would found a MolySabata in Australia if I won the lottery, because I want to give to others what Gleizes has revealed to me & start a Noah’s ark in his name against the day when Australia will wake up to the fact that the flood is already upon her. But in that Moly-Sabata I would have my cell apart & each one would have the help of perfect isolation while being a group . . . Dearie would you be terribly disappointed if Australia never appreciated your work? You speak so often of success & succeeding [but] I don’t believe you are working for these things really, your work is far too good & pure. Already it is above being understood upon the level of little critics who put their calculating wooden heads together about art matters in Sydney. You see how the whole education system of the world accepted the writings of historians who judging from their own epoch’s standards classed the Middle Ages as the ‘dark ages’ & their work as those of ignorant barbarians. Sydney judges art by the standards of Will Ashton. Do you want to be understood by such? I know you are blinding your own eyes to the truth. It is your work you love; it is un chemin [that’s] leading you right away from Sydney with her Sundae [sic]37 shops & cinemas & common-nesses. You are withdrawing to the haven of your eagle’s nest for communion with the thoughts of light & sky & rhythm which are the thoughts of the elite scattered here & there putting order into movement. . . . Bless you my sweet friend. Lucie was a funny nurse after Smudgie. Blessings on you, your Anne. 37 Possibly ice-cream shops.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 135

1934–1938

135

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 24 mars 1935 Dearest, It was sweet of you to write, you had so much to do & much better to write a hurried letter than none at all. It made me ashamed for I haven’t written for a long while because I hadn’t time to write a decent letter. . . . I hunger for scope to give Monsieur Gleizes to students, but the nice young things like Petersen & many who were at Lhote’s (you & Anne for example) don’t know the garden of Eden is waiting for them only nine hours from Paris. I have been extremely interested with the criticisms of the exhibition of Cubist pictures being held in Paris at present. M. Gleizes received word of it [in] February. Rosenberg wrote saying he was going to organise it & asked him who should be invited to show as he only wished those who had been the original Cubists. Gleizes sent a list: Gris, Delaunay, Metzinger, Herbin, Leger, Lhote, Picasso, Braque, La Fresnaye & himself.38 Rosenberg wrote saying he wanted to add two others, Valmier & another whom I forget.39 M. Gleizes wrote saying V. [Valmier] only joined the Cubists in 1918 & if he was allowed to enter it was only just that the rest should be allowed to show as recent pictures as V. now. Rosenberg bought Valmier body & soul, a young painter sufficiently Cubist to satisfy the buyers, who wanted to appear very learned & courageous, but sufficiently superficial & money loving to paint for the public. R. had two hundred Valmiers on his hands at the moment that the crisis came,40 the dollar fell & the Americans scuttled home. He still has two hundred V.s & M. Gleizes knew R. only organised this exhibition to help him to get rid of Valmiers by showing him with the weight of better known men to back up his pictures. Well R. could say nothing against Gleizes, just remark, & had to admit recent pictures of everyone. But M. Gleizes was here, he was interested in the rainbow instead of being top dog in a show in Paris, so let Rosenberg 38 Juan Gris, Robert Delaunay, Jean Metzinger, Auguste Herbin, Fernand Léger, André Lhote, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Roger de la Fresnaye. See Personae. 39 Georges Valmier. See Personae. 40 The worldwide economic depression.


136

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 136


do what he liked. Rosenberg knew he couldn’t sell Gleizes, how can one sell pictures the size of many people’s whole apartment nowadays. So he showed the only three little works of Gleizes in his gallery (he has twelve magnificent Gleizes, the wretch), one very fine thing painted last July & les Baigneuses,41 which M. Gleizes sent as being representative of his work au debut du Cubisme. Five pictures in all. Picasso, Lhote, Braque & Valmier (each fighting & threatening & coaxing Rosenberg for the biggest wall) have over twenty each. Rosenberg showed all his Gris [too because] Gris must now sell or it won’t be old Rosenberg that will profit by them (because [Gris] is dead & Germany has bought most of his works he will sell). Leger also has fourteen [and] Delaunay ten huge things, etc. etc. Of course the papers praise those who pay them or those that they think they should, but Monsieur Gleizes has received wonderful letters— archaeologists, historians, scientists, Jesuit priests & especially young people. The historians & archaeologists discover in his work things which have completely blocked them in their study of Middle Age art. The scientists see the reflection of a mind not only aware of truths they face (disconcerted, stupefied & at a loss where to turn next for matter, the thing they have been working upon & analysing for centuries doesn’t exist), but superior to their power—working with order & authority in the things of the spirit, of higher intelligence. The Jesuit priests (the most intellectual & thinking sect of the Roman Catholic faith) recognise the connection between the rhythm of these pictures & the basis of their earliest music, architecture, ritual, orders, mural decorations etc., which are so little in accord with their present day religious expression. And the young are the ones that hit the nail on the head. ‘You are the only one who has developed the original Cubist movement, you have gone on step by step. All the others, unless Gris, have gone off on by-tracks & have lost their way.’ Picasso whose early works show brilliant flashes of inspiration has become a mere juggler of fancy & is very inferior to Braque now, although Braque confesses to having copied Picasso’s ideas at first. Lhote is nothing but an academic painter who has practised geometrical tricks & added them to his pictures. Lhote’s pictures belong to the Salon des Artistes Français; he adds a few geometrical lines which facilitate the difficulties of modelling, but he has no right to exhibit among the Cubists. . . . [Gleizes] goes to Paris tomorrow. October must show him some reward for all he has given me, & if I have physical strength it will. But 41 Les Baigneuses [the bathers], a painting by Gleizes.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 137

1934–1938

137

I’m terribly tired & my eyes ache & my dear, dear old Madame Bert42 is going to die & perhaps the son will sell the pottery if she does, for he doesn’t really like it a scrap. But the almond trees are in flower & the peach trees in bud, the circle turns towards hope & winter is behind. Bless you my splendid one, don’t take Cubism like a dose of salts, it’s delicious wine, with love, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Easter Day [c.1935] My most precious friend, How many times must I tell you I don’t want anybody’s beastly money, nor do I want to return to Australia ever if the call doesn’t come from the hearts of those I love, or the command of my conscience. I know the Gleizes don’t want me to go. God be thanked for that. I saw it clearly at Christmas time. Spring is here . . . & I’ve sown borders of flowers all round my vegetable garden, and a new disciple has been added to our ranks.43 He isn’t a painter alas! But he’s a dear, sincere man, a writer. He was against Cubism. He was méfiant [distrusting] but anxious to give it a fair trial & then he was convinced & wrote this public confession. It is plucky of him, a man of about fifty-six, who is greatly esteemed for his sound judgement, artistic knowledge, his culture, & general ‘sageness’. Annonay may be rather ironical over his conversion but it will make a great many question their own rail-sitting. I wrote a wild letter of welcome to him & his wife wrote back calling me ‘Anne’ & talking about Cubism with such conviction & joy that I feel I have after five years found friends. As for your responsibility in my coming Smudge, you were no more responsible for that than Queen Elizabeth was responsible for the storm which swept away the Spanish Armada. I came as a direct answer to my prayer. Miracles happen every moment. It was lovely that you were the chosen vessel for the work, it seems to make my coming much sweeter to think that the Father knows his children & calleth them by name— ‘Grace, Albert, Juliette, help Anne, & you put your heads together & help Anne.’ That was all. I feel our tiny group is in the hollow of his 42 Mother of Henri Bert (see Personae). 43 It is unclear who the new disciple was that AD refers to here.


138

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 138


hand for Cubism is that grain of mustard seed given by the apostles.44 It almost seems as if in the great sowing of the apostles they had forgotten to put in a little grain. The other grains grew & flourished but the plants are so old & weather worn they have ceased to bear new grain or to have any heat left, these last four hundred years of scientific inventions having almost crushed the plants to death, chemical drugs poisoning mankind so that his physical state is incapable of faith & hope & charity. But a little group, two or three gathered together sought truth. They found the little forgotten grain, they planted it together but only one watered & cared for it. For eleven years he puzzled over it, for it didn’t grow, it stayed as it was when it first came into view (1910) then he thought he would abandon every method which was not in accord with the spirit of truth & see whether the plant would bear fruit. What belonged to truth? Not the things belonging to the material, therefore not the senses. Visual painting must be renounced.45 In 1921 the little plant bore its first fruit. Pouyaud, Mainie Jellett & Evie Hone saw the first wholly non-representative pictures of their lives & came to Gleizes. The help Monsieur Gleizes has received has been miraculous. He has never ceased to search, or to find. I am sure you will find Smudgie for you seek all the time. Think what you have found since 1926, not ten years! . . . Mrs Craig bought a Roy de Mestre in London & is thrilled at her own courage. I daresay she paid the little brat over £50 for it & she could have one of Gleizes’ latest gouaches for 1000 francs! . . . Ailsa’s conversation about Central school ideas—her puckered brow & timid judgements or appreciations—so like Dorrit’s, so like Ruth Ainsworth’s letters from England.46 Ah Smudge I’m glad we didn’t study in England! All this talk about individualism seems suffocating after Monsieur Gleizes’ conversation for years on the circular movement of rhythm—that gathering of all particles into ONE. Darling I’m sure if you just take this teaching as you need it, as life goes on, you will find in it the radiance which shines out in his smile. Ruth Ainsworth I hear is studying chemistry & pottery at the Central school & (as Ailsa says) the fundamental roots of design at the South Kensington.47 I suppose after that she’ll consider herself capable of criticising old Pignault’s pottery. No Smudge, I’ll go through another winter in France. Gleizes’ smile 44 45 46 47

The ‘apostles’ being the cubists. ‘Visual’ in this sense meaning ‘representational’. The Ailsa AD refers to here might have been Ailsa O’Connor, an Australian artist. The Central School of Art and the South Kensington School of Art, both in London.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 139

1934–1938

139

will warm me better than Australia’s attitude towards art. Goodbye dearest. I’m quite better & have got fat as mud because I took care of myself for a while. Fondest love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 17th May 1935 My Darling, . . . I’m up to my eyes in work, not very interesting from the point of view of furthering my art, but good sound practice all the same & fairly remunerative. I have several commands [sic]. The biggest is a dinner service with a hundred & two pieces from a doctor at Lyon. After I had talked with him [for] some time I discovered it was he who accompanied Miss Creed to Australia! We were both very astonished [and] he told me an amusing story. He was staying at an hotel in Sydney & having much difficulty with the language. A French girl staying at the hotel heard him struggling & came to his assistance. They met next day in a touring car going to the Blue Mountains. Two days later he boarded his boat & found her on board also. And so they are married & happy ever after—he went to Australia to find a French wife! And they want sea-blue soup plates with a little boat in the centre. The other plates will have their initials, but the finger bowls [will have] a little fish. My second best order is for eighteen plum cake dishes (rectangular slabs with two handles), six bowls for strawberries (like colanders with plates to match), six sugar sifters & a hundred goblets. This order is for a church fête at Romans, a town between here & Valence. Then I have another order for a soup service (tureen, twelve plates & a dish for grated cheese or toast squares) & another order for a soup tureen & a beer set. I was left free to do as I liked for the beer set (for a doctor at Annonay) & it’s been a thrill. With all these orders on hand I had to write & ask Ruth [Ainsworth] to postpone her visit. I do hope she won’t be hurt or inconvenienced, but everyone was in a wild hurry & the firing is the 12th of June I trust. But oh Monsieur Bert never, never, realises time is passing & plays about doing nothing day after day, he’s a very nice man, but he’s a souci [worry]. Then Lucie did a ravishing picture (a real Marie Laurencin) so I offered to make her a soup tureen & six plates for it & she jumped at the offer. So I have six soup tureens & two vegetable dishes in this firing.


140

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 140


Now with all these orders I’ll be able to pay all my debts & buy the few things I need for summer . . . It is still freezing. Yes, actually freezing— the thermometer was below zero at 7.00 o’clock this morning. I’m terrified my garden will be ruined, all my summer crops are up. Well dear, since I wrote last I’ve been very British. The consul (Mr Bullock) at Lyon sent me an invitation to tea chez lui for King George’s 25th anniversary, also notice of the church service of Thanksgiving. I showed it to Madame Gleizes & she said I most certainly must go, that it would be very unwise not to, etc. etc. So I went. The English church is quite nice. The interior although covered with blue white plaster is curiously Celtic in decoration. I think the architect liked Celtic art but because he didn’t know Gleizes he was quite ignorant of its significance for his circles are stationary instead of leading, leading to the centre—a beautifully proportioned simple cross over the altar. The whole end of the chancel is covered with circles within circles like the grave stones Monsieur Gleizes shows in La forme et l’histoire. But oh Smudgie I was crestfallen (for I wanted to enjoy being back in my own church) when the little parson entered & the harmonium began to drone feebly at snail’s pace one of those four-lined hymns added to the service after the reformation. The parson had a wretched voice—I had to strain to hear what he said—[and] no hair except on his pug nose. The congregation (all English except myself I think) made me feel strange, strange!!! I was a foreigner looking at the English for the first time & they seemed utterly unlike all other human species! Italians, Russians, Spaniards & French mingle as wine & water together, but these English men & women were as impossible to mix up with the world just outside the church doors as it would be to mix tea, sugar & milk with wine. At 4.00 o’clock I went to the consul’s home, a fine house with many lions over the door. I thought they were British lions but Mrs Bullock told me no, they were lions de Lyon. A really true butler shot the door open & took my little card & alone I had to enter a room seething with standing Englishmen & Englishwomen, could be one was seated (I’m sure she was a relation of the king [as] she wore Gobelin blue plush trimmings with Gobelin blue satin & a Queen Mary toque!), [and] nobody possessed a lipstick except Anne. Mr Bullock came forward to greet me, a tall angular English type with a cherp, cherp [sic] voice. He wanted to be very warm & nice to me poor thing, but oh after Monsieur Gleizes, Monsieur Bêchetoille, Monsieur Grimaud, etc. etc. he seemed terribly dry & jerky, I wanted to rub the poor thing with oil. Mrs Bullock came up


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 141

1934–1938

141

quite different, round & dark with short white hair & a pretty flowery orange georgette frock, I like her. We talked for a quarter of an hour later on & she showed me her lovely tapestries & a darling old piece of furniture (I don’t know what it is) & a modern picture & said she’d soon come & see me, that she was filled with curiosity. The tea was good (but what a fool of a habit it is to only half fill cups?) & I ate a real sandwich & then three men servants brought huge English champagne glasses & the best champagne I ever tasted. The consul was long in proposing the King’s health & I noticed nearly everyone had drunk their glassful with the exception of a few drops. And then the funny Englishman jerked out ‘Ladies & gentlemen let us drink the health of the King, God bless him’ (muttered). I thought only Australians didn’t tack on a few ‘his majesties’ but this British representative in polished France needs a few lessons from Edith Lloyd’s policeman at Buckingham Palace.48 The little fat person was there & asked me if he knew me or not, so I introduced myself & he asked me did I know his cousin who was once the governor of Perth? So I went forth to the city of Lyon to gather my packets left at three different shops before they closed. I felt much more at home in the streets than in those reception rooms & ran into a gallery to see some pottery figure subjects of Pouyaud’s. Didn’t care for them much—he hasn’t realised the real plastic quality of clay yet—I wish he could see the little pièta in the musée au Puy.49 Then I went to see Michaud about our exhibition, he thinks it better to postpone it till October & I’m just as pleased.50 His gallery is the most modern I have ever seen but woefully small for our weavers’ great hangings, Lucie’s & Mme Gleizes’ étoffes appliquées, the pupils’ work, let alone Monsieur Gleizes’!! Monsieur G. is angry because I didn’t do a big mural panel for the exhibition in Paris, but it would have cost me about 400 fr. & I hadn’t 40 fr. He is always impatient when I can’t afford to do things. Well I must continue my story of Lyon. My train home [didn’t] leave till 9.00 PM. I took a tram to the station but as restaurants are wickedly dear in the big Boulevards I turned into tiny streets & went farther & farther till I found a menu for 6 fr. 50. An elderly man of working class looked at it also & asked me was it likely to be good at that price. I said, ‘We’ll try opening the door.’ I found only men but it was fresh & clean. An old priest sat near the 48 It is not known who either Edith Lloyd or the ‘little fat person’ are. 49 A pièta is the representation of the suffering virgin bearing the dead Christ on her lap. 50 Marcel Michaud owned Lyon’s Folklore Gallery. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

142

Page 142


door & smiled at me. ‘Come in my child, don’t be afraid.’ I entered. He shook hands with me & indicated a seat at a table nearby. My friend from outside entered & the priest shook his hand & asked him was he from Marseille. No, but he was from Toulouse. ‘I am from Le Puy,’ [said the priest].51 I could still feel the lovely sparkling champagne on my tongue, I refused red wine. ‘Pas de vin?’ [Have some wine] demanded Père Joseph (as all the young men called him). ‘Not tonight,’ I replied. ‘Just a little drop my child, I’ll give you a taste of mine.’ I had to accept. And so an excellent meal was eaten in the genial, familiar company of Frenchmen & I was happy as I wiped up my mayonnaise with Père Joseph’s wine & chatted with him & the working man from Toulouse.52 Bon soir my precious. Hurry up & come over or this funny old Europe will be wiped off the map by a war. Bless you darling & do let me know what books Mrs Evatt wants. With all my love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 2nd June 1935 Smudge my darling, Your funny Monday53 letter came yesterday & made me very blue for a little while, for I ache for Monsieur Gleizes’ message to go to those who are, like I was, crying out in despair to be lifted out of that jimcrack [sic] American Sundae shop city & shown the truth.54 . . . Australia is so far away from history, witness of the truths he speaks. These old hills I look out on [are] covered with the marks of man’s labour with his hands. St Sornin quartier with its roofs like living creatures turning & twisting in rhythmic movement towards the axis— the church. Oh darling it is terribly, terribly difficult to make those young third & fourth generation Australians understand the part time plays in uniting the plan to rhythm, for they cannot realise time without the past, nor the future which is only made by time, or the present which doesn’t 51 52 53 54

Le Puy is approximately 100 kilometres south-west of Lyon. Much of this conversation was originally written in French by AD. Monday? depressed from Mondayitis? The ‘jimcrack American Sundae shop city’ referred to by AD is Sydney.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 143

1934–1938

143

exist for man but only belongs to the eternal whom you say they sneer at. What will time do to that little detached people to unite it to rhythm? You say you have much responsibility in the affairs of modern art. Evie sends the Observer 55 every week. England is not modern, she is industrial, mechanical, rigid. But France is still agricultural, supple, sensitive, alive. Her politicians are rogues, but her peasants are her real children & they have never been greatly disturbed by surface changes. Now while the politicians are frothing at the mouth to find ways & means of keeping the franc high, the chomage [unemployment] down & their own pockets full, Joseph Buard, Moës Verrot, Louis Pegeron & all the other noble peasants of Sablons are solving the crisis.56 They are the great modern artists of today carrying out the teaching of Albert Gleizes (I doubt if they know how to read & certainly they don’t read Monsieur Gleizes), so that it cannot but spread & grow & put in order the chaos of today. I will tell you how another time if you care to hear. Smudgie I can’t leave France, I wrote last week & told Monsieur Gleizes he could count on me for the 1937 exhibition, that I’d do my utmost to show work which would merit being known as the offspring of his teaching. The weavers are going away. Monsieur Gleizes will be discouraged for their work is delightful, but they only came for their own interests & are leaving because through his name they have gained many clients & can commence near Paris. No I can’t leave Monsieur Gleizes & this wonderful world of miracles happening all round me, miracles I would have been too stupid & blind to see if it hadn’t been for the light of Albert Gleizes. Oh Smudge really it’s much more exciting than pretty clothes & pink nails, & as for reflexion & study I don’t believe money brings that. I never reflected or studied really until I had to walk ten kilometres a day to work, that’s when one can think clearly. I’m just as mundane as you are you little fraud, but I’m in happier surroundings, potters & peasants & Pierre le vénérable are dear good things. . . . Fondest love my precious. I’m just as mundane as you are. With my biggest hug, your Anne . . .

K 55 The Observer, one of England’s major newspapers. 56 All neighbours and friends of AD’s, she also taught their children. See Personae.


144

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 144

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Series of postcards 15th September 1935

Smudge dearest, You will think that I am ill or dead but instead I’m gallivanting. Ruth Ainsworth has been with me about five weeks & we went for a lovely walking trip to Mt Pilât & its surrounding mountains. We went through rolling clouds the seven kilometre walk to la ferme de la Jasseine. It was a most thrilling experience—thunder growling & rumbling over our heads & through the mountain gorges. La Jasseine is a huge farmhouse & we were glad to find a big log fire when we arrived. We had to sleep in a grange on the hay. Four dogs slept with us & cowbells & odours came from the stable below, but we were quite happy. And now this week Monsieur Grimaud (trustee for Moly-Sabata) brought us by car along this rocky road to a town called St André only seventy kilometres [north] from Nîmes.57 We had lunch at Chassier where an old lady of eighty-four entertained us. She is a weaver, a most interesting gentlewoman & her life’s work surrounds her. Alas she is typical of her époque of bad taste but some of her materials are very beautiful. In the splendid fortified church is une crèche with about a hundred little figures made from straw. It is remarkably good in workmanship but of course the only idea is representation of the story of the nativity. We went from there to Largentière, an old silver mine town & then on through curious rocky country full of limestone caves to St André. The Grimauds always pass the summer holidays there & the house is a charming château with four towers, a beautiful terrace etc. This morning they took us to see Bannes, a most thrilling old town [near St André]. The château now in ruins but the houses perfect darling. Now we are returning by train to Montélimar, but it will be too dark to walk to Mirmande . . . Here everyone talks of war and the danger of putting by money & I feel I could go & buy a house at Bannes for a 100 fr. & live on figs in summer & chestnuts in winter & snap my fingers at money. A friend who loves machines & motors & money & has them all, said the other day ‘I want to go to Paradise & yet I know Paradise is where money & machines are not.’ Bannes is paradise. Fondest love my darling, Anne.

K 57 St André de Cruzière is a village where the Grimauds had a country house.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 145

1934–1938

145 19th September 1935

Dearest, Sue [Alexandre] & I have been on a glorious walking trip up the Haute Loire. We went in a bus to Le Puy. From this wonderfully interesting city we visited the château & church of Polignac. The latter contains five or six great fresques of the 11th century which are very, very beautiful. They were only discovered six years ago. Then we went to Chamalières. The church is much more beautiful than the card shows & the Loire passes beside it. Inside there is a bénitier [baptismal font] with four saints in stone. I think [it] the best real Middle Age sculpture I have seen. We climbed to the château you see after crossing the Loire in a little boat. The village was full of lace makers even the young boys make lace on little cushions covered with pins. St André was our next village & then we descended to the château of Chalençon. Oh Smudge never did I receive such a lesson in Albert Gleizes construction! You & I must go there & study Gleizes together. Time! Time! Time! One completely forgot space & felt borne on & upward into the great ensemble of this great work of art, nature (grand, wild nature) and sky. There was no interruption no step from one to the other. The wonderful artists of the real Middle Ages built on & with the plan of nature. It was a wild lonely place & far away from a village where we could sleep, but we couldn’t tear ourselves away & stood looking until night wrapped itself round rocks & châteaux & we couldn’t distinguish one from the other. We had to walk four kilometres to find a bed at Tirange, & a dog barked all night. Next morning we walked twenty-one kilometres to St Bonnet le Château. It is 14th century & seemed thin & light after our four days amid Middle Age art. Alas it was impossible to get cards of the fresques at Polignac; I would have loved you to see the difference between them & this one from St Bonnet le Château. It was a nice town & we found a place where they said it was bien facile to make tea. The view is splendid & the church very fine, the vestments magnificent, a stone pièta impressed me more than anything there. We took a bus to Vienne, slept there the night & visited the Roman ruins & the musées next morning.58 Got back to Sablons at 11.00 AM Sunday . . . John Pye is 58 Vienne, situated between Lyon and Sablons, was the first Roman settlement in France. It is full of Roman ruins including an ampitheatre, a Gallo-Roman village and a temple to Augustus.


146

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 146


taking me to Grenoble Monday & we’re going exploring on the mountains. Aren’t I gay? Will write a decent letter soon. Love, Anne.

K Le jour de Pâcques [Easter day] Moly-Sabata 1936 My precious one, I was so thankful to see your loved handwriting, it seemed so long since a letter from you. Thank you for the cheque, it takes so long to change things that I didn’t bother to tell Ruby not to send it to you to pay Fizelle. I thought you’d send it on to me better than Ruby, as Andy had had an accident & couldn’t go to town for nine weeks. Your letter surprised me, had it come three years ago it would not have surprised me, I expected it. But you were so loyal to Fizelle always I thought I had completely misjudged him in thinking him superficial. Dorrit [said] when she was here ‘Fizelle is too superficial for Smudge, he is after her & that flatters her but she can’t rest satisfied with such a scatterbrain companion.’ All the same he has a nice, kind nature & I hope you will be happier by the time this reaches you dear.59 Don’t let go your school, you are needed there darling. Rodriguez60 told me over & over again how much you are esteemed, how wonderfully you explain things, and [for] all he couldn’t grasp that Monsieur Gleizes told him he said, ‘Oh I must ask Grace that.’ The Gleizes will be delighted with your letter about France. I’ll read that part aloud to them when they return from Paris. Anne has been bad again & is in their bad books. At least in Juliette’s but it’s very necessary every now & then. She was impossible for several weeks & before going to Paris, & the last afternoon was the limit! She turned on me & stormed about the panels Monsieur Gleizes wanted me to do on tiles. I had done the enlargement in pencil (from a ten inch gouache to a two metre panel) [and] he was delighted & she also. But she came over the last day to assert her authority & make me feel the 59 GC had split up with Fiz. 60 It is not known who the ‘Rodriguez’ is that AD refers to here.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 147

1934–1938

147

importance of the commande. I feel far, far, more than she is capable of imagining [that] anyone feels, the honour & pride & responsibility of interpreting Albert Gleizes on huge architectural panels in quite different colours all alone while he is in Paris. He beamed his beautiful smile & told me he gave me his carte blanche that he had ‘toute confiance en vous’ [complete confidence in you], etc. etc. But she suddenly decided her money was buying me. She ordered me not to make the same mistake as her husband, that I shouldn’t do this or that on tiles, that Monsieur Gleizes had awful colours & that I should change them, that the brown picture of his should all be changed into blues, etc. etc. I laughed at her & she asked why. I said ‘because you paint your husband’s pictures.’ ‘If he listened to me he would have much more beautiful colours.’ ‘Do you think your colours more beautiful than Monsieur Gleizes? I consider Monsieur Gleizes the greatest authority in colour since the Primitives.’ She blinked her little eyes & didn’t reply. Then we went to the kitchen where Lucie was weaving. M. Gleizes had given Lucie seven drawings for carpets & ordered her to choose the two the most appropriate for weaving. Lucie showed him her choice. Mme G. pounced on a complicated design & demanded why Lucie hadn’t chosen it. ‘Because I would have to hold fifteen balls of wool in my hands at the same time, & as there are only three colours (black, white & beige) I would get confused & use the wrong one I’m sure.’ Poor Lucie! She was called lazy, sans initiative, etc. etc. & then she wheeled round on me. ‘This table is pretty. I’d like a tiled table, but I’d like a round table.’ Monsieur Gleizes shouted, ‘Juliette how do you manage to conceive such diabolical complications! How can one make a round table with carreaux???’ ‘One can cut them.’ ‘One can’t,’ I replied, ‘& certainly I won’t ask Monsieur Boissonnet to try.’61 After she left I smarted at her school teacher manner of ordering me— all the enthusiasm of interpreting my master’s thought was quenched. The panels were but the command of rich clients to a poor potter, the mark of affection, or confidence. During the night fear came upon me [and] I felt it impossible to begin this great work [that] I had stupidly regarded as a great exalted work. All that I had to give was taken from me; I was paid (not very much probably) to do the work as one pays a tailor or dressmaker to copy a design. However when I began the work I forgot 61 This conversation was originally written in French.


148

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 148


her, & the biggest panel is in the kiln today. On Friday I shall see it. God grant success! The smaller one (one metre forty) in transparent enamels in cloisonné is more than half finished. Your table didn’t please me again. It was so gay & so bustling with effort to be gay that it was vulgar, the very hues made it over-charged. I’m going to begin with all these experiences to get it just right. The little grey one was refired & is very pretty, but too little. Each tile has shrunk 1.5 centimetres by 3⁄4 of a centimetre in firing so one is surprised the first time one makes a table. I fear I won’t be able to send it till the end of May—the Paris exhibition work is terrific & I’m very late with it. When I get my pottery done I will return to the tile factory, but except for 11⁄2 days to finish the panel for Monsieur Gleizes I shall have to do pottery, pottery, pottery!!! Oh darling la vie est BONNE !! Thank you for bringing me to the source of true happiness. For it is here that I learned man’s raison d’être is WORK! Before the machine all mankind expressed himself in his work, & suicide was almost unknown. Paint & paint my Smudge. I don’t think I’ll stay over here more than three more years . . . Bless you my treasure & keep happy & well my dear one, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 17 mai 1936 62 Darling, It is ages since I wrote—life is just a coffee mill grinding, grinding along relentlessly, but now & again the daily round brings out the delicious savour as a surprise, & it is of these moments or hours that I want to speak. The children’s class is now held à la maison rose [at the pink house] next door to the Gleizes. Last Friday Monsieur Gleizes came in as is becoming his habit lately. ‘Ah Yvette, you’re doing the quay with the fruit market, it’s good, but not as beautiful as your garden done from memory only—one has to work in a cave where one’s eyes (senses) don’t tempt memory (the soul) to create.’ 62 The first half of this letter was written almost entirely in French demonstrating how at home AD was with the language.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 149

1934–1938

149

‘That’s good George, your colour dimensions are like a bouquet of flowers in Mlle Dangar’s garden. You are doing a game of snakes and ladders isn’t that right? You don’t need to throw snakes and ladders all over the place—find architectural forms for the corners of your table instead of putting these snakes and ladders.’ ‘But I can’t find them.’ ‘Yes, yes you can—look for the forms within, you’ll find something.’ ‘That’s charming Janine, here’s a good worker! Love your painting— if you love it you will look after it. Listen Georges, your little sister is more careful than you are. And Geneviève? How do you do Geneviève?’ ‘I am quite well, thank you,’ replies the five year old who has an English nurse. ‘You are doing motifs, they’re good, the spiral is beautiful isn’t it?’ ‘Ah Lucien is late! He finds his bicycle more interesting than painting, but it’s not true. I’ve brought you some beautiful paintings which were made well before the world thought of bicycles.’ . . . He spread out some pages of illuminations in colour by an abbess and her nuns of the 13th century . . . ‘Here you have the ancient symbol of the Trinity. It’s Celtic—I’m sure that your teacher has often spoken to you about Celtic art?’ ‘Yes, she has shown us her big Irish book.’ ‘That’s it, here are their symbols. There are fools who don’t understand the Trinity, but I’m sure that you understand. For example, these people say how can one understand three people in one? Your father was he born a father?’ ‘No.’ ‘What was he when he was born?’ ‘A child.’ ‘Yes, and now he is a father, is he also a son?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘There you are! He is son and father, he is two people. And the holy ghost? What is it? It’s love. The father loves the son—one becomes father through love—the holy ghost creates all, creation is made by love. There are several older religions than Christianity but it’s Christianity that has brought love. One asks who made creation? One replies God. One asks who made God? My children look at the circle (he made a perfect one) show me the end.’ The children tried to find a point where he began or finished but couldn’t.


150

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 150


‘The circle has no end nor beginning, it’s eternal! It’s the present! God is the present, the monks and nuns who made these works out of love, care and beauty were in the present—inside the circle—neither their senses or space belong in the past or future. If one lives in the future one does nothing, and if one lives in the past one lives in memory— a vague dream. But how can man live in the present? It’s by withdrawing from the material world and by living in the circle, in the real place of the past.’ Here was the strangest painting lesson I have ever had & yet following a lecture he gave at Annonay on Le secret de l’art religieux, it was a painting lesson especially with these lovely things (mostly presents to him from Evie & Mainie I noticed) & that wicked wife of his said that Evie & Mainie do nothing but come over to ‘grab, grab, grab ideas’ before our eyes. The children were warmly interested. Of course the circle is the secret of religious art. He showed examples (lantern slides) of religious art, the same examples as in La forme et l’histoire, but the revelation the lecture brought me was the certainty of Monsieur Gleizes that God gave the rainbow to man to show him [that] the way to approach light is through colour!! The second commandment forbids the making of images to worship, but the rainbow is the way—l’alliance between man & God. If one really was caught into its powerful movement leading to light one couldn’t be tormented by the senses & space. . . . Darling I haven’t written because I couldn’t buy a stamp until the potter fired. I owed for my bread, milk, & everything I had to buy for six weeks. Of course I took your present out of the bank but it was gobbled up quickly. Now he has fired & I have paid nearly all my bills, but shouldn’t I try to return to a warm climate before I get too old to work? She’d glory in [me] stumbling round with a crook over the stones which border the Rhône trying to fish wood out to make a fire.63 You know she made Monsieur Gleizes put all his money in a property, well by mismanagement the property costs more than it brings in & he has never had a new pair of socks since his father-in-law died in 1920 & he got some (much too long for him) that he had not worn. Eugénie showed me how she had darned & darned for him . . . Monsieur Gleizes is a saint. He lives completely beyond material things & lets her torture him. I can’t tell you in a letter all she does to hurt & annoy him—little things but 63 AD is conjecturing that she might end up becoming a vagabond in her old age and that Mme Gleizes would enjoy this sight.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 151

1934–1938

151

impossible. For instance, he went into the bathroom to shave, returning to his dressing room he found she had locked it on the inside (it isn’t hers) he knocked & knocked. At last she called out ‘I’m reading don’t make that noise.’ ‘Well open the door.’ ‘I won’t—you can go around.’ So he had to go down to the kitchen & go through the hall, dining room, drawing room, up the other stairs to the library & by the passage to his room. He is her chauffeur. He sits in front, she behind, he mustn’t open his lips while she asks a question. Oh of course he’s an idiot. If I had the money to spare I’d get a bookseller to send him a copy of The Taming of the Shrew. I put on a piece of pottery a line from Lao-tsu, ‘Le plus sensible du monde conquerera le plus fort.’ [The most sensitive in the world should vanquish the toughest.] He smiled & asked me if I believed it. I said ‘No, not literally, but of course spiritually it is true.’ . . . Darling he wouldn’t like me to leave him, I’m only an ignorant thickheaded foreigner but he’s used to my sympathy & interest. I said one day lately that I could do more for his ideas in Australia than here & he has been hovering round me since & getting me to translate for him, wanting me to put three of his pictures on great round plaques of clay etc. etc. to show me how much he needs me, bless his heart. Why do I fear the future? Why can’t I live in le présent? Bless you my darling, my one sure stable friend, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 7th June 1936 Darling, Forgive me I pray, it is ages since your birthday approached & came & passed. I couldn’t write a decent letter so I didn’t write at all—each day I thought ‘tomorrow’. But I was cut off from paper, pens, post offices, stamps, a table—everything. You will understand when I explain MolySabata’s biggest, best exhibition opened last Sunday. The obstacles that came to block us were almost a joke.64 At last Juliette (thank heaven) 64 Many things went wrong in the preparation of this exhibition.


152

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 152


went to Paris to escape preparations & have a fling. Monsieur Gleizes stayed here and . . . I stayed at the pottery four days a week but he came for me always the fourth day & took me home to dinner, read aloud, till midnight & you can imagine how fit I was to get up & catch the milkman’s van next morning. But I loved his company & he drove me to & fro from work. [He] often took me to St Uze for the pottery I had done there, to St Vallier for the tiles & then insisted on us having a day’s holiday & going to—Mirmande!! . . . We went up to see the old church . . . and poked into all our old favourite turns. Smudge they are all rebuilt very rightly [sic]. Mirmande is no longer a mass of ruins. Twenty-eight houses have been beautifully restored by Lhote’s students. You remember the little enclosure where we painted models? . . . Well it is now a little grassy garden with a winding gravel path, the cypress trees are trimmed, & two houses face this enclosure. Mme Lhote took us to the house of the towers when we returned. It is most beautifully arranged & restored by those friends of the Lhotes who had five children. I went then to say goodbye to Mme Rouveyre & bonjour to Mme Simeon, but the latter was not at home.65 Next we went to Cliousclat to see the pottery & returned home after a most delightful day. . . . Sunday & Monday it poured & poured . . . & we threw ourselves into the work for the exhibition. There are three salles. The children’s work occupies one & is very good. One likes to go in & get filled with its sunlight & joy. The grande pièce is left with its own furniture; Lucie’s weaving is here [and] also a very charming picture of Mme Gleizes & the pochoirs. Do you remember the long yellow green table? Lucie wove six dinner mats & a centre in lovely yellow & creams & yellow greens & I made a dessert service in these tones. In the centre there is a huge round centre de table in pale yellow green with little feet. I filled it with orange marigolds & dark canterbury bells. It makes a wonderful note. There are four tall candlesticks on the table. I sold all my work on the table on opening day for 180 fr., & Lucie sold her table mats for 80 fr. My centre de table is ordered again [and] I have pottery everywhere. The studio is splendid. Monsieur G. has seven gouaches & five oils & a huge panel in tiles. Oh darling if only you could walk into our exhibition!! . . . My most sincere wishes, your Anne . . .

K 65 ‘Fifine’ Rouveyre. See Personae. Madame Simeon lived in Mirmande.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 153

1934–1938

153 Series of postcards 66 Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 18 July 1937

Dearest one, It was so lovely to hear from you—I would love to see your work. When I hear you are painting I am very, very happy & yet I hardly ever have a little wish to paint now. Pottery & tiles fill my need. But your work I’m sure has greatly changed and greatly grown since I last saw it & I have a very great longing to ask you for a pencil drawing . . . If I could rake up £200 I’m sure I could start a little pottery out of Sydney where I could have a garden & live as I live here. I dare not stay in Europe till I’m too old to start over again. I know how to make pottery so cheaply that I feel I will have a sale for it easily. We don’t know if Moly will be sold & we will have to turn out in October, but I think it very probable. I’m not worrying [as] something will open for us, & I’m sick to death of being with this band of communist potters. I want to get away from them. They copy my work & help themselves to all my colours & utensils. Oh it’s not worth writing pages of petty incidents, but I feel I can’t put up with these increasing annoyances, or wait till they cut my throat as well as Monsieur & Madame Gleizes. Madame Gleizes always carries a revolver, a dagger, & a few lumps of sugar. Thus she thinks she is protected from robbers & mad dogs, & she is persuaded that the only method with communists is to treat them as mad dogs—give them lumps of sugar. But I’m blest if I will for I see they are nothing but grabby [sic] snatchers who want to take, take, take everything even your unborn thoughts they try to steal. I don’t want the revolver or dagger method either for these robbers, I want to get away from them where I can study deeper the doctrine of the Prince of peace. The only solution to the torments of this reign of the Anti-Christ. Au revoir my precious friend. I’m so thankful that the holiday treatment cured you, all my love, your Anne.

K 66 Dated by GC, 18 July 1937.


154

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 154

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 8th November 1937

Smudge darling, I am most worried over such a long silence. I feel something must have happened to you—that you have bronchitis again, or that you & Fizelle have had a final split & that you have broken up your studio. What is it? . . . In Paris you seemed so near me, here, I seem to have lost you. I only got back four days ago & immediately caught a huge cold which makes everything look black. Smudgie our Paris is just the same, nothing different, [with] pictures in their same places [and] even the same things in the same shop windows! I took my washing to the rue Bardinet & the blanchiseuse knew me at once. ‘And Miss Crowley? Where is Miss Crowley? She was nice!! Write her and tell her that I haven’t forgotten her.’ Poor villa Leone is very dingy & the concierge changed. No trains run in Paris now, but buses are quite close. I didn’t see Lhote, but Fairy & I had lunch in the little restaurant in Bd Edgar Quinet.67 Absolutely nothing seemed changed round there—it was impossible to believe nine years had passed. The room of the Italian Primitives at the Louvre has been beautifully arranged. I stayed just three weeks & was satisfied then to return to Moly. I send you the exhibition photos to try to give you a tiny idea of it, but I don’t know if they will, for it’s the centre régional, la vieille France [regional centre, old France] & the magnificent exhibitions such as les chefs d’œuvre de l’art français, le salon de l’art indépendant, l’art des Catalan, Palais de découverte [the masterpieces of French art, the salon of independent art, Catalan art, the Palace of Exploration], etc. etc. which are magnificent. The plan, the order, the happy atmosphere amazed me every time I went. I had an exhibitor’s ticket so could go in & out as I liked et j’ai bien profitée! [and I really made use of it]. I will send you the catalogue des maitres indépendants. It was there that Monsieur Gleizes showed four big plates & the blue panel that I did d’après lui [in imitation of him], but his pictures were not at all up to his usual standard as he had all his recent work at his exhibition in America. Braque’s collection was very 67 Fairy came to visit AD in France, but she did not prove to be an appropriate companion for AD as she had no understanding of contemporary art.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 155

1934–1938

155

fine, Picasso’s too patchy, Gris’ dark & heavy (I had never seen more than one picture of his at a time), Lhote as always, Matisse refreshing & in delicious taste, Maria Blanchard wonderful work, but ugly.68 Fairy was with me & her first introduction to modern art had a very bad effect on her; she worried the life out of me & I did so want to think & study. I went to the great exhibition in the new Trocadero of les chef d’œuvres de l’art Français one morning at 10.00 AM. I was in a sort of trance among the Primitives when a guide came up & told me it was midi, & they were closing. At two o’clock I returned & stayed with my Primitives till 5.00 PM, when doors closed again. After dinner Sue & I returned from 8.30 to 11.00 PM. There were seven great salles of work dating from 4th to 14th centuries & these were all I saw—illuminations, tapestries, wooden statues, enamels, bronzes, stone statues & in the last room painting. But actually there were forty salles bringing the work up to Cézanne & Gauguin’s time. The next day while going through the pavilion of Italy I remembered what you said about commercial art. ‘The best work out here is done by commercial artists.’ The mural decorations advertising tourist resorts & pleasures in Italy were very fine. In fact (except in le Petit Palais where les maitres de l’art indépendants are showing), one can say the same about the exhibition as you said about Sydney. The greater part of the exhibition shows excellent wall decorations etc. & many, nearly all, of these are done by commercial artists. It is an industrial age [and] the pavilions of the big countries are purely industrial— Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Holland. Industrial art is the expression of today and being the natural expression it is very good work. BUT, walk into the exhibition in the Trocadero showing the expression in art of the great religious epoch!!! Oh the thin-ness, superficial, slickness, emptiness of today’s expression compared to that!! And it is so comprehensive. Sweden’s pavilion is most interesting; there we may say art & industry try to meet & work together, but art & handiwork still hold the reigns. Machines are used in the making of furniture, but hand-woven materials cover chairs & hand-woven carpets, curtains & cushions are used. The woven hangings & carpets are absolutely lovely in Finland, in fact everything in Finland is lovely. These woven things are all dyed with vegetable dyes & some are real Marie Laurencin pictures.69 Poland & Bulgaria also are delightful. 68 Henri Matisse. See Personae. It is known only that Maria Blanchard was an artist. 69 Marie Laurencin. See Personae.


156

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 156


But oh Smudge, Australia is a blot on the hemisphere! I nearly wept when I entered. The building is a ridiculous drum of hideous green glass & white wood. Wool is shown in sacks! A mangy quarter stuffed, [while a] nearly black native bear shames those sweet creatures.70 Quantities of common bar brooches with opals show the opals, [and] all dear little pets of the Society of Artists display what is named art in Australia. Poor Grüner I once admired him!71 Mrs Preston got a prize for her jammed full pot of Australian wild flowers.72 Australia wants Europe to come out for her 150th anniversary. Now I’ll tell you how she could have achieved this. A pavilion in the architecture of a great Australian station home with long side verandahs surrounded by eucalyptus trees (from Nice of course) & a big glassed in fern house with palms, tree ferns, staghorns, etc. Half a dozen wallabies in a little paddock (there is space for whatever one likes) & a great wired-in bird cage brilliant with parrots, cockatoos, etc. Inside every specimen of Australian animal & bird from our museums’ best. Beautiful photos of those oceans of growing wheat being harvested could form a background for a regular cluster of magnificent sheaths of our tallest, whitest, biggest wheat in the world. Beside this two thoroughbred merinos stuffed (one half-clipped) stand amid great heaps of lovely, lovely wool. Photos of trees showing their girth beside men . . . Poor ugly common little pavilion. It was done by those who do not love Australia or know its character & beauty, by the same little group of egoists who drive real artists out of the country in despair. The Voss, [my friends], were disappointed at my lack of enthusiasm. I had to make a remark in the visitors’ book in which I searched in vain for a name I knew under ‘A1’, ‘Tip Top’, ‘Ripping’, ‘Couldn’t do better’, etc. etc. I wrote the least unpleasant remark I could concoct: ‘But Australia is vast!’ . . . Fairy wants to build me a kiln. I think I am going to accept the loan, guaranteeing it with half South West Rocks which she knows & esteems very highly & says Stewart is an idiot that he can’t sell it. I shall have to decide to stay over here, & only hope to afford a trip out to see my folk in ten years’ time. I have written my proposal to the Gleizes & if they accept I shall take £100 of my only £150 & put the stable [at Moly] into a safe workroom (the roof is about to fall), put windows 70 The Australian exhibit featured wool in bales and a black koala, which AD thought an insult to Australian culture. 71 Elioth Grüner. See Personae. 72 Margaret Preston. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 157

1934–1938

157

in, etc. & with Fairy’s money build a kiln. I told the Gleizes (of course it’s only her, Monsieur would agree to everything ever proposed) that if I did this I must be in complete authority over this pottery & my work, & that the pots my pupils & I make belong wholly to us even at my death or departure. But the pottery (building, kiln, tools, etc.) will become the property of Moly-Sabata at my departure or death as compensation for the land & the love that I have for the movement. She raised an objection immediately when I asked her for the stable, [and] if she does now I shall do nothing at Moly. She wants me to make the pavilion into a pottery but it is most unsuitable & far too small. It’s the stable or nothing. Shall send pottery as soon as I hear from you & Lucie will send the rug, but we fear you & Fizelle have parted & that it won’t do to send the things to the same address. Fondest love my precious, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 6th February 1938 Is it to you my Smudge darling that I’m going to talk this Sunday evening. Is it possible that I can talk with you instead of Monsieur ou Madame ou Mademoiselle [ou] mes clients? I’ve got so much to tell you, but never the time to just chat with the friend I love chatting with more than any one in this wide, wide, small world. Mr [Julian] Ashton wrote me a delightful letter today. I didn’t think he would be such a loyal friend to one who opposed his way of teaching. Lucie has brought me a tiny bunch of first spring flowers, paquerettes & a sort of bouton d’or. Trust my little Lucie to find the very first. I don’t think I could live at Moly without Lucie & Pierre & Poulette. They make it home. Lucie is only a little peasant but so very intelligent & si gentille! To wake scenting the coffee already perfuming the air, to rush to the freezing bathroom pump [and] two hundred [strokes] si gentille to put a dribble in the enormous beignoir, to plunge into this icy dribble & potter partout avec un mètre de crin [with a metre of bubbles all over], [then] hurry to the kitchen just as Lucie is pouring out the two bowls is really very good. Imagine if I had to still chop the wood & light a fire after my icy bath . . . I am very fond of Lucie—I have made her. No, I have opened her & she finds herself an independent, capable weaver delighting in colour & dimensions & materials.


158

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 158


. . . Monsieur Gleizes is coming to paint his huge canvas sixteen metres by six metres. Villon & I are to help him paint it.73 Villon is the painter whose work I liked best in the Salon d’Automne after Gleizes. But really that doesn’t say much—I found it a very disappointing show. But Villon’s work is interesting & I met him & liked him. I also met Delaunay & his wife.74 He is a great, fair fellow & he looked me through & through & through. When he said good bye he gripped my hand & said, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, we’ll see you often, Gleizes has always spoken about you but I thought you were a fairy tale, but now I see that what he said was true.’ He’s a great dog barking at the joy of life. I liked him. His wife’s decorations are extremely savante but I don’t think they are sincere as her pictures. Has Picasso’s light begun to flicker in Australia? Florence Taylor, Dorrit, Ruth Ainsworth, Winty Hall, etc. all breathed his name in awe & thought me narrow, one-sided & on the wrong track altogether because I backed Gleizes.75 But at the exhibition in Paris, Picasso simply did not exist. All the others were there in full, full face but Picasso was only shown among les maitres indépendants & Braque’s panel quite overpowered Picasso’s. Monsieur Gleizes was very badly shown there—all his work was in America—but he was commissioned to do such a number of mural decorations that one saw him all over the place, as one saw Delaunay, Survage, Dufy, Matisse, etc.76 Monsieur Gleizes tells me the panels I did for him are now all being shown in le Petit Palais at an exhibition & there is a possibility of one being bought by l’état for the exhibition permanente there. I do hope to goodness it will be—Monsieur Gleizes, Boissonet & I will go shares.77 One is priced at 3000 the other at 4000, I don’t know how much the broken ones are. Actually Monsieur Gleizes sells very reasonably always. A man who does nothing but place tiles told me the other day that ordinary tile factories which do decorated panels demand 1000 for quite small panels . . . I am very busy over the remodelling of Schaeffer’s café & restaurant. Actually this hotel is a sort of exhibition room for Moly & I want it to 73 Probably Raymond Duchamp Villon. See Personae. 74 Robert and Sonia Delaunay. See Personae. 75 Florence Taylor, Dorrit Black, Ruth Ainsworth and ‘Winty’ Hall, presumably Nancy Hall, were contemporaries of AD’s and GC’s in Australia. See Personae. 76 Robert Delaunay, Léopold Survage, Raoul Dufy and Henri Matisse were prolific painters and their work could be seen in many places at this time. See Personae. 77 M. Boissonet was the tile maker at St Rambert, a neighbouring village.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 159

1934–1938

159

be very modern & exciting. My recompense will come after, but at present I have a terrible lot to do & no profits, for I promised to help Mme S[chaeffer]. And I’ve been able to pay off two big debts of gratitude which I owed—one to M. Martin of Grenoble, decorator & house furnisher, & the other to Mme Fournier-Terrassier, potter of refectory bricks.78 I persuaded the Schaeffers to give the job to Martin & let him supply the furniture, curtains, etc. He ordered bricks as decoration for the lower part of the walls (I’ll trace a corner of his plan for you) & I chose Mme F-T.’s bricks—soft grey, pink & yellow ochre. For Martin it will mean at least 20 000 francs worth of furniture, & for Mme F-T. about 2000 francs. She is always so nice to me [that] when I work at Boissonnet’s I make her home mine, & as she is very rich I couldn’t pay her in any way. But this order greatly delights her, not only the 2000 fr. but her baker’s oven bricks being chosen before all the many brick factory bricks of St Vallier. Yvette has done a cuisinier [chef/cook] for one side of the entrance in tiles & now she is doing a petit chasseur (a nigger [sic]) for the other. It was Monsieur Gleizes who suggested these panels . . .

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 5 mars 1938 My precious Smudge, Your note by avion came when I needed it badly—I felt you had thrown me over. But if your silence was only because you were so happy painting I resign myself to silences now & then. Well treasure, your note made me ache & burn to fly straight to the dear mother bird’s breast—to hear her, see her again. Oh I did so terribly, terribly want her. Do you think I count at all for her? . . . I met the Gleizes at Lyon on Monday after the lecture ‘Art of the Medieval and Renaissance Periods’. Mme Bach-Sisley arranged a huge & very chic reception [with] champagne, etc.79 I slept at her daughter’s studio (from 2.00 AM till 6.00 AM) then went straight to the pottery at 78 Marcelle and Blanche Fournier-Terrassier were friends of AD’s and residents of Mirmande. 79 Jeanne Bach-Sisley. See Personae.


160

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 160


Roussillon. Ooh I paid for champagne at 2.00 in the morning!! I was terribly sick all day. Oh Smudgie I can’t decide what to do. I don’t want to put all I have into that scatter-brained Juliette’s building—it’s impossible. I have £150 of my of my own & Fairy wants to lend me £100 on the security of half South West Rocks. If I had an atom of faith in Juliette Roche I could easily mount a beautiful little pottery with that here. But she won’t let me lease the building. She insists on keeping the power in her own hands & she is capable of telling the first Punch & Judy couple who come along to take the pottery & push all the pots & tours & fours & things in the corner. She said this about the studio this week to a little fool that is here—‘Prenez l’atelier pour danser’ [Take the studio for a dancing space]. The girl replied ‘But the pictures, pottery, weaving & everything?’ ‘Oh you can push them in a corner.’ Now Smudgie I don’t like my work being pushed in a corner—& I want very very mightily to leave the whole caboose & take myself & my works where nobody can kick them in a corner. Do you think I could begin in Australia on so small a capital? The trip outward cost £50 of my money. I long to begin my own life. I feel I really know my job now & could make good in it—why must I always be at the beck & call of people like Gibby80 & Juliette. She is mad. These newcomers at Moly are the fifth experience I have had since I came here of good for nothings who arrived in the month of November without a sou because they had done nothing all summer. The man (aged twenty-two & with a long red beard & the weakest face you ever saw) came first. He didn’t tell he was married (perhaps he isn’t) & he promised to pay & share the work— of course he did neither. In three weeks he owed Lucie & me 250 francs & let us pump all the water, bring in the coal, etc. etc. Then he told us he had a wife & that he must bring her & [that when] did so that he’d get out of our kitchen which reeked with his cigarettes. They had no work or money, the Gleizes were in Paris & paid no attention to appeals, so I went to an engineer friend at the big factory & asked him to give the fellow work. He got him a job at 250 fr. per week & only 40 hours work. I gave her sewing to do (although she hated it) to get some of my money back. He paid me 100 fr. & since another 50 fr. but they still owe Lucie & me a lot, & he has used Lucie’s bicycle for four months [and] broken the seat, the bell, the lamp. He stole our coal until we had to 80 AD’s nickname for Henry Gibbons. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 161

1934–1938

161

cover it with lime, then he stole the garden stakes to burn. Lucie met him with them & told him they were ours & that we had bought them, [but] he continued to steal them so we had to wrap them round with strong wire. He stole my paints, brushes, pencils, etc. & I had to lock them up. He paints of course; [he’s the] ‘never had a lesson in my life’ type & certainly his stuff looks like it. And the Gleizes are in RAPTURES with them both . . . If I won the lottery I’d carry my good Lucie with me & we’d start all over again near Sydney. I have a darling boy who wants to pot with me, but my lovely Ririe [Etienne] couldn’t leave his mother, he’s only thirteen & he counts on me to start a pottery here.81 But Juliette makes me BOIL & Monsieur Gleizes is scared stiff to say a word against her caprices. I think I told you about the Hotel Schaeffer. Now when Madame S. first asked me to undertake the decoration of the café & restaurant I wrote to Juliette Roche to ask her ideas (she has delightful ones often) & her advice on what magazines, etc. I could get to help me. She never replied. I was afraid to take such an important job alone without having studied restaurants at the exhibition, especially as they had a rotten architect from Annonay who would sneer at anything modern. So I told Mme S. she must engage an excellent decorator, [M.] Martin of Grenoble. Well for four months Martin & I have been working together and I feel we have created a masterpiece. Only the finishing remains to be done but naturally it is the finishing which will pull it all together & we have the completed work well in our minds. Well, Juliette arrives this week. Thursday she flounced into my children’s class & commanded me to decorate all the walls at Schaeffers with children’s pictures. I said it was impossible, that Monsieur Martin had the job & that he had a most beautiful colour scheme for the walls. [She replied,] ‘Oh tant pis pour Martin—nous avons besoin de ça pour Moly.’ [Oh too bad for Martin—we need it for Moly.] I told her Moly already had work everywhere, that I had done two huge panels in tiles (for nothing) from Yvette’s drawings for the entrance, [and] that I was letting the S.’s have all the water jugs, sugar bowls, etc. etc. etc. for the firing price. [And she said,] ‘You refuse to do this for Moly?’ ‘Yes I refuse. I respect the right of an author above everything & besides I can’t afford to spend six months on mural decorations. If I did 81 Ririe Etienne was a student of AD’s.


162

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 162


them I would do the thing properly, but I’ve already devoted four months to this work for the sake of Moly & the Schaeffers have no money to pay me. I did it for Moly.’ She was furious . . . I love Monsieur Gleizes very dearly & he is as good as gold but he won’t budge against her—he only looks black & says nothing. Where can I find a clay pit & a hut that I can call my own? Fondest love my precious one, your Anne. PS. You know my little school won a prize of £40. Juliette took it as quite her right & the fool paid it & £5 out of her pocket to some fraud company to buy Moly & now the company has completely disappeared.82 Certainly the money wasn’t mine—it was she who arranged the show without my knowledge but she could have given the kids a trip in the two taxis to Thorrenc or some historic picnic site.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 24th April 1938 My most precious friend, How can I reply to such bountiful, pure bonté! How can I thank you dearest? I can’t even say if I am going to accept or not. Continental orders pouring in seem to say it would be very wrong of me to throw this independent means of livelihood & go out to burden my dear, good friends. But the longing for you is greater than my courage to put all I have into this uncertain up & down house. . . . I do not want to make a move till I clearly see a direction is indicated. I didn’t come here by chance. I shall not leave until I feel sure that it is right to do so, but sometimes I think that my work here is finished. Monsieur Gleizes has no say in Moly-Sabata, Juliette overthrows everything one builds up. I am a bugbear to her because I am liked. She doesn’t want me to go, but she wants to dominate over everyone & everything & only likes those who lick her boots or those whose boots she licks. And Monsieur Gleizes is for peace (with her) at any price 82 Presumably Mme Gleizes had obtained a loan from a company to buy Moly-Sabata.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 163

1934–1938

163

or anybody else’s sacrifice. He should have thrashed her the minute they left the church when they married, & all would be well . . . . . . The Hotel Schaeffer is re-opened [and] we all went to the dinner of inauguration. I shall send you photos of the restaurant M. Martin & I created together. I wish you could see the colour. The bricks I chose one by one to have a play of soft pinks, yellows, greys etc. It is most fascinating & already we have ever so many new clients because of it, & Martin has received many orders for chairs, tables, buffets, curtains, etc. We were fourteen à table. The Gleizes brought a superb Arab, a nice boy who came with his pictures to my children’s class & told the children that I taught them just as he was taught when he commenced drawing in Algeria at ten years old, that he was only given two motifs and was told to fill a square with an imaginative decoration, & that he was given the three primary colours. He is beautiful!! He wears a rich yellow flannel shirt & tie & wants to study Cubism with me in July. I’ll have a class of four or five men. The days are so brimming with incidents that I don’t get time to reflect on the great problem of the future. When I think of it something says, ‘Don’t worry, wait.’ But these ridiculous amateurs are still at Moly & Juliette [is] still enamoured with them. However, the woman is bored with Moly & suggests going as a shop girl to Grenoble.83 The Gleizes got very excited & told her she was to do no such thing, but she won’t stay here long. I don’t think they are married & if the Gleizes find out they’re not they will make them disappear immediately. For although Juliette likes anything to give her distraction she is scared stiff of scandal. Smudge darling I don’t like to think of you alone in your eagle’s nest, but I’m thankful you have freed yourself from Fizelle’s tyranny. Work darling work. Free yourself from all things which keep you from soaring heavenward, your throat swelling in glad praise, colour & light are the painter’s psalms of joy & thanksgiving . . . Goodnight my darling. Perhaps some way will soon open & we shall be brought closer. We are lonely but it is better to be lonely than crowded out of one’s own consciousness. Merci, merci little wonderful friend, may God bless you indeed, Anne.

K 83 The woman referred to here by AD is the wife of the twenty-two-year-old man recently arrived at Moly.


164

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 164

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Moly-Sabata 24th July 1938

Dearest little mate, . . . I wrote to the dear mother bird last Sunday. On Monday I went to Mirmande again, my pots at Cliousclat were dry enough to decorate & I worked on them till Thursday. Many of Lhote’s pupils had already arrived—the usual types of middle-aged American women. [There was also] an extraordinary Miss George from England, about sixty, fat as a pig (a noisy pig), dressed in green trousers, another woman (Swiss) in navy blue trousers, aged sixty-five, some bearded youths, & four or five interesting girls. Mlle Mathilde Camli arrived on Tuesday with her mother.84 The latter is as fair as you are, with blue, blue eyes. A charming lady. Mathilde invited me chez eux & was very nice. She is so thin & little now. Their house is very nice [and] up the little lane off the street behind Mme Rouveyre. She spoke of you as the most talented ‘dessinateur’ she had ever seen at Lhote’s & says an Irishwoman, a friend of Evie & Mainie, is the best painter he has ever had. Her name is Norea MacInnes or McGuines perhaps. Mathilde hasn’t painted for seven years. She writes. They lost a great deal of money & she has to earn her living . . . . . . Mme Simeon is just the same. She is full of fun. She says she never loved anyone enough to feel [that] she would prefer a dog to bite her instead of them, or that she would die instead of them, etc. etc. A horse ran into the courier’s car & killed a passenger. The poor courier was stunned & inconsolable. Mme Simeon consoled him by these reflections: ‘Mais comme même tu ne veut pas d’être mort au lieu de lui—pense toi—tu n’est pas content que tu vive encore?’ [But all the same you don’t want to be dead instead of him—think about it—aren’t you happy that you’re still alive?] I simply love the pottery at Cliousclat, they are perfect dears to me, & I’m sure I did good work there. I got through it by Thursday afternoon, & in a month’s time I shall go in a big lorry to fetch it . . . Oh Smudge, Mirmande is so beautiful! Much, much, much, more beautiful than when my eyes saw it through Lhote’s ‘tick tock’ [sic] manner of composition.85 Coming from Cliou[sclat] each evening my heart poured 84 Mathilde Camli. See Personae. 85 This refers to a 1928 painting of Mirmande that AD did in Lhote’s mechanical style.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 165

1934–1938

165

forth praises to the Creator of all for having let me come & learn to understand the laws of nature’s construction, space-time, leading, rolling on to rhythm & being wrapped in light!! Those great dimensions of space in the dark mountains. The ramparts & walls of the houses on the north side slowly putting the movement into rotation, & then quicker, quicker, quicker the movement leads one up, up, up to the old church & you find yourself lost in the great dome of light & sky! . . . Goodbye dearest one . . . Blessings upon you my little mate, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 16 November 1938 Blessings on you dearest for not being angry or offended or something bad with me! I’m terribly, terribly sorry you have [had] such a horrible time with Fizelle & I do hope he gets moved by the Education Department to a distant town where he can pose as a great artist. Sydney is too big for a jealous nature like that. But really dear you must never stop through any more of these scenes you describe—he is mad at the time—& actually there is something of truth in what he says. His jealousy [is] caused by his admiration of you & your work & so he says it is your fault. Just leave him every time he glares or shows signs of going off. And Smudge darling up in your own eagle’s nest do forget him completely. You have mounted, mounted in space to get there . . . I feel I am bad not to be more your fellow painter, not to help you to be working in readiness to join our group & help us. Did I send you Homocentrisme, aôut?86 It is so clear & easy to follow & explains Monsieur Gleizes’ principles, but actually St Augustine’s Confessions explain him better than Monsieur Gleizes can. About a month ago I went to Lyon with the Gleizes to hear Monsieur Gleizes’ lecture. He showed the difference—the complete separation 86 Homocentrisme, a book by Albert Gleizes. See Bibliography.


166

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 166


between ‘space’ & ‘time’. One must realise this, that when one lives in the things belonging to space one is not living in time, time is passing unheeded. With Monsieur Gleizes as with St Augustine time seems more beautiful [and] things belonging to space can only move in space. . . . But you mustn’t think of time only as memory, as the past. It is space we can leave in the past & live right this present, present moment in time—time as in music, time as the eternal, time in all the beautiful colours of the spectrum moving in perfect order, never in confusion, moving towards light & rhythm. To paint in time instead of in space is such joy. You would love it dear & I’m sure Mr Balson would, for he used to paint long, long ago in a way which was superior to the objective. Of course there are things belonging to space which are too sweet for words . . . Darling don’t fret about me not being able to depend on 215a George Street when I return. I think probably I’ll be forced to put my tiny all into a pottery here. Taxes, bus fares, etc. are all getting so high that although I work like mad & have lots of orders I can’t earn enough to buy my winter coal. I’ve counted up & find I spend nearly 30 francs a week in fares & sleeping at Roussillon. That’s 1500 fr. per year that I’d save if I had a little kiln here. And shoe leather? Today (as often) I have walked fourteen kilometres . . . I’m sure I’d save half this expense if I had a kiln. And TIME? Time in all its senses! Three hours a day lost in travelling! The right time to change planks, put on handles, etc. etc. etc. And to work in time in rhythm at Moly instead of working to the cursing & swearing of those drinking communists! You cry Heil Hitler?87 Do you admire him? I do, but I don’t like his cruelty to the Jews. I think Belle88 thinks herself a communist. I’d like her to frequent one of their dens just for one little week. . . . God bless & care for my dearest mate. May she be protected & guided. And oh I do hope the pottery isn’t a terrible nuisance. Your loving Anne

c

87 In 1938, prior to the war, many believed that Hitler and the Nationalists were an antidote to Communism. Both AD and GC were anti-Communist. 88 Belle Walker. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 167

4 Arabian Night Stories, 1939

While Anne described her life at Moly-Sabata as being just like ‘a coffee mill grinding, grinding along relentlessly’, she was also aware that ‘now & again the daily round brings out the delicious savour as a surprise’.1 Before the onset of World War II, Dangar was appointed by the French government as artistic consultant to the pottery industry in Morocco, ‘the land of 1001 nights’ as she called it. The French were hoping to inspire Arab potters to return to their traditional idiom, which had been interrupted by colonisation, and AD held the position of instructor in pottery design and decoration to the Arab potters in Fez.2 The position had been organised for her on the suggestion of Maurice Grimaud (the son of her friend Gaston Grimaud), who was secretary to the Governor at Rabat.3 In a letter to her sister Ruby, AD explained that she was expected to ‘ . . . explain the technical side of the work to 1 Letter from AD to GC, 17 May 1936. 2 Fez is the most ancient of all the imperial capitals of Morocco but has a Ville Nouvelle [new town] established by the French. The city has been the at the centre of Moroccan culture, trade and politics since the tenth century, and much of its medieval past still exists in its architecture. The city’s founder was Moulay Idriss (d.792), whose work was continued by his son Moulay Idriss II. (AD uses Mouly in her letters rather than Moulay.) 3 Rabat has been the capital of Morocco since independence, prior to which it was the centre of French government from 1912–56. The city takes its name from the fortified monastery ‘ribat’ built by the Arabs.


168

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 168


the Arabs . . . also inspire them to creative design instead of just imitating without interest or understanding the design of their forefathers’.4 In her letters of this time, she expressed admiration for Islamic culture and for its people and customs, and was scathing about the colonial power that had done so much to ruin the local traditions. AD was a libertarian in her views on imperialism, no doubt fuelled by the Irish heritage of which she was proud. In terms of Australian culture, she frequently lamented the Anglo influences that had formed so much of her own country’s art and culture. For according to Gleizes’ principles, the religious and aesthetic beliefs of ethnic cultures were purer and more meaningful than later more sophisticated cultures such as Britain’s or, for that matter, Europe after the Renaissance. For this reason AD constantly defended the art of the Arab world versus the imperialist French, as she also supported the art of Aboriginal people in Australia versus British colonists. She was greatly influenced by Celtic art and design and had a close affinity with two of Gleizes’ Irish followers Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone. AD travelled to Morocco with her potter friend Susanne Alexandre and her letters to GC read almost like a travelogue, with Anne describing and explaining everything she saw in great detail. For example, she wrote on 21 October 1939: But we mustn’t leave Mouly Idriss quarter, it is too interesting . . . Oh Smudge dear if I take you any further down the Medina—[with] the racket & hammering of the coppersmiths, forges, carpenters, weavers, water mills, together with the yells ‘qurrrrrrh!!!’ of the donkey men, beggars gabbling Allah’s blessings, women screaming wares they carry on their heads, etc. etc.—you will feel stifled.

While recording all the places and personalities that she experienced in her six-month stay, AD became deeply impressed with Muslim architecture and design. She developed a great respect for the potters and craftsmen she met, particularly because the arts of Islam reflected a total religion that ruled people’s lives. At its height, Islamic art maintained an abstract, ornamental style much admired by both Dangar and Gleizes. After her return from Fez, AD wrote that, ‘Morocco explained clearer than poor Monsieur Gleizes’ difficult writings just what we have lost through industrialism.’5 AD’s experience there affected her own 4 AD letter to Ruby Singleton, 21 January 1939, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit. 5 Letter from AD to GC, 14 May 1940.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 169

1939

169

design, and she adapted many elements of Islamic decoration and structure into her pottery. Anne was still in Morocco when war was declared in September 1939. Like Gleizes, she saw the war as an inevitable result of a materialist, capitalist age that had worshipped the machine rather than art and religion.6 In her highly symptomatic way of thinking, and with her adherence to Gleizes’ theories, AD associated the downfall of civilisation with the Renaissance, in particular with artists like Leonardo Da Vinci who was also a scientist and inventor. According to Gleizes, Leonardo had caused the decline of true art in the West. He epitomised the era of capitalism, the ‘machine age’ of industrialism and a subsequent decline in faith. To counter this spiritual decline Gleizes preached a return of art to more fundamental and symbolic forms as seen in Romanesque, Celtic, Islamic and other abstract, non-representational art forms. This aesthetic also involved the eradication of the false distinction between art and craft, and a return to strong systems of belief such as Catholicism and Eastern religions.

c Chez Madame Rouveyre 7 Mirmande Drôme 4th March 1939 Smudge dearest, I’m ashamed of not answering your letter. I wrote to the mother Bird immediately & then I came down here. It is terribly difficult to write for my room is an ice chest—winter continues. I have to stay in the kitchen when I’m here, which is only before 8 AM & after 8.00 PM. I am working like mad at Cliousclat as I may be called to Morocco [on] the 30th April. If only you could hear the dreadful chansons that idiotic Rouveyre8 puts on—always radio Toulouse—les réclames [advertisements] in songs. Then the cafe is closed for economy’s sake and the kitchen is full of drinking men. But this month spent with our dear Madame Rouveyre has 6 In common with those holding extreme religious views Gleizes and AD tended to ascribe biblical reasons for society’s ills. For instance, during this period people believed that the extremes committed by humanity had been punished by upheavals like the two world wars. GC was completely unsympathetic to these beliefs, see AD’s letter, 14 May 1940. 7 Written at the home of Mme Fifine Rouveyre. See Personae. 8 The husband of Fifine Rouveyre.


170

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 170


made me realise that a truly good woman who sells alcoholic drink can do more for young men than all the blue ribbon temperance unions. Do you remember the night when the old horlogier [watch-maker] was drunk & the young people threw a bucket of water over him? and how we looked out the window & saw Mme Rouveyre take him by the arm & lead him up the hill to his home? Well all day long & each night I witness such acts. ‘You ask me for a pernod? I won’t give you any. I am going to make you a herb tea, don’t drink any more wine you have had enough.’9. . . The tragedies of this little town are all brought to the kitchen café and Madame Rouveyre is everyone’s mother & adviser. I just love the good soul, & at this very minute the bad wicked woman has put on two pairs of spectacles to darn my stockings. She stole them from my room & when I got home she pretended they were hers . . .

K 7th March The Grimauds from Annonay came to see me yesterday. They had received a letter from le Maroc from their son Maurice (secretary to the Governor) who grumbles at my reply [that I can’t come sooner], but says they’ll wait till 1st May. Smudgie read about the old city of Fez, that’s where I’ll be sent, it’s most thrilling. Received letter scolding me from Monsieur Gleizes, ‘You have a most exceptional chance & you risk turning it down.’ I did so because of my responsibilities here, but they never realise responsibilities. However Monsieur Grimaud says I was right [and] that it will make them realise au Maroc that I am not dependent on their job, that I am going from my regular work here for six months. All the same if I like the job I’ll try & keep it nine months & miss winter in France. Oh my darling I wish you could join me there & see this marvellous country of ‘a thousand & one nights’. I’ll try & tell you everything, Anne.

K 15 March [1939] Morocco sent me a peremptory letter telling me to come the 15th March. Just a fortnight’s notice, whereas all was extremely vague as to whether 9 This conversation was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 171

1939

171

I would be accepted for the job or not. The letter gave me a terrific sick headache then next day I sent an airmail reply saying it was absolutely impossible for me to leave before the 1st May & that if they considered my experience of value I felt it the act of an amateur to start a pottery mission in a hot country in summer. That even here in August pottery was difficult; borders dried immediately, thicker parts took much longer & the result was warping & cracking of big pieces. That if they would wait till September I would prepare to do the work as it should be done. If however they still desired me to go the 1st May I would do so, but if it was necessary that the work should be commenced immediately I greatly regretted that I should be obliged to abandon all idea of going to Morocco.10 Actually the job scares me stiff. What do I know about clays & chemistry? I have only worked with the clay here. I wouldn’t be afraid to start pottery for myself in Australia, but to go & oversee all the potteries of Fez run by swarms of officials is terrifying . . . Have finished twenty-eight out of thirty huge plates with Cubist designs, ten are d’après Gleizes & are magnificent, the rest mine. I feel mine poor weak things beside his. Some day I must send you a couple of his. It’s only because I can’t afford it dear that I don’t send freight . . .

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 26th March 1939 Dearest, . . . Well I’m off to Morocco the 6th of May! I go to Rabat, the Résidence Générale at first to receive my instructions. I’m very much in the dark about the work I’m going to do. Mme Noguès (the governor’s wife) is organising missions all over Morocco for the handcrafts & the Marocains.11 Maurice Grimaud, who is a great friend of mine, is the General Noguès’s secretary, & Sue Alexandre’s pupil & friend is Mme N.’s secretary.12 Naturally between the two Anne was well backed for the pottery section. 10 AD could not leave at the earlier date of 15 March 1939 as requested, but she was prepared to meet the 1 May deadline. 11 Général & Mme Noguès, the Governor of Morocco and his wife. See Personae. 12 Jeanne Teilhac later married Maurice Grimaud. See Personae.


172

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 172


The name Noguès is pronounced ‘no guess’, I tell you because of course I didn’t pronounce it properly until Mme Gleizes jumped on me. The Gleizes have both been very very sweet over me going to Morocco & really their interest in my work—their radiance when I receive compliments, their fury when I get a rebuff—is very touching. They have been here all the afternoon & evening. I told them about the visit of the Director General of les Magasins de Printemps13 & how he disapproved of my Cubist decorations on pottery. I think it absolutely natural that a man who has devoted fifty years of thought to sharp dealing, [and] cunning drives to succeed in business, [should] not understand anything about art. But Monsieur Gleizes grew black with rage, roared all the things he would have said in my place, & what he would have done had he been here [and] ‘kicked him out of the house etc. etc.’ . . . Goodnight my precious & thank you very very much. Please tell me what to send you darling . . . All my love, your Anne.

K Spring time at Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère FRANCE Spring 1939 Oh my Smudge darling, How can I ever thank you enough for this spring? For all the springs I have enjoyed in France? For if it hadn’t been for the Bon Dieu & my Smudgie I’d still be teaching in a stuffy city art school. The scent of sweet briars comes floating through the window as I write, & the swirl of the Rhône rushing by is a very different sound to the trams of George Street. Moly is Paradise en ce moment. Oh Smudge do come for next spring . . . The wealth & sweetness & light & perfume, the birds & bees & flowers, flowers! We can’t keep away from the garden, the only work one wants to do is gardening. Our big white duck & Mowgli are like us always in the garden. And now our three ducklings know what a spade is & follow us as soon as they see us with one. We have snapdragons almost as tall as ourselves—fleurs de pommier [apple blossoms]. . . Rose 13 French department store chain.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 173

1939

173

Nilson, grenât, jaune, bleu [garnet, yellow, blue]—& a dozen in-between shades made by marriages between these species. And then our petits pois & pommes de terre are coming on [so] beautifully [that] in another ten days we won’t have to go miles to buy food. I went to Lyon last Friday & what do you think I found there [but] a copy of Fresques de St Savin!!14 I am so happy about it. I’m posting it to you at the same time as this letter, also a copy of Témoignages (edited by l’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire) [with] an article by Dom Angelico Surchamp, ‘Spiritualité du potier’.15 Témoignages although a Roman Catholic publication is the best artistic review that I know & it treats all subjects so broadly, deeply & really intelligently that I feel I cannot help you with your class at the Tech. in a better way than by making you a subscriber if you like this copy. I find this review helps in every way not by forcing its opinions, but by helping me to reason & understand. The discussions on art in each number are very amusing & instructive, but I tell Dom Angelico he is a perfect wretch the way he tempts one to buy & buy books, or at least makes one envy those who are able to study these magnificent works he talks about. Darling I’m very afraid this work at the Tech. will be too tiring for you. Nothing tires me as much as teaching now, & I am much stronger than you although I have a silly Galvin heart that may bowl me over at any time.16 This week we potters of Isère said goodbye to one of our comrades. Monsieur Henri one of my compagnons at the pottery Bert for twelve years died suddenly last Monday. He was just my age, hadn’t a white hair & hadn’t a decayed tooth. But alas! Il a trop aimé le vin blanc. [He loved white wine too much.] An excellent potter who only last week filled half the shelves of the pottery with huge biches. Impossible to replace him; the potters of France are disappearing & the few young men who follow the craft have no conception of construction. Henri belonged to the old school, the last of all those I knew. Monsieur Bert took us all in the camion to Annonay (12 kilometres from Roussillon) for Henri’s wife has a farm there. She was a widow with three children when he married 14 Fresques de St Savin [The Frescoes of St Savin], a booklet about the Romanesque church at St Savin’s sculptures and frescoes, which were much admired by AD and Gleizes as fine examples of purity of expression in art. 15 ‘Spirituality of the potter’ published in Témoignages by Dom Angelico Surchamp. L’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire was a Dominican monastery of which Dom Angelico, who became a close friend of AD’s and later her father confessor, was a member. See Personae. 16 AD’s family name was Anne Galvin Dangar, and she had a hereditary heart condition.


174

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 174


her three years ago. The children had gathered quantities of red poppies & arranged them on a great round cardboard so that this scarlet round made a curious but splendid offering to the stepfather who was their playmate. For Henri was very gay. I loved to hear him sing ‘O temps de cerises’ [Oh cherry time] in his old-fashioned measured manner. I feel very flattered that the potters have asked me to design a big jar to place on his grave instead of a tombstone & to choose ‘quelque chose du spiritualité du potier’ [something of the spirit of the potter] to write on it. . . . But I feel it a great honour to be chosen by these real potters’ sons & grandsons—products of the craft—as better fitted than they to design un beau pot funéraire [funerary pot] & I want it to be the best work of my life so far. Of course I hope this for each new pot I make . . .

K Moly 15th April 1939 Dearest, I found your great souled [sic] letter on my return from old Mirmande this morning. What can I say to you my precious friend but that I love you with all my heart, & that I thank you, yes I thank you every day for being my friend. Little friend old Mirmande sends you a message of love. You are still loved there—all the villagers say ‘et Mademoiselle Crowley, vous avez de ses nouvelles?’ [ . . . do you have any news of her?] And by the immediate thought of you when they see me & the warmth of their inquiries after you I see how inseparable we are to them. ‘Dangar, Crowley, Crowley, Dangar cela ne fait rien’ [ . . . it’s all the same] as Lhote used to say. ‘Madame Simeon m’a prié vous donner ses amitiés’ [ . . . begged me to send you her regards] when I went to wish her goodbye last night. Little mate we are inseparable. If one day I am ill & cannot work I shall call upon my mate to help me, but just now at the moment when I feel I can at last pay my way by my efforts I shall be happier if you will understand my wish not to accept your sweet generous gift . . . I have never got so well ahead in my work before. If only the fool nations don’t make war I think perhaps my hardest task is over. I haven’t a farthing in the bank & only £125 of my money left, but I’m sure I have £50 worth of pots made in advance, I don’t owe a penny, & in three weeks I shall be on the boat


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 175

1939

175

to Morocco for six months to earn 80 francs per day & learn things which will make my pottery of greater value . . . At Cliousclat I decorated forty-two plates much bigger than any I have sent to Australia. Eighteen are fired & sixteen are perfect. I love the potters here, but my poor old white head nearly burst doing these decorations without a break day after day, fourteen hours nearly every day. Thirtytwo of these plates are priced at 100 fr. The others at 50 francs, so if I sell them during my absence you see how rich I shall be. Besides the plates I have a quantity of pots made & decorated—some will not be fired till June—three of the plates are ordered by l’Etat for musées. These no doubt will bring orders & I shall put up my prices. The Gleizes are very very proud & sweet about le Maroc . . . I was thrilled with joy because Sue wanted to come with me, but Mme Noguès (one pronounces the ‘s’) wrote me a very nice letter explaining that she couldn’t come into the potteries with me because she is Jewish. Poor Sue! The Jews don’t accept her because she studies the New Testament, the English at school called her ‘froggy’ because she is French, the French college girls called her croisée [convert] . . . Ah Smudge if only you had seen Mirmande swathed in the fairy veil of springtime! Each evening coming home to dear old Madame Rouveyre’s bonne soupe. I caught my breath as I turned the corner of the road from Cliousclat & I saw Mirmande against the dark mountains. But last night I was late & a storm came on. When at last I [had] finished washing dishes & putting everything in order to leave it was nearly dark & raining heavily & I had no parasol. I turned into the road laden with bundles & a great packet of drawings & I saw before me a little woman approaching with a black fichu over her head—Mme Rouveyre with a coat & umbrella for me! She had walked her poor legs swollen with varicose veins the two and a half kilometres to bring me these things! Oh Smudge she is an angel, this sweet simple good Fifine! . . . Mirmande told me all of Lhote’s gossip. You know he & Mme L. are divorced? She took to spiritualism & became a bit dotty, & he as always took to the girls. The big house is closed, neither of them can enter it because it belongs to them both & neither wish to sell it . . . Goodnight darling I’m writing in my sleep. You could almost buy a house at Mirmande for your £19, but if war comes all houses in Europe will disappear. Bless you my sweet friend, your Anne.

K


176

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 176

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Fez La Résidence Générale17

Darling, Here I am in a fairy palace, but I’m HUNGRY. There are loquats & oranges on the trees but the only servant I can find is an old Arab gardener & he says, ‘C’est dimanche, guardian est parti, les portes sont fermés.’ [It’s Sunday, the caretaker is away, the doors are closed.] Last night when the guardian brought me here from the station I told him I would go out to lunch, but the gardens were so wonderful I lost myself in them & he went off. It is about 4.00 PM & I haven’t had a bite since sept heure et demi. Tomorrow I move to an atelier near the gates of the Résidence. Mme Noguès tells me it will be lovely to have my own little home, this is too magnificent. But I must start from the beginning. I got my boat ticket Tuesday & left Moly at midnight. At 7.00 AM I met Sue on the platform at Marseille. We breakfasted & went to l’office du Maroc . . . It was a lovely trip & the meals were the prettiest & best I ever saw or ate, we didn’t stop at Tangiers as I hoped & passed Gibraltar at 3.00 Friday afternoon. The Spanish coast is lovely after Gibraltar. We arrived at Casablanca at 7.00 Saturday morning.18 Minette & Maurice Grimaud were waiting on the wharf & an automobile from the barracks [ran us] all up to the town. The soldiers went off to book my luggage through to Fez & we breakfasted. At 9.30 Maurice & I took the car bus for Rabat. [His sister] Minette is governess at Casa[blanca] [and] the nurseries out of Casa. are thrilling!! All Australian flowers! Casablanca is ugly & flat & covered with hideous posters. It was one and a half hours run to Rabat. The countryside is flat, gum trees now & then, & Arabs plowing with camels & donkeys, their wives (three a piece generally) helping. At Rabat a magnificent car had been sent down by Mme Noguès for us. French Rabat is all new but le Général Lyantey (predecessor to Général Noguès) pulled down all houses that were ugly & made a law against stucco or any colour [so] the whole town is white & splendid. Palm tree avenues & oleanders, bougainvillea, green-tiled roofs & the avenues get more & more grand [as the road climbs the] mountains up to the residence. At the gates the blaze of colour was a thrill [with] soldiers in lovely uniforms, Arab 17 Undated pages from small notebook. 18 Casablanca (Casa, Dar El Beida in Arabic) is the principal city of Morocco.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 177

1939

177

sentinels in bleu, blanc et rouge, flowers everywhere, flags & sunshine! . . . Mme Noguès went off to Marrakesh at 3.00 & Maurice took me down town & Minette came by bus from Casa. & we went to visit the Arab quarter. It is clean & most interesting. At the end of this quaint old town there are beautiful gardens. On the ocean wall storks have their nests everywhere. Right at the end of the garden we struck Sue & her friend! So we all drank thé à la menthe & ate very nice almond biscuits. At 7.30 PM I took my bus for Fez. It was a weird journey, four hours tearing through the night [and] hurrying Arabs appeared on the road every few minutes. Meknes is the only real town one passes.19 I was so tired & this old pavilion was so strange & grand. I just climbed up the great brass four poster bed & slept till a marvellous Arab woke me with coffee at 7.30. The Résidence here is an old 12th century Moorish palace. My pavilion is tiled everywhere. There is just one enormous room with [a] bed in [an] alcove, [a] painted ceiling (red, green & cream with blue & cream border) miles high, green divans, red carpets, very splendiferous. Then there is a huge tiled balcony and a big dressing room with hot & cold water, etc. etc. The guardian’s house is ravishing! I can’t see the residence itself, it is white with green tiles but there is a wall shutting it off from this part. These gardens are huge, old wheels in the rushing streams are used still to lift water for the watering. Red pavilions with great tiled verandahs, & steps are built as bridges over the stream here & there. Low tiled walls with seats here & there encircle the stream. Pomegranates, orange trees, lemon trees, grape fruit trees, loquat trees & fig trees are just bowed down with fruit—& I’m HUNGRY—& away in the distance I see hills covered with olive groves. It is hot & lovely. Tomorrow I shall be given my little home. I hope Mme Noguès said I could come into the garden whenever I liked, but how does one get in & out? She tells me the nicest people in all Morocco are the British Consul & his wife. Maurice says the people here are awful ambitious common military types, terribly jealous of each other & grovelling to the Noguès. At lunch he remarked that the nicest people, the only nice people in Morocco, were à table. Mme says I’ll have all the Beaux Arts crowd against me, that they are furious with her for bringing me here.20 She 19 Meknes is an imperial city, the creation of Moulay Ismail, a tyrannical Moroccan sultan. It is a walled city and has a hilltop town, Moulay Idriss, which has one of the most important Islamic shrines in Morocco. 20 Beaux Arts is short for Les Ecoles des Beaux Arts [the Schools of Fine Arts], which operated in every city in France and also in Fez.


178

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 178


also tells me the potters are méchants et jaloux . . . Oh Smudgie I’ll have to scale the walls, I feel desperate I’m so hungry. I hear Arab music outside, perhaps there’s a cafe quite near!! But I want a meal [in the] French town when I get out (it is three kilometres away). This is the Arab quarter but I don’t want to eat in an Arab restaurant, I want a proper dinner. The majority of Arabs here are rich & very aristocratic & the University is the biggest Mussulman university in the world. The Sultan is here . . .

K Numero I des Ateliers des Beaux Arts Dar Beida, Fez 26th May 1939 Darling, In two days it will be your birthday. I wish I had the choice of Fez to send you. First, all I can send tonight is my deep deep love & gratitude for the privilege of your friendship ever since you were twenty-two. It has been a wonderful thing in our lives dear, my little mate, beside me wherever I go. Here in Morocco where neither of us thought to wander you are constantly with me. For I am nearly always alone, then you come to me immediately. I moved from the residence four days ago. I have a very big high studio with [a] black & white tiled floor, & a green curtain pulls over the huge glass window when I want it to. There are two doors & a nice window with shutters, a verandah in front giving immediately onto the little river, stone walls covered with ivy geraniums, huge fig trees, & a very well kept garden. There are five studios belonging to the Beaux Arts & six smaller ones belonging to the Casa Velasquez. I don’t think I’ll have anything in common with these cocktail drinking, shrieking rotten painters. Their exhibition opened last Sunday. It is appalling, they are nearly all prix de Rome!!21 One architect & his wife are nice—Mme Noguès gave me a letter of introduction. Strangely they are very friendly with Monsieur Bols, who was managing St Rémy for the Gleizes for some years. He now has an orange grove on the mountains & the Delarozières, [the architects,] showed me lovely peasant pottery from up 21 Le prix de Rome was a prize given to the best students at the Beaux Arts.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 179

1939

179

there. I’m sure Monsieur Bols will find a clean bed for me. I must go up & see that pottery. Every day I go to my potters. I don’t know them all as yet, but le chef de la corporation is a dear to me. I told him (through an interpreter) I wanted to learn pottery terms in Arab, so he brought me a funny old nigger [sic] man with woolly hair & a pink frock. Now I can say Salaam wa-a-licomb [greetings] . . . & man, woman, work, wash, clean, dirty, light, heavy, big, little, plate, jug, sugar basin & teapot. He’s a very nice teacher & the Arabs understand me when I bring out funny things like machimyziame—zware nscall byzerf.22 Boostah le chef pulled the nigger’s [sic] hair one day. I said, ‘I shall be afraid of you if that is what you do to white-headed people.’ The nigger [sic] translated it to him & he replied ‘Oh no Madame I wouldn’t touch a lady! not even with a spray of honeysuckle.’ It is simply marvellous how all these Arab potters have taken me as a matter of course . . . Madame Noguès can’t bear to be alone. She has a sweet friend of Sue’s as companion, a girl of twenty-three who paints landscape all the while. If they let me alone I think I’ll get my Arabes to produce better work. I’m copying lovely things in the musée to fill myself with the spirit of Marocain design & form, [and] I am taken to see the most marvellous Moorish palaces. Oh Smudge they are so clean!! We think we are clean, but I’m sure every inch of these mansions is polished every day. I drink le thé à la menthe in a palace one day, & in a pottery with almost naked potters the next. Goodnight dearie, it was a wonderful spin round the ramparts of the old town [and] we got out & walked along the heights, & climbed up the stairs to the roof of a dispensary. In the central courtyard below the women were drinking tea, the children lying on the grass . . . On the loneliest roads one always sees groups of hurrying Arabs. I like the Arabs very very much. They are so gentle & polite & most of them are so clean. The children bathe all day long. Fez is a town of aristocrats & very cultured people. The Arabs are a thousand times superior to the French population, which except for a tiny group round here, is common & vulgar. In the Arab part one hears talented musicians & singers by the river bank at each of the five cafes. In the French cafes a gramophone or wireless is shrieking. I have only been down the souks twice [as] I can’t go without a guide [or] I’d get lost.23 I often go down one single street, but all 22 It is not possible to translate accurately AD’s approximate version of these Arabic words. 23 The souks in Fez, which extend for a mile or more, display traditional Moroccan crafts.


180

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 180


the thrilling little shops are in the maze. Mohamed took me to a weaver one afternoon. The materials are marvellously well done, & the handspun wool things very beautiful. But [it] is the Berber rugs & wall hangings that I adore—they are rich dark blue, red, yellow & black & white . . . Oh darling the ceilings in these palaces are Gleizes’ triumphs & I thank & thank Monsieur Gleizes as I look at them. The people I go with have no key to that page of Middle Age art & because of Monsieur Gleizes I can follow it on to the rhythm encircling it. Goodnight Smudgie dear, it is unfair that I should see all these lovely things & you miss them, but soon you will come to me my friend. Fondest love to the dear Bird & to you my own precious one.

K Numero 1 Ateliers des Beaux Arts Fez (dar Batha) 28th June 1939 My dearest one, Do you hear me calling you? So very often in the evening I long for you. It is in the evening that this Africa is marvellous! I go to the potteries early in the morning, often arriving before the potters & their workmen. Sometimes I go round the outskirts of the native town to get the bus to the potteries, sometimes I am more courageous & dive down the first little cream street & go down, down, on & on, winding, turning into dark passages which lead to the steps of a mosque where women all in white, & of course veiled, stand like statue groups, one hand outspread on the wall of the pillars. I go down steps & turn again [but] I’m never sure of my way here until I come upon the biscuit stall, where an old man sells biscuits in the form of hands. I once asked him the way to Bab Houh [the pottery quarter] & each time he sees me he says, ‘Bab Houh’ & points the direction. But it’s when I have to traverse the Souks at the bottom that I lose myself. Oh Smudgie it’s such a maze! And such a din with all the artisans tapping copper, or wood, or making barbuches [slippers] or playing reed whistles or guitars, or calling their wares. It isn’t dirty & it smells nice [of] mint, spices, sandalwood, etc. The Arabs here are very religious. That means also that they are clean, for Mahomet in his


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 181

1939

181

marvellous dream went to heaven, & the one & only God told him to tell his people that they should pray fifty times a day. Moses told Mahomet this was impossible, to ask the one & only God to reduce the prayer. Many times Mahomet returned to the throne pleading for less & less prayers. Eventually he got them reduced to five times a day & when one goes to pray one must wash one’s hands, feet, face & mouth, & as often as possible all the body, & come dressed in clean clothes. Often I see men swimming while all their clothes, which they have washed, are spread out on bushes on the hot stones. Then they put their [special] clothes on when they are dry & go off singing verses from the Koran, [so] they feel nice [when] they are going to the Mosque to pray. There is a beautiful dainty cleanliness about the better class Arab that makes one feel quite grubby beside him. Si Doudet comes every second evening to talk English, or teach me Arabic.24 He is such a nice boy! And his spotless white silk gown is so sensible in summer. The patron potters are very very clean & nice, all are nice, [and] I’m astonished how much I love & admire these people. Of course there are dirty beggars, & flies, & many of the things we hear about, but there is a superior side which we are (or I was) totally ignorant of. The British consul Mr Blanche, his sister-in-law & his secretary have been spending this hot afternoon in my studio. They are very very nice, but Mr Blanche was saying that the French always suspect everyone & expect to see the bad in everyone. Well I fear the British are the same concerning all who are not British, & very lenient to other Britishers. The Blanches are very charming to me. I’ve been to their home to a big tea party round the fountain in the garden, on the King’s birthday, and to lunch last Tuesday. The tea party was very amusing. There were about one hundred notable Arabs there, two very important Jews, about twenty French, & fifty or sixty Britishers. The Arabs sat on cushions on the verandah. Their clothes were absolutely lovely, for of course they were dressed in official clothes, etc. etc. The Arab servants looked very sweet, they were in wood dove mauvey costumes and cream fezs & barbuches. They just loved themselves & everyone else, & the party. Their eyes shone and they were so quick. They were almost painfully attentive [and] pressed you with flashing smiles & ‘s’il vous plaît’ to eat & eat. The four of them are very young, but the eldest never lost the chance of reproving the others. The great moment arrived to drink the king’s health. The Arabs came down from 24 Si Doudet was a young boy assigned to teach AD Arabic.


182

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 182


the verandah to join the rest of us in the garden, & to drink lemonade or lemon squash, no Arab touches alcoholic drinks. But the boys served us with champagne, balancing the big brass trays of glasses on one hand as they passed the glass . . . Smudgie the distances are so like Australia, especially in the evening. Last night I was at the Ville Nouvelle (the French town) & I suddenly saw the distant mountains. The wave of recognition was exactly the same sensation I would have had, had I suddenly seen an old much loved friend. You would love the lovely costumes darling. On Friday (the Mussulman holy day) everyone is dressed up & clean. Magnificent horses with lovely red saddles & bridles take the old noblemen to the Mosques (there are one hundred and eighty-four Mosques at Fez) and from every direction you see stately men in white carry up their prayer rugs. Really the religion is very close to Christianity. They believe in Christ, in the immaculate conception, & in the second coming, but they do not believe that Christ came to the Mussulman, whereas Mahomet was sent to them. The first son of every woman is called Mahomet, & as most men have three or four wives you can imagine how many Mahomets there are at the potteries. Then all the women are called Fat’ma. When you get to know them you learn their individual names, but they are all Fat’mas . . . One morning I met Norman Lloyd out at Bab Houh . . . I thought of your 400 fr.25 & I didn’t feel like speaking to him, but we were face to face [and] he stretched out his hand dropping his big canvas [bag] as to raise his hat. But I was fairly cool. He said, ‘Oh I’m so sorry I have to take this bus I have an appointment. But where do you live?’ I said, ‘aux Beaux Arts.’ ‘Oh I know I will come & see you.’ He came the next night, but I’m sure I showed him I knew all about his goings on, for he didn’t return & has now gone to England. He bragged greatly over all his successes, of being in Who’s Who in Art, etc. etc. . . . Goodnight darling. Excuse blots, my pen’s awful. My fondest love always, your Anne.

K 25 Presumably GC had loaned 400 fr. to Lloyd when they were in Paris together in the late 1920s, which he had never repaid. Norman Lloyd. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:45 AM

Page P1

Plate 1. Moly-Sabata seen from the quai du Rhône

Plate 2. Moly-Sabata from the garden


31/5/02 11:45 AM

Page P2


Plate 3. Nativity Tile, Anne Dangar, from a design by Albert Gleizes, signed l.r. ‘MSGD’, 41 x 34 cm


Plate 4. Pochoir Design, Anne Dangar, gouache, 33 x 27 cm, signed l.r. ‘Anne G. Dangar’, 1936, design based on Gleizes’ pochoirs compositions


31/5/02 11:45 AM

Page P3

Plate 5. Anne Dangar, a. Plate, signed reverse ‘MSD’, 20.5 cm diam. b. Plate, 20.5 cm diam., unsigned

Plate 6. Interior of Anne Dangar’s pottery, Moly-Sabata with a quotation from Omar Kayyam written on the tiles of Anne’s wedging block


31/5/02 11:45 AM

Page P4

Plate 7. Storage Jar, Anne Dangar, 40.5 h x 84.5 cm circ., unsigned

Plate 8. Storage Jar, Anne Dangar, 56 h x 83.5 cm circ., signed ‘MSD’ on base

Plate 9. Milk Jug, Anne Dangar, 36.5 h x 19 cm circ.

Plate 10. Wine Jug, Anne Dangar, 30.5 h x 61 cm circ., signed inside neck ‘MSD’


31/5/02 11:46 AM

Page P5

Plate 11. Adoration Platter, Anne Dangar, design based on a painting by Albert Gleizes, 114 cm diam., signed ‘MSD’ on back

Plate 12. Plate with Cubist Design, Anne Dangar, 38 cm diam., signed ‘MSD’ on front

Plate 13. Soup Tureen, Anne Dangar, 31.5 h x 68.5 cm diam., signed ‘MSD’ on base

Plate 14. Moly-Sabata Honey Pot, Anne Dangar, 28.5 h x 64.5 cm circ., unsigned


31/5/02 11:46 AM

Page P6

Plate 15. View of Serrières from Moly-Sabata

Plate 16. The river Rhône


31/5/02 11:46 AM

Page P7

Plate 17. The balcony at Moly-Sabata overlooking the Rhône

Plate 18. Sunrise on the Rhône, Sablons


31/5/02 11:46 AM

Page P8

Plate 19. Harvest Platter, Anne Dangar

Plate 20. Jean Chevalier’s Coffee Pot, Anne Dangar

Plate 21. Dom Angelico’s Jugs (decorated with liturgical symbols), Anne Dangar


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 183

1939

183 Atelier No. 1 Beaux Arts Fez (dar Batha) 14 July 1939

Dearest, This 14 juillet makes me think of others spent in Paris with you. Do you remember the night at the Dôme & the marvellous sweets on long sticks? Here in Fez I am roasted alive . . . I have a terrible cold . . . The thermometer has been 106° to 111° for ten days & Fez is a city built on the plain surrounded by hills. The suffocating heat is intolerable. The Blanches (British Consul) took me swimming to a glorious place nine kilometres from here, but I caught cold, & everyday the cold gets worse, one pours with perspiration & then gets a chill. It is curious to hear the bands playing the Marseillaise instead of hearing the Arabs singing in the park opposite. This morning they boomed canons at the Residence, & Cingalese soldiers swarmed it. I forget that the dear old palace garden belongs to the French army. In the evenings I go in to it to try to get a breath of air, but the orange trees are like statues, not a leaf moves. My potters are very sweet to me. One made me go to his harem to drink tea because I was tired. One of his wives lay on a couch & wouldn’t join us. The other was young & pretty & wanted to be very friendly with me. It is marvellous how beautifully they use henna for their hair, it makes it so rich & silky. Le thé à la menthe as they make it is very good. It is green china tea, & the mint is not our mint. They put sugar, mint & tea all in the teapot, & pour boiling water over it. In the cafes they put the mint in your glass, but I don’t like that. The Arab cakes are delicious, & the bread is nice too, but I soon got tired of their restaurants. I go to French restaurants three times a week for a good meal, & eat fruit & nuts & eggs between times . . . I have the greatest longing to get out of Fez, although I think it’s most beautiful. I like the Moorish people immensely, the English are very nice & there are a few French who are nice also, but I feel I’m in a hole, that the dust of the great Sahara hangs over me & falls thickly all the time. . . . If war is not too probable I shall start my pottery in July. I could sell but it seems hopeless. I have learned a great deal about pottery here that I shall use & I hope I’ll learn a lot more . . .


31/5/02 11:43 AM

184

Page 184


Later26 Oh Smudge dear if only you could see the Cingalese women arriving at the old pisé [mud brick] walls of Bab Houh in the evening. Their men are at the barracks there, & in the evening they are free for a few hours . . . They are as black as black, fine pointed faces with very high cheek bones & big black & white eyes which seem to fill half the face space. On their foreheads are huge medallions [of] silver or bead or glass or even embroidery. Their headdresses are so thrilling & various I can’t describe one. Their dresses consist of a white eyelet hole embroidery tunic, but their skirts, collars, belts, ankle bracelets, barbuches, etc. etc. are ‘every colour’. They seem to play at fancy dress costumes every night, & they are spotlessly clean. Norman Lloyd told me they danced (also the men) at the fair in April, & their dances were the finest he had ever seen . . . The funerals are very fine [with] the dead man dressed in white, fez or turban on his head, & placed upon a gay coloured bier. His friends place the bier on their heads & off they go to the cemetery at a great pace singing at the top of their lungs, a great crowd running after & singing. No names are placed on tombs, but in the evening the cemeteries are full. Readers of fairy tales & of the Koran sit on the graves & crowds gather round—the ‘Communion of Saints’ is very real to them, they believe in keeping their dead company—while they sleep awaiting the resurrection. Very often they go & sleep beside a loved one’s grave, or go in little groups to discuss philosophy beside a departed philosopher. And we Europeans treat them as inferiors because we have cinemas & wireless.

K Atelier no. 1 Fez (dar Batha) 29th July 1939 Ah! Smudge darling, It’s so long since I saw your pretty handwriting. Where are you? What are you doing? Oh I hope you haven’t had another attack of bronchitis? . . . Oh dear, it would be wonderful to return from the poterie & find my mate there! While my sweet potatoes cook I’ll tell you about last night’s dinner. Si Doudet, my professeur of Arabic, is a very very charming boy & as he is going to Tangier for a fortnight’s holiday & I am going to Safi for a fortnight we have to stop lessons for a month. I am very sorry, French 26 Dated by GC, 14 July 1939.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 185

1939

185

lessons were such a terrible bore to me, but my lessons in Arabic are a delight. I simply thrill when I find I can read these lovely letters, but of course I can only read the words I know. I think my interest is due to my interesting & lovable young teacher, the son of a university professor here . . . [Miss] Cooper is a very nice Englishwoman at the British Consulate, who has been in Fez twenty-five years. And Miss Denison is an Irish hospital nurse whom an English doctor brought over here over forty years ago. The authorities of Morocco made [Miss Denison] dress all in white & wear a veil like the Arab women. She was so used to it when the French took possession of Morocco in 1912 she still wears all the Moroccan costume except that she doesn’t veil her face now . . . Si Doudet insisted on coming up [to my quarters to call] for me. He always wears a lovely fine creamy jellabya (sort of hooded kimono) and a dark red purple fez, & cream barbuches or white kid sandals. On the way down he told me it was almost an unknown thing among his people for women of intelligence & culture to not marry, & how could Miss C., Miss D. & self [have] not married. I explained that household duties rarely interested intellectuals. He said that was why the Moors feared to educate their girls, but that he was very pleased that his father had consented to the sending of his two youngest sisters to a French school. His eldest sister aged sixteen could read & write Arabic but very badly, & she didn’t know any French, whereas his sisters of eight & five could both talk French, & the one of eight could read & write it quite well . . . The long thin typically English Miss Cooper looked very funny sitting on a cushion in an alcove—Miss Denison looked much better—& I hated to think I was going to look all wrong in that lovely setting. The youngest sister (aged five) sat between the two Britishers, & from every corner brothers & sisters came to shake hands. There are nine [children] in the family. But when I was seated also, the eldest sister presented us each with enormous embroidered silk covers for our laps, each a different colour. Then Si Doudet brought a big brass bowl with a strainer & a cake of soap inside. Miss Denison washed her right hand [and] then a little girl followed & poured clean fresh water from an elaborate brass kettle over her hand & gave her a clean towel. Everyone was served in the same way. When the soup came I was thankful to see spoons. It was fowl broth & very good. Next came my first lesson in eating with my fingers. The enormous dish was placed before us, it was mutton with roasted almonds & apples, and sliced hard boiled eggs in a delicious sauce. Brown bread was given to us to scoop & dip—no plates, everyone eats


186

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 186


from the same bowl. Si Doudet who was the only member of the family who ate with us, was like a very nice rooster. His right hand busily picked out tit bits which he quickly dropped in the place of each of his hens. He was so happy one would think he was entertaining the three most beautiful young girls of Fez. The dish was really delicious. But then followed two roast chooks so tender & rich the pieces fell into your hand when you touched them, & we had to beg Si Doudet not to serve us. Then came the usual kous kous with lots of raisins, we only had water to drink so far, but now iced fruit drinks were brought by the little girls & again the hand washing ceremony. Then Doudet asked us to go up to his own room for tea. It was two stories up, the stairway all made of tiny tiles as usual. Doudet’s room is very nice. Curiously he has a chair & table for writing & studying. His walls are lined with books. He immediately put on an English concert on his wireless, & brought us his beautiful bound Shakespeare plays translated into Arabic. Then tea was brought. It was hot upstairs [and] we each drank three glasses of green tea, & this made us pour with perspiration & work off our huge dinner. We didn’t meet his parents, but all the pretty sisters & brothers were in the entrance hall to bid us farewell. All the family will enjoy those dishes today, for really one can [eat] so little of each. I was very pleased to experience this glimpse into the life of a nice Moorish family, the typical class of Moors at Fez. What I want now is to meet master artists & decorators & find books on Marocain decoration. I have learned that they call interlaced design ‘ruminating drawings’ & that these are chiefly used for religious purposes, but I can’t talk with anyone who knows. The French here, especially les Beaux Arts crowd are the most ignorant, fat-headed conceited upstarts in the world. Their insulting manner to the Moors nearly kills me with shame. Souchon (Director here) drove me in his car up to town yesterday, a weak common type, no chin, no back to his head, & was certainly a nobody before coming here. The [Moroccan] gardener was up to his waist in water building a break water in l’oued (little river) so as to make it deep enough to get water with a bucket to water the garden. The car was at the gate, but this upstart [Souchon] wouldn’t open the gate before getting into the car. The gardener must swing the gates open & stand at attention when the Mallam [Mullah] goes in or out. No, he tooted & swore & stormed & tooted ten minutes while poor old Mouly Mohamet was wading out, rolling down his trousers, etc. etc. Then he drove like fury in spite of the road covered with poor little overloaded donkeys going up to the markets. ‘The mentality of these Arabs is impossible,’ [he said]. ‘It is now


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 187

1939

187

over twenty years since French occupation here, but nothing will make them understand to make way for motor traffic.’ ‘How would you like to have to gain your bread by bringing your goods to town with a pack of twenty donkeys on a high road?’ ‘Diable! Je n’ai pas de sympathie a perdre sur ces gens.’ [God! I have no sympathy for these people.] And that is the attitude everywhere. If I hadn’t known very very nice French people in France, I would loathe [the] French as a race by contact with them here. I think only very common commercial & military types came here, & they feel the superiority of the Arabs & want to humble & bully them. If I was an Arab I’d knife them, instead they are always polite & kindly & wanting to help everyone. If I want help I ask an Arab, although I have to ask in gibberish & signs. . . . My love goes out to you dearest one. Take care of course in these winter months. Blessings on you my friend & kiss the dear Bird for me when you see her, your Anne.

K Series of postcards undated Nothing thrilled me as these monumental white draped women when I first arrived. Grouped together in the shadow of palm trees they were a wonderful sight. But I’ve been so disappointed by the old hag faces of women of thirty when unveiled that much of my enthusiasm has worn off. The veiled women in the streets are generally charwomen going or coming from work, or street women ready to earn a franc from a Cingalese soldier. Women of the better classes never go out at all except on their wedding day when they go all curtained round from their father’s home to their husband’s. May go to a wedding in September. The secretary from the British Consulate is invited & says she will ask the people to let her bring a friend. Am sending these cards to you dear & you can pass them on to the dear mother Bird & Flo. [There] is a delightful cafe up on the hills where I often go when the heat down in the town is unbearable. It is about a mile or a little more from Boujouloud Gardens (just over the road from les Beaux Arts)27. . . The view from the cafe in 27 The Boujouloud Gardens to the west of the Bab Boujouloud has cafes and bars on either side of its brightly decorated gateway. The nearby dar Batha palace was built at the end of the nineteenth century and is now a museum of decorative arts.


188

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 188


the opposite direction to this is much finer. You look down on the great city of mosques . . . and it is lovely to go there for your evening meal, to watch the sunset [and] then hear the prayer calls from all the minarets, & wait for the lights on the city to come out & twinkle. The streets down in the Souks are roofed with bamboo lattice work, but the fierce light comes through like this if vines are not grown over. I am quite used to the maze of tiny tiny streets down in the Medina (town) and although I often get lost [I] have no fear at all now. I know I’ll find my way again. Every day I traverse this town on foot (no cars can cross the tiny streets of the souk) to go & come from the pottery & I buy all I need for my dinner as I come along. All prejudice against Arab food has gone. I find it very good. The home-made brown bread is delicious, I eat one kilo of grapes every day. The meat is severely supervised by the French, so I get a chop, or even two little skewers of meat all cooked & they are very good. The meat is cut in pieces . . . tossed in red pepper & spices, threaded on a skewer & then a tiny piece of fat is threaded, then another piece of meat & so on [and] this is grilled over a clear charcoal fire. Then there is a delicious thing like a fat green snake which is half cucumber & half fruit, & very easy to digest. The Arabs say it contains so much nourishment that if one eats it alone one can live quite well. Little children gnaw away at this long green thing but Anne puts it into the ice box she has been lent & then cuts it in crisp cracking slices, & sprinkles it with salt & pepper. [The unloading of water melons] every evening at the gates of Boujouloud is a marvellous sight. But as they water melon vines with swamp water they are apt to give one dysentery or typhoid, so I dare not eat them [even though] they look worthy of [those grown at] ‘Glen Riddle’! Donkeys by the thousand (I’m not exaggerating) bring them back every evening to this huge place with two paniers, also motor lorries driven by natives bringing in loads. At 7.00 in the evening the fruit sellers come to buy, also all the poor people, for a big melon costs about 50 centimes, and the sight is an almost unbelievable dream of the orient. I fear I sent you the pottery kiln before . . . The kilns are made of clay, broken pots & stones are mixed with the clay in the outer walls but the interior is all clay mixed with straw (as in the bricks of the bible story) to make it porous when the straw burns out. This is Maggezeri’s (Mohamet) kiln & tomorrow I shall be working at his pottery.28 He is Boubkes’ uncle, & 28 Maggezeri Boubkes, a master potter.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 189

1939

189

a very splendid Arab type, with flashing black eyes, white turban, & sweeping brows. I wouldn’t like to vex him for all his polished manners . . . Bless you my dear dear ones, Anne. . . . Who would have thought that day when you & I watched the turners of the Quimper pottery, that my decision to learn this craft would change my life so?29 You were strongly opposed & you were quite right perhaps, for this pottery absorbs all my time & thought, & my painting has taken a back seat. After all painting, pottery, life, are but ways through time which we may use well or badly to travel towards rhythm, & perhaps it was only big enough for a ‘minor art’ . . . . . . Last Friday I was invited to lunch by a master potter, Maggezeri Boubkes. Friday is their holy day & Boubkes told me he would have to go to the mid-day prayer at the mosque & then he would meet me & take me home. He talks French a little, & a few words of English. He is thirty-seven, as fair as myself (Shakespeare made an awful blunder in making the Moor of Venice a black man, the Moors are a white race), & you may picture a perfect gentleman dressed in mauve jellabya, red fez & cream barbuches assisting me in & out of the bus like a 16th century nobleman. His house beside l’oued (little river) has a pretty garden & courtyard below, but we mounted the steep tiled stairs to the woman’s quarter. Here I met his mother, & three sisters, & his wife. The Moorish woman is a doll. She has no education, & until the French occupation of Morocco in 1912 the slave trade was in full force. The French government wanted at first to free all slaves, but intelligent slaves besought them to not do that, or they would starve. So the French gave freedom for the asking, but many, many slaves & their children prefer to remain slaves, & there is an exchange & sly selling of slaves between Marocain still. The Marocain woman of good family knows nothing of housework, she only knows about embroidery. These women & girls in white Muslim frocks embroidered in pale colours—faces tattooed, hands and feet painted with henna, bracelets on wrists & ankles, ear-rings, necklaces & hair ornaments in gold & silver—were typical middle-class Moorish women. On the lovely balcony with floor & walls in tiles, two low tables loaded with dishes of fruit were very pleasing to see. I was hungry, it was certainly half past one. Boubkes made me go into his mother’s room to lunch. 29 Quimper, a town on the west coast of France in Brittany, was a picturesque artists’ summer retreat once visited by AD and GC.


190

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 190


Here a brother-in-law & young brother awaited us. The sisters sprayed me with orange flower water & took my hat. I felt I should take my shoes off for all Moors go barefoot on their pretty tiled floors, but they wouldn’t let me. Then all the women retired, Boubkes put on the lunch music of the Sultan on the wireless. It was very delightful, the room had cushions all round. I was placed in an angle & the three men sat round the little table. Then a black girl brought in the hand washing bowl. [On] the first dish were melon & grapes, but almost immediately a little black girl brought a big dish with balls of forcemeat, vegetables & rich gravy. The meatballs were not as big as walnuts. One continued to eat grapes all the time but one has to eat only with right hand, & of course no spoon, fork, or knife. The left hand is looked upon as unclean, therefore ‘Allah’ has only two right hands. A kous kous with fowl followed—it was very good, I’m becoming une connaisseuse of kous kous—then beetroot salad, then figs & plums. Then the hand washing utensils & soap this time. Then everything was cleared off [and] the little black girl came in & washed the whole floor with a swiftness & dexterity we are quite ignorant of & the women returned carrying the tea things. Oh Smudge this ceremony is ravishing! A pretty little earthenware charcoal burner full of live coals is placed first [and] the copper or brass kettle placed on it. The tray, tea pot, sugar box and biscuit box are all in lovely hand-wrought brass, the tea glasses are fine & glittering. While the water boils the time is occupied in sprinkling everyone with orange flower water in a brass bottle while the hostess burns sandal wood [to] perfume the air. Mint & sugar & green tea are all placed in the teapot. The biscuit box is called a Mida & is in lovely polished brass. Arab biscuits are goodo. They are thin pastry filled with almond paste. Picture all the lovely glittering tea things on the pale tiny tiles, the pretty dolls & the women sitting on cushions, the men (sans jellabyas) in lovely coloured little jackets & full trousers just below their knees. Then I was taken up on the terrace. Boubkes came too, but really men should never be seen on a terrace. So he crouched down until his wife signed to him that no women were on the adjoining terraces. I’m off to Safi (for two weeks only) on Thursday.30 I’ll stop the night at Rabat. I want to see Maurice Grimaud & visit the [emporium] Galerie Lafayette. The European shops at Fez are awful, owned by ill-mannered Jews, & one can’t buy stockings in the souks. Oh Smudge I could go on 30 Safi, which lies between Casablanca and Marrakesh, is noted for its pottery production. The potters’ quarter is called la colline des potiers.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 191

1939

191

gossiping for hours & hours & hours, but I’ve got to go to the Mellah (Jewish town) for cream braid & take it to La Ville Nouvelle (French town) to a dressmaker, for I’ve bought myself a thrilling Marocain dress! It’s cream hand-spun wool & silk, the real jellabya stuff worn by the very grand Sidis going to the Mosques on Fridays . . .31

K Safi A series of postcards 19 aôut 1939 Oh Smudge dear, It’s good to sleep with a sea breeze coming through your window after the stillness & heat of Fez. But this sprawling white town is not nearly as lovely as old Fez. Actually Safi is not young. When the Hebrews were given the land of Canaan the Canaanites fled to the coast of Morocco & Safi was their chief town, called after their biggest sanctuary in the fourth century. The Carthagenians took Safi & owned [it] until the ruin of Carthagenia [w]hen it became Roman & St Augustine’s influence brought to it Christianity. But afterward a huge migration of Israelites from Cyrene turned Safi into a Jewish settlement & there are many many Jews here still. In the first card you will see an Arab woman, then three Arab boys, & lastly a Jew. The Jewish men are all dressed like this [with] black skull caps & black gown. The married women wear silk handkerchiefs on their heads, & silk shawls, but the young dress as Europeans now. In every Marocain [town] there is a Jewish quarter called Le Mellah [meaning] salt.32 This name was given because all demeaning work was given to the Jews by the Arabs and they always had to salt the [severed] heads of all the vanquished which were then hung up on the walls of the town. Miss Cooper & Miss Denison (who have been at Fez thirty years) tell me that right until the French 1912 occupation this practice was common. That the doors between each quarter would have a few heads given as a favour so, as they lived near one of these doors, 31 Sidi is an honorary title. 32 The name Mellah was originally given to the ghetto at Fez and later adopted by Jewish ghettos all over Morocco. Its origins came from the work given to Jews of salting the heads of criminals before they were placed on the city gates as a warning to others. Prior to the French Protectorate, Jews were sequestered within the Mellah and forbidden to go outside.


192

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 192


they often had thirty heads on view from their terrace. Even still one can get shocks . . . Well now I must go, it is half past six. Fondest love, Anne.

K Marrakesh 26 aôut 1939 Comment penser de guerre dans cette ville enchantée? Avec cette vie si vraie, si logique. [How can one think of war in this magic town? With this way of living which is so true and logical.] Oh Smudgie, I didn’t notice I was writing in French, excuse me, I’m an idiot! After a week rather wasted at Safi I came here (one hundred and fifty kilometres by car for 15 francs) yesterday. Rumblings of war were terrible at that sea-side town filled with French officers & soldiers & their families. Coming along the forbidding dull red country with here & there a tiny mud village without a tree, all our thoughts were of the menacing danger. Suddenly an endless file of camions filled with soldiers & mules—the Arab mule is a perfectly darling animal, I love him more than even the famous Arab steed of poetry—they came & came, the line of them looked an ant trail, & still they came! ‘Oh c’est fait c’est fait! La guerre est declarée’ [Oh it’s done, it’s done! War has been declared] we all cried. At last we saw the last wagon pass & found we were coming to a little river. Away in the distance were high mountains & not far away a group of palms, then palms, palms, palms!! Such as I have never, never seen! Golden dates weighing them down! Oh it was so exciting. We approached the red walls of this southern city where it is forbidden to paint [a] house or wall [with] anything else but colours made with natural earths. From pale salmon to dark Indian red one can go, but no other colour. The natives wear either dark blue or cream. The trees are splendid. I had been well directed by the syndicat d’initiatif [tourist information office] to go to the Continental Hotel, in the heart of the Medina. I have a very nice room for 13 fr., meals at 10 fr., and a sweet native guide at 5 fr. [for] the half-day who speaks French perfectly, & knows everything, & chases beggars, & is really like a friend now. Oh Smudgie if you found my first letters Arabian night stories, Marrakesh is the real thing, not a story. Picture an enormous place surrounded by wide streets & red & pink cafes, palms, etc., all swarming with Arabs in cream, white or blue, with red Fez or white or yellow (gold) turbans. Camels, donkeys, mules, horses


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 193

1939

193

quite make one forget to see the few cars of tourists. The place is a marché of pomegranates, grapes, figs, quinces, until about 4.00 PM. Then the grass mat tents of the marché are pulled down & one notices very big Arabs in pure white dominating the seething mass. In a few minutes the whole place is transformed [and] wild cries of snake charmers draw the crowd. And such snake charmers! such dramatic creatures. I enclose the card of one which amused me greatly. He pretends to be terrified [and] goes through such a pantomime of stealth, bravado, magnificent courage, indifference, & lastly great affection for his sleepy snakes. Then there are the glass eaters, the Choulh dancers, the conjurers, tale tellers, acrobats, etc. etc. Sitting up on the terrace of le Grand Café de France one looks down on this scene & on the whole big city of Marrakesh le rouge. Just after sunset it is really an Oriental dream. But alas! Even while gazing at this wild abandon of joy among these Moorish men who are always happy children we received another shock. Someone arrived with the news that all vehicles—lorries, cars & even all carts, horses & mules—were mobilised [or] at least they must be ready to be seized by the State at any moment. I feel it too risky to remain here or delay in entering at Fez. I went immediately & took my ticket for the departure at 5.00 tomorrow morning. Will I be sent to Australia? I don’t think it at all likely that I shall be allowed to return to France in November if war is raging there, in spite of my return passage safe in my trunk. It doesn’t matter what happens to me; I’m more than threequarters through my span probably & I have had a most interesting & favoured life. But if this war is all another waste of youth for political lies, the world is as wicked as in the time of Noah & the destruction will be as complete . . . We have made an idol of our bodies. Industrialism, capitalism, every force of this epoch is for bodily—certainly not spiritual— satisfaction. And that is why I believe that war must come & destroy the industrial world. Perhaps that is why thousands & millions of bodies must be sacrificed before that great wall of bodily thought & love can disappear and man once more be able to see God. For I don’t believe God, who planned the body as only a sort of container of the spirit for a few years, looks upon the disappearance of bodies as of a very great importance. ‘The happy life’ that St Augustine pictures lifted man completely from bodily thoughts. Now the people who call themselves religious see only the body. If they are Christian Scientists they think bodily health is religion, & if they belong to any other church they think hospitals, alms giving, soup kitchens, benevolent societies, etc. are religion. All this is on


194

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 194


a par with representative painting, the whole expression of man’s thought today is temporal. We have made of bodies our God & God who is of the spirit says, ‘Ye shall have no other Gods but me’,33 & ‘For the lord thy God am a jealous God & I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children’,34 etc. etc. Poor young men’s fair bodies! Each young fresh boy I see makes me sad. I greatly fear the time for vengeance has come, & ‘vengeance is mine’ saith the Lord.35 Smudge dear when you see lovely things in nature, & then see the factories & advertisements & smoke of towns don’t you fear the Creator’s wrath from the way we have spoilt his picture?

K Postcard 29 aôut Just can’t bear the patriotic music of the TSF 36 & so I have come up to my room to talk to Smudgie . . . One sees continually, but you don’t often see an Arab without a turban. In the towns many wear the red Fez, but the aristocrats & peasants wear turbans very different to one another. Found these two other cards of Azrou, but none give any idea of the mountains or show the charming place right in front of my hotel.37 I find this lovely place is only twelve francs [and] seventy-five kilometres from Fez. I must come up again to see the marché. Mme Noguès has arrived in Morocco. Bother her! I thought I had another month’s peace before she came to meddle with my potters. French women should be veiled & shut up like Moorish women. When given any authority they go crazy. I like Mme N. very much but she knows nothing about art, or pottery & thinks her personal taste sufficient to break down traditions and direct every branch of art. She has made terrible blunders & has no confidence in anyone but herself. Of course it’s the war that has brought her back a month earlier. Goodbye dear, Fatima is waiting to take me to the native village. Fondest love, Anne. 33 34 35 36 37

Exodus 23: 13; Exodus 20: 3; Deuteronomy 5: 7, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978. Exodus 20: 5, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978. Exodus 20: 5, 23: 13; Deuteronomy 5: 7, New Testament, New Int. Version, 1978. Télégraphie sans fils: wireless. Azrou, the first town of the Middle Atlas, is situated on the junction of two routes, one of which goes north to Meknes and Fez and the other south to Kenitra and Midelt. The town is dominated by a large rock from which it derived its name, as azrou is the Berber word for rock.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 195

1939

195

K Postcard from Azrou undated After three most interesting days at Marrakesh I went to Benni Mellah, a tiny mountain town that I hated [with a] dirty hotel & a terrible hullabaloo all night. Very worn out I took the car at 5.00 AM to Kenitra, a queer red mud town with a bright blue river, only had two hours there.38 [I] wanted to get to Azrou as I felt ill [and] wanted to be at a nice clean French hotel. All day yesterday I was ill in bed, retching, feverish, etc. etc. Was rather terrified of typhoid [as] it is very prevalent here. The landlady wanted badly to get the doctor, but I begged her to wait till night & by night I was better [with] all fever gone. It was perhaps the rough car travelling, perhaps the change from plains & sea to the high mountains. Perhaps the war. Azrou is ravishing! From my balcony I look out upon the native village climbing the mountain and other huge mountains all round. The native shops have green tiled roofs, the houses flat roofs. The natives wear lovely clothes—the new cream jellabyas & dark blue burnous [capes] often lined with wine or green which shows in the hood [and] then there are big motifs in wine, gold, & green woven into the tissue. The women wear cream wraps with lovely patterns in blue, gold, cream & black. Their dresses are generally embroidered Muslin, their head kerchief orange & gold & red, [with] quantities of gold & silver jewellery and some have sort of bead gaiters in lovely colours & patterns. I wish I could stay for the marché on Friday, the people here say it is absolutely wonderful, but the hotel costs 30 fr. per day . . . I have never been in such a delightful little town & will try & return as it’s only twelve kilometres from Fez. Everything depends on Hitler. I saw a lovely burnous on a man & had the pluck to ask him had he any to sell. He said yes, but at 350 fr. So I couldn’t buy at that price. However he took me to his house where his wife was wearing one [and] I ordered a cushion of the same material at 60 francs. They had me stay for tea & I took many notes of the loom for Lucie’s sake, but when I felt the weight of the comb with which all the work is done I don’t think anyone not trained from childhood could use it . . . Oh Smudge if you were 38 Kenitra is on the coast when travelling from Fez to Rabat.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

196

Page 196


here you would spend money! It’s terribly tempting. Fondest love my dearest, Anne.

K 1 Ateliers des Beaux Arts Fez dar Batha Morocco 17 September 1939 Smudge my darling, Whatever do you think about [war being declared]? Of course Europe has been expecting it for fifteen years at least, & even Australia for the last two, but we hoped in spite of our forebodings . . . As for me I don’t know what will happen to me. I’ve been given the sum of money promised at the end of my six months, but nobody can tell me if I am to keep on working for the other two months or not. I would certainly like to know before the end of this month, for if my daily pay is not going to be paid I will leave the 10th October instead of 10th November, & return to Moly. Oh Smudge I fear I won’t be able to do any panels. I’ll have to just grow vegetables for us to live on, & spend the money I earned here for my kiln. I feel God will provide the kiln if some day it is necessary, he has provided me always, & this money should last me through the war if I live on vegetables & fruit & brown bread. I won’t be given any job because I’m étrangère. The others will have work [and] Gilka & I will be there with the little Luc & old Mme Bach-Sisley . . . She was seventythree the first year she came, seventy-two the next, & this is her fourth year so I suppose she is seventy! but she’s a dear. Lucy & Mido Geoffray will probably return at night. I shall offer to grow vegetables for us all, Gilka (aged fifteen) likes housework—she can do it—& we shall both prepare a good soup for everyone [in] the evening. Gilka & Luc (aged five) & I can gather lots of wood. Jeanne Bach-Sisley can help by buying coal for the common room—nearly supplying it all—for only she will need it in good weather. I shall try to draw regularly in spite of everything for if I gave up the daily practice I am too old to take it up again after. Thursday I shall devote to the children as always. I feel Moly is my place. The potters here wanted to send letters to Mme Noguès & the Pasha [chief] asking for me to stay on. But I feel I should be deserting Moly in her time of need. I know I can help far more at Sablons than


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 197

1939

197

here. Sablons looks to Moly, Moly must continue to be Moly, & Mido & Lucie will probably be given daily work. If however the Gleizes have abandoned Moly in despair I shall probably try & get a cheap boat for Australia. I haven’t had a letter from Moly since the 28th August, so I know nothing . . . You know as a teacher one has to draw forth the pupils’ best, not trust in your personal tastes. Then to me tradition is sacred . . . I have a greater general knowledge of art, but thanks to Monsieur Gleizes I understand these non-representative artists sufficiently to respect their work, which is deeply founded upon the same principles of all countries & periods of non-representative art . . . Then suddenly the thought came to me that I mustn’t let Mohamet Magezari fret all night, I must show him I like his work.39 So I tore off to the potteries to catch him before he left. I go through the maze of tiny streets in the old city as if I was born here, but it is three miles of these tiny streets, & I thrust 100 francs into his hand & said I wanted to buy one of his big plates. His eyes filled with tears, this man of forty. He said, ‘Please accept it as a present.’ But oh Smudgie, it is madness for me to spend 100 fr. on a gigantic dish which weighs terribly heavily. But I was so happy coming home in the pitch dark to my lonely room! That artist realised I appreciated his work because I too was artist & potter . . . My heart yearns for Moly. I feel a deserter, a fair weather friend, if I stay here. Besides how can one be dictated to by one who knows nothing beyond what an outside cultivated taste gives . . . My deep deep love to you my dearest, your Anne. [Later] . . . I have received my first letter from Moly since the war written the 10th September & received the 28th! So I have no idea what has happened chez moi. The men folk hadn’t yet been called that first week, but were expecting to be every hour. Monsieur Gleizes won’t have to fight, he is fifty-eight, & the foot that was wounded in the last war has become very stiff, but he may have to do other work. Fancy poor Monsieur Gleizes in an office! I return to France [in] November if allowed to enter [though] one can’t tell what will be happening by that time. I want to be with those with whom I have lived nearly ten years of peace, and I don’t value my skin more than that of good Monsieur Buard & three other grand farmers of Sablons. My good little Lucie has kept my room for me. There are artists from Lyon at Moly [and] they wanted 39 Mohamet Magezari was a local Arab potter.


198

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 198


my room, but Lucie kept them out. I’m afraid if I only found a back, sunless room—[with] winter, rain, & war raging—my courage would fail, but my two windows looking out on the powerful old Rhône & the mountains catch any sunshine there is, & the water reflects light. I love my room, & so does Pierre. Smudge darling if we never see each other again remember that bodies only belong to space, that memory does not lose friends, they live in memory until memory itself passes on to rhythm & light. We shouldn’t have any fears in this war; we are fighting a great block of materialism to bring the world back to true happiness & peace. If only it could be done quickly . . .

K Beaux Arts Fez (dar Batha) 10 October 1939 Darling, Your airmail letter of 20th September has reached me . . . I had received no letters from Australia. I felt as if already this continent was cut off, as if this war was really the end of the machine & no boats or aeroplanes existed . . . I was eager to return to Moly, but as they have asked me to stay on here (at a salary of 2000 fr. per month) until May I shall do so. In France I couldn’t earn a farthing during winter. I am glad also to have another eight months to study intellectual designs, & the architecture & crafts of this lovely old town. Since the terrific heat has passed & a few storms have washed the white dust off the verdure I can see Fez as the beautiful town it is. How I wish I could show it to you! But now even postcards are prohibited, & I had just bought some wonderful ones, one taken from the café Maure from which I wrote to you, it is splendid but alas! It wouldn’t reach you if I sent it.40 . . . When I was in Paris last May I saw a show of all the big men of our 1926 knowledge—Picasso, Braque, Marie Laurencin, Leger, etc. It left me very cold. Picasso & Braque were saying exactly the same things 40 The café Maure, which is not Moorish despite its name, is situated on a terrace next to the Palace Museum and Gardens of Rabat high above the river. The proprietors serve mint tea brewed in the traditional method on an old brazier.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 199

1939

199

but both were flabby & tired compared to the adventurous strong explorers we knew. Braque’s colour has become sweeter & sweeter until it’s almost sugary compared to his dignified greys, blues & ochres of early work. Now he paints in mauves & pinks—hydrangea colours. Leger is stronger & not so rigid, but his work is rather Hitlerish—brute force. Marie Laurencin is slick & superficial. Delaunay’s bombastic & crude. A small panel of Gris’ work made them all look empty. Gris [died] in 1927 [but] was still sincerely searching a grand simplifying, & a constructive movement. Only Gleizes & some young painters gave really vital work. The war is the end of Leonardo’s epoch. Gleizes predicted it in [his book] La vie et la mort de l’occident Chrétien in 1921.41 I think it would interest you to read The Forerunner again now; Savanarola’s desperate struggle to defend the non-representative tradition of the church [and] his belief in Leonardo’s science & materialism being the anti-Christ.42 Perhaps the dying of an epoch will take longer than this war, but materialism being but materialism, perhaps we shall be shown how absolutely momentary all our tower of Babel is. Many times in history man has tried to become Lord over all the earth. His ambition to fly will be told probably even as his ambition to build a tower reaching to heaven is now told smilingly. I remember you were very angry when you saw Bretons reaping their crops with a reaping hook. Here in Morocco it is by doing all work by hand that the huge population of natives is kept from unemployment & starvation. Oh Smudge to pass through the medium twice each day would convince even a young bigoted cocksure aeroplane constructor like [my nephew] John Burne Mills. To see those hundreds & hundreds of tiny boutiques of workshops with old men, young men & children so busy, so happy, so absorbed & vitally interested, there they are making lovely things. Forty thousand real artists in this one town! I watch them very observantly & I assure you I have never seen one bored. I go down la Taala [the street], at first there are only shops, but soon one hears the tapping of cobblers making barbouches, the lovely cream or yellow or white Morocco leather! The silver & gold embroidered ones for the women! And then come the sieve makers, [their] sieves of reeds that are so 41 Albert Gleizes, La vie et la mort de l’occident Chrétien [Life and death of the Christian west], Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons, 1921. 42 Fra Domenico Savanarola was a Renaissance priest who preached a very purist doctrine, which among other things forbade artists from representing religious characters. He had a great following but was executed in 1498. See chapter introduction for more on Gleizes’ views on Leonardo.


200

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 200


perfectly lovely I have one on my table with grapes & lemons & pomegranates. Next the bellow makers, for tiny hand-made charcoal stoves are used at all the tea parties & very swagger bellows are needed. They are in endless variety, decorated by painting, or brass nail patterns, or brass filigrees, & leather, & carved wood, etc. The tailors of jellabyas are everywhere & each has six or seven little boys holding the threads, & crossing them in a mysterious manner every few seconds, but they have time to lift shining smiles & say ‘Bonchour Madame’ & sometimes they add ‘Fabour?’43 but hardly expect one, they do so for fun. Never people enjoyed jokes like these Moors! At the bottom of the Taala there are many bookbinders for the Universities are crowded with rich students from all over Morocco & even Algeria, & the libraries & bookshops of Fez are very important. Now I turn into the square of the Nejarine [where] the fountain is just a darling, & everywhere one hears the busy carpenters making low round tables, coffres, doors, windows, etc. etc. [and] the scent of cedar is delightful. I cross into a maze of tiny streets which I can’t disentangle. If I’m lucky I’m in the one of the candle makers & decorators—huge [candles] for the mosques in every colour & beautifully decorated by hand, down to wee emerald ones! This street leads to the mosque of Mouly Idriss, [named after] the greatest saint of all Fez saints.44 Until a few years ago no ‘Christians, Jews or four footed beasts’ were allowed to come within a hundred metres of this mosque & the barrier at the height of a man’s head still remains, but since the French protectorate all humans are allowed to pass by, & are encouraged to buy sandalwood at the doors, so one gets a good peep within. The wood & plaster ornamentation are worthy of years & years of study. If in any of the libraries in Sydney you can get really good books showing photos of these mosques & universities of Fez you will see all the teaching [of] Monsieur Gleizes in the great interlaced designs, & I don’t believe Monsieur Gleizes knows them! You will see the plan under the great sun-like design—the plan. . . . I haven’t met a single Arab understanding the signification of these designs, but I certainly will. The potters only know them by the numbers of points in the star. From a manuscript Pouyaud sent me certainly the monks who built Vézelay also worked numerically but the numbers were significant. I shall try & write you in shortened form Pouyaud’s very fine, but very difficult manuscript. He has read René 43 It is not possible to translate fabour accurately. 44 Moulay Idriss I founded the first orthodox Muslim dynasty.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 201

1939

201

Guénon (author of Le roi du monde) until really his very language is almost equally oriental as French. I think Madame Gleizes has reason to say it is dangerous to plunge the intelligent uneducated into the literature of the great intellectuals. The letter from Pouyaud (soldat) [soldier] last week scared me, he is surrounding himself with an armour of oriental metaphysics which will probably lead him into a straight-jacket. Monsieur Gleizes is so sane. He understands everything bless him! . . . Later Went to Moorish wedding with the British Consul group. It was [in] a very pretty house we entered down in the Medina...We were shown into the tiled courtyard into which all the rooms on all the floors (three or four) opened, & there was the poor young bride perched on a high throne in one room. Her eyes [were] closed, & gold brocade—her face [was] painted in the most curious fashion—& tiny white lozenges stuck all over her cheeks. Four black slave women were sitting round the throne, fanning the bride & sprinkling her with orange flower water every now & then. She has to sit in state for ten days with her eyes shut, first at her parents home before she sees her future husband, & then again when brought in a closed chair (what do you call them?) in the night to her husband’s home. The guests strolled round. The mother-in-law was very charming, & very gay, but alas! I couldn’t understand her jokes, which made those who did shriek with laughter. While we were drinking tea the slave women said it was time for the bride to have a rest. All the women clapped their hands & the children ran to fetch the bridegroom, as he must see his bride in state before she retires. When we heard the children returning with him everyone started to shout excitedly. I learned after they cried, ‘The bridegroom’s coming, the bridegroom’s coming.’ The bride made no sign or movement. A very sweet boy of about twenty dressed all in lovely cream entered. He gazed at his bride, then the slave women drew the curtains, & he came & shook hands with us all, & told us we must come & see their pretty bedroom where the slave women . . . called us. So presently we went in. The very pretty girl was freed from all her stiff finery. Her plaited hair . . . [was] very decorated with little ornaments, but all the paint [was] washed off, & [she wore] a pretty white embroidered frock over a pure silk one. She was sitting on the bed cushions which go all round the room. She gave us each a handkerchief embroidered by herself. Everyone trooped in, & her husband went & sat beside her. We sat round while the hostess & family showered us with orange flower water. Then the slaves brought a charcoal stove in clay. They are


202

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 202


charming little things which the Moors carry everywhere & always make tea on them in front of you. But this time it was the burnt sandalwood under our skirts, & I was very frightened my dress would catch fire. The scent is delicious, & when the fumes go right through & up your clothes & you see smoke coming out at your neck & sleeves you may rest assured that you will smell sandalwood until you wash your clothes. The boy asked Miss Cooper, ‘What do you think of my bride?’ She replied ‘Myzianne, Myzianne byzaff!’ (very lovely). The mother-in-law asked, ‘And what do you think of the bridegroom?’ She replied, ‘Oh he’ll do.’ The shrieks & shrieks of laughter, the slapping, & clapping were certainly oriental! And this is how Morocco feels the war this first month, they can’t believe it can last. Every morning when I go to the potteries they ask ‘Et la guerre? Fini?’ ‘Oh non!’ ‘Pas fini? Oooh!!’ [And the war is over?’ . . . ‘It isn’t over?’] They think it’s like their tribal scrapping of two or three days . . . Fondest love my precious, your Anne.

K Beaux Arts, Fez 21 October 1939 Smudge darling, I want to talk to you again. We parted the other night at the door of Mouly Idriss, the mosque where the saint is buried . . . At Mouly Idriss there are about fifteen grandfather clocks, which have been donated, I don’t know why they stand against the wall facing the door. I think ‘time’ has a great signification in their design & in their religion. The carvings of the doors and ceilings are splendid [and] one of the Medersas (universities) has a clock of the 11th century worked by water.45 It is most curious & beautiful. Did you know our numbering comes from Arabic? I’m sure that from within the windows would be wonderful. The stained glass being fitted into hand-modelled plaster designs [is] inconceivably beautiful. One quite gets over one’s prejudice for plaster ornamentation when one sees it here, it isn’t at all like wedding cakes. The wood work is brightly painted & decorated, the background being 45 The Bou Inania Medersa and clock referred to here by AD is the most beautiful of all the Merenid Empire (1248–1554) monuments and the only religious building to allow nonMuslims entry. The water-clock is opposite the Talaa Kebira and consists of a row of thirteen windows and platforms. According to a contemporary account, it worked by having one of its window opened every hour and releasing a flow of water onto one of the bowls beneath it.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 203

1939

203

a clear red ochre which the Moors are very fond of. Sandalwood sellers sit at the doors and magnificent Sidis arrive in their lovely cream clothes & their little prayer rugs under their arms. The Karaouine (or la Grande Mosque) is huge in the morning when I pass its lovely white arches (11th century) gleaming with sunlight, & the white walls are saved from being too white by the decorated mattings which surround them joining them to the tiled & marble floors. But we mustn’t leave Mouly Idriss quarter, it is too interesting. The tiny boutiques are just too lovely for words. They are all raised high from the ground & a cord dangles from the roof for the shopkeeper to swing himself up by. At first the shops are candles, incense, perfumes, etc. the candles are all hand made, and decorated delightfully. Then come the shops of clothing & embroidered gold thread turbans, the embroidered muslins for women, etc. etc. but the streets are tiny, & there are millions of these wee cage shops choc-a-bloc, & packed one against the other. One will be full of belt makers, another of silk cords, braids, etc., another of jewellers & silver smiths (these being Jews in black jellabyas & skull caps), another of lantern makers, & oh the dozens of little streets of leather workers! The long long one of barbuches is the prettiest of all, they are fairy tales! Then you turn & find yourself in a sort of square which smells very good, here are shops all round selling dried fruits, nuts & spices, cake shops (the cakes are lovely, the short bread biscuits beat scotch shortbread) & the prices are amazing! . . . Going through this square one gets into a nest of little streets where Fez embroidery is sold. It is petit pointe & very closely worked. I bought 100 fr. worth, & got enough to cover my bolster. It is rich dark blue, a big afternoon tea cloth done in dark red & very close & fine, but on lawn, not linen. And a small one the same only worked in dark blue. The work is beautiful, but they use this fine lawn, which is a pity. Round these streets are more & more—mostly shops for tourists—selling carpets, wrought iron, bags, poufs in coloured leather, cushions, potteries & everything imaginable. They frighten you by their wearying mixture, but when you get to know some of the men who keep these shops they are very nice. They love the work & soon realise you are not a rich American with no taste. They will unroll marvellous carpets just because they love to show them to one who will appreciate them. I went with Mme Noguès & Mlle Krantz (her companion & a friend of Sue’s) to choose two carpets. It was a thrilling morning. Mme Noguès (who has lived here thirty years) knows carpet values as well as the dealers, so they don’t attempt to ask her big prices. They bought two at 400 francs each . . . And she bought a Berbère woman’s haik (cloak) for a little divan. They are cream with


204

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 204


rich narrow bands of woven pattern making stripes. They cost only 80 francs . . . Oh Smudge dear if I take you any further down the Medina—[with] the racket & hammering of the coppersmiths, forges, carpenters, weavers, water mills, together with the yells ‘qurrrrrrh!!!’ of the donkey men, beggars gabbling Allah’s blessings, women screaming wares they carry on their heads, etc. etc.—you will feel stifled. At first it made me ill [and] I used to think I’d faint, that I couldn’t breathe. Now I go through twice a day & am as at home as if I’d been here twenty years. ‘Bonjour Madame Bab Houh!’ [Good Morning Madam of the Pottery Quarter!] I am greeted [with] every morning by twenty smiling youngsters as they salute me. Sometimes they say ‘Bonsoir Monsieur’ & I stop & give them a French lesson: ‘Dabba Sbah, mashi “bon soir Monsieur dabba”, “Bon jour Madame”.’ If it happens to be a little girl she pokes out her tongue—not in rudeness, that is their way of biting their lips when they make a mistake—but the boys make you repeat it & they repeat it. They all want to learn. But surprises never end. Yesterday I suddenly turned a corner & met two little niggers [sic] with whitewashed faces, today it was a crop of yellow parasols planted in a brickyard to keep the bricks from getting wet in a shower of rain, & then as I passed a heap of dried leaves (not very big) that had been swept up by gardeners in the Boujouloud gardens I saw an old woman peeking out of them. Goodness knows how she rolled herself in! . . . I feel it a wonderful privilege to be here with this great population of artisans—forty thousand at Fez! It really seems as if I was brought here to learn in preparation for Moly’s work in the future. As I wrote to Monsieur Gleizes the other day, I have a strong feeling that until now all we did at Moly was mere rehearsing [and] that the time hadn’t yet arrived for the life we practised. But presently, very, very soon if not right NOW, that life will be the only possible one [as] the peasant & the artisan must feed, clothe [and] supply the army as the factories close down one after another. The weavers of Fez are making little army blankets. They were to make khaki cloth but there was some difficulty over the price; probably it arose by lack of forethought regarding the need to use only local wool, no imported cotton. Wool here is only 8 fr. 50 the kilogram! What would Wilfrid say to such a price?46 Yes, I feel Moly— or if not Moly, St Rémy, or wherever Monsieur Gleizes’ group shall be—is now going to really play the role, and that these artisans of Morocco have taught me deep lessons I shall need in the future . . . 46 Presumably Wilfrid Crowley, GC’s brother.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 205

1939

205

At Moly in summer I can live on 30 francs a week, perhaps less. In winter the fires cost about 1000 francs. As for clothes we won’t need any new ones during the war, & I have lots. Lucie is training Poulette & Pierre to like [a] vegetarian diet. We always have good milk & she saves the cream for those spoiled animals, so that they’ll eat their vegetable soup. Smudge dear this war is going to change this world you & I were born to. I can’t help wanting to live to see Monsieur Gleizes’ beautiful prophecies taking place. Many will think the changes, the return to simple natural living a disaster. It is we who have studied those lessons on space, time, cadence, rhythm, light & the everlasting promise of the rainbow, who will be able to encourage & assure them. Perhaps we shall not live to see it come to pass. Perhaps we must take part in the great & terrible cleaning up in the same way as the millions of young men, & the women of Poland. If so we can wonder with great, great wonder that we have been so privileged in being permitted to see the future, although we shall not take part in it . . . Perhaps the machine will disappear & like my great grandmother I shall return to Aussie in a sailing boat when I’m old as old. Blessings on you my loyal staunch mate, your Anne. Sunday 22 octobre Have been working nearly twelve hours today trying to analyse a design a potter put on a big plate & to simplify it. Am exhausted [and] haven’t finished a quarter of it yet. It would have been impossible had I not had years with Gleizes. I find it terribly difficult & these simple potters know them by heart [and] execute them beautifully without any copy. They are constructed upon the same principles exactly as Gleizes uses translation & rotation.

K Services des Beaux Arts Fez, le Maroc 31st October 1939 Smudge dearest, . . . On reading your letter I was just thrilled, but I know I have neglected painting too much for pottery & tiles. I shall have to buy brushes & paints & manipulate the medium, before setting forth on such an important mission. I have only painted small gouaches for years. Then I also want to do special exercises in values with Monsieur Gleizes. His pen & ink work last year was superb! . . . I think Monsieur Gleizes would trust


206

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 206


me with one or two pen & inks & gouaches if I only went [to Morocco] for six months, & submarines & mines were not too numerous . . . Do all the art critics in Australia adopt that flippant common style? It is certainly unique. Art critics all over the world are wholly devoid of knowledge of art, [for] while learning journalism (a huge study) they couldn’t possibly study art also—but did they study journalism—whereas these Australian critics seems utterly devoid of education, or knowledge of the English language. Really it’s extraordinary too that they still think painting is merely trying to imitate how things appear to the eye. In that I am sure Australia is also unique, for although English people like to copy still they have seen so many beautiful exhibitions of creative work (Chinese exhibition in London, Egyptian section of British Museum, etc. etc.) that they acknowledge imitative work of a lower order. But [this is] necessary in an industrial country [that uses figurative drawings] for fashion [design], Illustrated London News, war pictures etc. Our consul here paints funny battles at sea in Drake’s time. Only an Englishman would want to do that! When I look at this nice fresh earnest young man, dressed so smartly, talking five languages perfectly, & then look up at his furious battleships & bombastic waves & skies, & the English flag jumping out of the picture, I want to laugh & cry, thump him hard, & bless him for the true Englishman he is, although born in Valparaiso. He says, ‘We English have no artistic talent at all. I suppose that is what makes us so truthful & honest.’ And he looks so terribly wistful as he says it. He is a very nice man . . . Received a letter from ville de Paris yesterday, saying that I was to call immediately at the prefecture to receive payment of a mandat [order] from the state. The nice things [in the municipal office] must have bought another pot of mine & I didn’t even know I was exhibiting this autumn! I suppose Monsieur Gleizes sent in a few pieces of my work to le Salon d’Automne bless him! They don’t tell me how much, probably a plate at 150 francs. Lucie told me the ones baked since I came over have turned out marvellously. The potter at Cliousclat is such a dear! He won’t bake more than four in a whole big firing, as he says the best spot in his kiln is the very centre, & he puts them there. When I left in May there were still eighteen waiting to be fired, & some huge pots. The Geoffrays & Lucie went into a car I paid for to get them when fired, & César took a lovely snap of all my work . . . for me to see the result. It was nice of him. Only that all photos are now forbidden in letters [or] I would send it to you; Cliou[sclat] is a dear to you as to me. Madame Rouveyre taught me to make coffee, & every morning I hear her little laugh & see her


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 207

1939

207

good shining face. ‘Très peu d’eau au premier, il ne faut pas le noyer.’ [There’s little water on the first floor, you don’t have to drown it.] Why do these simple French peasants enter right into the depths of your heart? I couldn’t go to Australia if I thought I’d be trapped & kept out there, & yet I’d love & love to go & see you all . . .

K Fez 19 November 1939 Smudge darling, I do hope my airmail letter didn’t worry you. I sent it off because I feared letters would be delayed weeks longer if sent here instead of France . . . Well I am here for another three weeks & I’m going to make the most of my time. A whole week’s work was messed up because of their bungling, & also certainly by the fête after Ramadan.47 This fête came in on Monday, a day earlier than expected. All their religious fêtes are upon astronomical changes. Alas! I knew it was fête by Habiba not turning up in the morning, & then Mouly Hamad brought his two little girls all dressed up in silks & brocades & jewels to wish me blessings, but really to receive them, & 5 francs to make merry at the fête.48 All little girls are not dressed up on the same day, as the finery is lent & passed on. The fête lasts a whole week. They eat & dress up & promenade hand in hand & look lovely! But the shops are closed, & the potteries empty. On Thursday a great friend of the Blanches invited them to bring a party of Britishers to mid-day dinner. The Consul told me I should have the best, very best dinner of my life & that I should save up so that I could go very hungry. We didn’t leave the consulate till one o’clock & as one could only go about two thirds of the way in his car, we had a long walk down into the heart of the Medina. You never dream as you pass through the tiny winding streets that you are beside magnificent palaces. When we arrived at Sidi-Hadj-Ddid’s palace the entry was a little dark, bare, tiled square. Two turns & we were in a tremendous courtyard, all tiled, [with] two fountains playing, pigeons flying, children in gorgeous clothes playing, & the whole surrounded by the most marvellous threestorey building decorated everywhere. Huge red lanterns swinging over 47 The festival of Ramadan, the most important Muslim religious celebration. 48 Habiba and Mouly Hamad were the servants at the place AD was staying.


208

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 208


the courtyard gave an idea of the night effect . . . The little maids in long silk pantaloons and dresses hitched up to the waist, brought in the round table one foot high. Poor Mrs Blanche, being the consul’s wife, was made to sit on a cushion throne, much too high. Then the hand washing commenced & THEN came in a Pastilla! Ever since Morocco was mentioned to me I have heard of this marvellous pigeon pie, & I feared I should go away without seeing one. It’s as big as the table [and] the puff pastry cover is a finger length in thickness & perfect. M. Blanche says that nowhere could I have been introduced to a better pastilla. We all (five Britishers & fifteen Moors the latter all men) fell to with our right hands. You must only use the left to break your bread with. One talks & jokes & dawdles, three glasses were given to each guest one with a red drink . . . The Moors are total abstainers. The next dish was a Bibi!49 You & I rejoiced at the name Dindon, but how do you like Bibi? He was enormous & tender as asparagus tips. After that we had chickens covered with rich dark gravy & over that dates & dried raisins, the whole glazed with a caramel glaze done with honey. The thin crackly glaze was delicious & oh so pretty. But still two more meat dishes followed! Mutton & roast quinces & then the best kous kous I have ever seen or tasted! And after all that one doesn’t feel one has overeaten. It was 4.00 o’clock when we finished the meal—over two hours eating it! When the little maid had cleared it all off & swept up the crumbs, & we had washed our two hands with soap, the tea things were brought in. I was so wildly excited at the silver & glass—the Midas, as big as hat boxes, were all in silver & had lovely spiral relief patterns—that I asked our host might I go out into the courtyard to look in [through the window] at the lovely picture. Oh Smudgie all those lovely Sidis!! In cream mostly, but one was in jade green, and one of the boys was in cerise. How drab those English visitors looked! I was glad I was wearing a cream hand-woven dress. After delicious tea & cakes & honey beignets, Mrs Blanche asked to go & see the ladies. They also were about fifteen in number, but I think Hadj-Ddid has only one wife. He has lived in England thirteen years, & loves England, & English morals. He intends sending his sons to Oxford. Three are at the Karouine University at Fez—they started at eleven years old, & must remain for nine years— studying all subjects through philosophy, [with] astronomy being very deeply gone into. The room where the women received us was another 49 Bibi was presumably turkey cooked ‘as tender as asparagus tips’.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 209

1939

209

thrill. The divans [were] all covered with cyclamen silk embroidered by them in creamy citron, with a gold thread here & there. But the cushions were in every coloured silk, as they had fresh white embroidery organdie covers. The girls & ladies were laden with jewels & finery, & beautiful chrysanthemums filled many pale blue green vases . . . Yesterday was the Sultan’s fête, the only fête in the year which isn’t a religious one. Miss Cooper had invited me to go the rounds with her, so I invited her to return with me for the evening meal. I wanted to buy some ham & as pig is ‘unclean’ to the Moors, one has to go up to the French town for bacon & ham. About 9.00 AM I went to Bab-de kaaken for my bus & fell upon the most spectacular procession I have ever seen. As for hearing, I thought my ear drums would burst. But oh Smudgie you should have seen those men from the Rif!!50 Absolutely MAGNIFICENT! I have never seen humans like them. I went to the border of the Rif to see the Berbère potteries last July, & I thought the men there very fine but these were the real Rifas. In very short brown jellabyas covered with silk pompoms of every colour, they wore small white turbans, & played piercing wooden trumpets. The Fez brass trumpets (nearly as long as boat paddles) boomed, [and] the tom-toms pottery instruments, tambourines, drums, etc. etc. nearly deafened me. I had to follow the procession as no buses were running. We met (Miss C. & I) at Boujouloud at 3.00. Really Smudge I entered right into fairy tales when I entered that great tiled door! All the shops were closed to commerce & had been transformed into Fairy palaces. Carpets were spread in each one—divans or cushions placed all round, the walls covered with carpets, banners, curtains, etc., palms & flowers & music (soft oriental music now)—& the Moors sat before their tea tables ready to receive guests. This is how the Sultan’s fête is held. Sometimes the narrow streets are blocked with some very elaborate picnic party, but Miss C. always knew how to find a way round. Then bridges are made across the streets by planks thrown from windows to windows, & you see tea parties on these gay bridges all covered with carpets & palms. Imagine what a difference it makes there being no alcoholic drinks! Everyone is himself, there is no disorder, lutes & mandolins tinkle, boys sing praises to the prophet 50 The Rif is a wild region of Morocco near the border of Algeria, which is bounded by the Rif mountains and the coast. It is inhabited by Berber tribes who existed outside of government control until the establishment of a Spanish protectorate in 1912. It is still a fiercely independent region of isolated communities, its villages made up of traditional houses with thatched roofs.


210

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 210


with sweet clear voices, everyone is gentle & hospitable & courteous. We went to the huge Fondouk of the Nejarine—an ancient palace—now a merchant’s wholesale store. But the store had disappeared [and] the palace had returned from the past! We were taken round & shown the very ancient embroideries for sale, navy silk on heavy cream silk. We visited all the shopkeepers we knew, accepting cups of tea in four different places. Mr Blanche arrived with his Arab escort while we were in one merchant’s Fondouk, so we were taken up into the place of honour. Then while we were at another the Pasha & about thirty French generals & officers arrived. About 6.30 we returned, but before entering the studio I suggested a stroll through Boujouloud gardens. The willows all round the pond are pale yellow & reflected in the water—oh the quiet & beauty & wonder of this holy city of Morocco! The music tinkled at the five Cafés Maures sprinkled round the gardens, lovely Moors in party clothes sat conversing at the water’s edge. One could see by their gesticulations they were reciting poetry or the Qran, or telling stories and at 10.00 o’clock when [Miss C.] said she must go I accompanied her to la Porte de Boujouloud. The scene was even more thrilling than ever! The ugly garages before the entry were turned into huge drawing rooms, professional musicians played at the open cafes, coloured lights everywhere & always the placid gentle pleasure of sober men enjoying themselves. To visit the new town at night disgusts one utterly. I have been permitted to see ‘as in a glass’ the life Monsieur Gleizes’ teaching would lead men to return to [the land]. . . . My home is wherever Albert Gleizes shall erect his tour d’ivoire when this terrible cleaning up has been done. Reflecting on La forme et l’histoire of today, this cruel displacing of people on the great spatial plan of the earth’s surface that Hitler is doing, seems really the first tormented movements in translation of the early Cubists.51 Leonardo’s program is complete, Gleizes’ is in the terrible birth throes.52 Shall we, you, Monsieur Gleizes & all his little flock have the joy of hearing its first cry of real existence? I think so. Am so happy over your pictures dear, go on in your lovely colours, bless you, your Anne.

c 51 AD is finding a parallel in Hitler’s dispossession and annihilation of people with Cubism’s clearing and redefining of the picture space. 52 Gleizes disliked Leonardo’s perfection of perspective, scientific and illusionist techniques.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 211

5 Tormented Movements in Translation, 1940–1945 The onset of World War II in August 1939 cut short Anne Dangar’s stay in Rabat and necessitated her return to France. There is little doubt that AD saw the war as a battle to stem the approach of industrialism, for she wrote: ‘Man will say after the war that machine is progress . . . [but] I have hope for the future that money and machine may be wiped out by this war, then we may hope for peace.’1 Back in Moly, AD felt even more cut off from her friend Smudge, particularly because their correspondence was severely diminished by rationing imposed during the war. The local post office was short on stamps and telegrams could not be sent. Paper and other staple products were also hard to find, which led AD to write on both sides of cheap, transparent sheets that were then difficult, and sometimes impossible, to read. This was the case with the few letters that AD wrote to GC between August 1941 and November 1944, which are now all completely illegible. There were perhaps others written by AD during this time, but if so Grace never received them. From the beginning of hostilities the reactionary forces within French government, led by Maréchal Pétain, were in league with the Germans since they were afraid of the threat from Russian Bolshevism.2 Thus as the German Army progressed from Belgium into Northern 1 Letter from AD to her family, 18 June 1940, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit. 2 Henri-Philippe Pétain. See Personae.


212

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 212


France, French leaders attempted to make deals with the German command in the hope of obtaining leniency. The key politicians who supported Pétain—Pierre Laval, Adrien Marquet and Marcel Déat— had been, like Albert Gleizes, socialists in their youth. At the outbreak of war all three were Neo-Socialists, with Déat the organisation’s general-secretary and Marquet also a strong supporter of the Nazis. They followed Hitler’s ideal of a ‘new order in Europe’ and collaborated with the Germans against the British when the Third Republic collapsed during May and June 1940. Over the next four years the French suffered the indignities that the Nazi regime forced upon them. The Germans succeeded in dividing the French and anti-Semitism became a convenient weapon. A number of writers and intellectuals were pro-Fascist, including André Gide and Romain Rolland, the latter an early associate of Albert Gleizes.3 Pétain became Prime Minister of France in 1940, and shortly afterwards signed a treaty with Germany that removed the seat of government to Vichy in the south of the country. He did so because he believed that by imitating the conqueror’s policies that his government would be allowed some autonomy. The Vichy government abolished the French constitution and struck the word Republic from the French charter. France became known as l’Etat Français and Maréchal Pétain called the Chief of State rather than President, changes that sounded the death knell of French Social Democracy. A contemporary observer wrote at the time that ‘France, as a nation, threw away her power because her rulers, as a class, strove with all their little minds to preserve their possessions; they feared the bogey of bolshevism more than the danger of Fascism’.4 The Pétain government was strongly pro-Catholic and pro-tradition, which explains the Gleizes’ support of the regime. Albert Gleizes wrote to Anne Dangar that in the event of her being badly treated during the war (since she was a foreigner and people were paranoid about spies), he would ask Pétain to intercede on her behalf. This reinforces the fact that Gleizes and his wife had strong right-wing connections with those in authority; AD even makes a number of references to Juliette RocheGleizes’ support of les Boches, the Germans. However, having spoken to a number of people who knew AD well during this period it is clear 3 André Gide; Romain Rolland. See Personae. 4 Oscar Paul, Farewell to France, Victor Gollancz, London, 1941.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 213

1940–1945

213

that she supported the Maquis, the Resistance movement. M. and Mme Coste of Roussillon, who were teachers at the Sablons school and friends of AD, informed me that when the armistice was announced AD turned up at their place with a hand-made victory, terracotta bell, which she rang at their door shouting ‘Vive de Gaulle! Vive les Alliées! Vive la France!’ [Long live de Gaulle! Long live the allies! Long live France!] 5 In September 1942 Anne had been offered repatriation, but because she had not availed herself of the opportunity in time she had been sent, along with a number of other foreigners, to a concentration camp at Grenoble for five days. In a letter written after the war to her second cousin Fairy, AD described what happened to her in some detail. Never in my life did I laugh as much as during those five days. There was nobody to tell us what to do, or where to go, we all slept on straw mattresses together, men, women & children. In our dormitory there were about sixty-five people: English, Russians, Hindus, a Greek girl, eight Maltese, a New Zealander, a student from Burma, a consul from Cannes, and a director from the casino at Monte Carlo! Everyone was very gay, one was proud to be a Britisher and to see how Britishers were taking the war and its consequences and old mother England looked after us royally. She arranged with the Croix-Rouge [Red Cross] for us to have milk for breakfast, and tea and biscuits every afternoon. It was [most welcome] for the food we were given was horrible. A great tin steam cooker was placed on each bare table a tiny bit of bread each. In the stove of the cooker were steamed potatoes, below were spinach leaves which had been boiled in the water which was now served as soup. That was all! Of course the sanitary conditions were beyond everything imaginable, and we all had to wash together in a muddy sort of wash house. All the same we laughed and the people of Grenoble passed us apples and walnuts through the iron railing as one does to monkeys, and those in passing trams shouted ‘Vive les Anglais!’ while the station soldiers at the gate grinned. The last night we didn’t laugh or sleep. We had been told to be ready at 6.00 AM the following day because we were going on a long journey. About midnight we heard a huge motor bus arrive in the courtyard below, then another and another—eight in all. 5 Interview with M. and Mme Coste by Helen Topliss, Roussillon, November 1996. The Costes are still in possession of this bell.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 214


214

At 6.00 AM we were dressed and sitting up on our rolled straw mattresses when the director (a Frenchman) came to say ‘Vous ne partirez pas aujourd’hui’ [You will not leave today], and presently we heard the buses go off. At mid-day he announced, ‘All persons under eighteen and over sixty-five years of age must leave and go to their residences.’ For the first time I saw tears . . . At about 4 o’clock we saw the last of these people go off, in tears, their folk casting instructions through the iron railings. We returned to the refectory for tea at 5 o’clock [and were told], ‘Vous êtes libres, tous sont libres.’ [You are free, all of you are free.] 6

It was only later that AD discovered the ‘long journey’ she had been threatened with during her brief incarceration would have been to Germany. Had it not been for the efforts of the Swiss consul in Lyon in charge of British affairs she and 260 other refugees might never have survived the war. Once released her movements were still restricted and she was required to stay at Sablons where she resumed her pottery. In her letters AD described all the deprivations of the war and post-war period, hardships that led her to crave a return to Australia. She couldn’t stand another European winter, for as she declared in April 1945: ‘if I spend another winter at Sablons & we have 6 floods like this year I shall leave my skin.’7 War-time privations and a lack of nourishing food had also affected her health and on 26 November 1945 she fell down the terrace steps and cracked her fibia and sprained her ankle, which put further strain on her health and precipitated her cardiac condition.

c Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 3 January 1940 My dearest Smudge, Since leaving old Fez on the 14th December I haven’t had a moment to write. First I went to Meknes, a town I greatly wished to explore, but fearing that if I didn’t hurry to Rabat for a ‘visa’ I might be held up there, & not get home for Christmas & have to spend all my money on hotels. So when I arrived at Meknes I went straight off to Mouly Idriss, 6 Letter from AD to Fairy Mills, 26 November 1945, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit. 7 Letter from AD to GC, 20 April 1945.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 215

1940–1945

215

the holy City of Morocco, thirty miles from Meknes in the mountains. Mouly Idriss was a descendant of Mohomat who brought the religion of the Mussulman to Morocco, & built this most curious town on two mountain peaks in the 10th century. His son, born after his death, & also named Mouly Idriss wanted to build a beautiful town in an ideal region and after searching for many years he came to a beautiful rich valley, where rivers flowed in every direction, & he said ‘Here will I plant my fas’ [spade], & so Fez was built there also in the 10th century. Mouly Idriss the father is buried at Mouly Idriss Ville Sainte [Holy City]. Mouly Idriss the son is also a saint, & he is buried at Fez, in the mosque called after him. No Christian is allowed to sleep at Mouly Idriss, in fact only the descendants of the saint may live there. I was glad when the Caid of Fez offered to give me a letter of introduction to his brother, the Caid of Mouly Idriss, for there are no cafes, or restaurants. I went straight to the Caid’s palace & his three sons were very sweet to me. They took me all round the town, up to the very top of the higher peak where one looks at the other point, a solid block of white buildings giving a most curious effect. As only the mosque has a coloured roof (green), all the houses being flat roofed made a pattern of squares & rectangles such as I had never seen. Of course the boys took me home to lunch, & the father had arrived & was most gracious. I had lunch with him [as] one never eats with the women of the house unless one of their personal friends. After lunch the Caid asked me to come round to his office, as he wanted me to accept a pottery of the district from him. It was a charcoal stove! It’s very lovely but I was terribly embarrassed to know what to do with it. One of the boys carried it to the bus & I carried it in my arms wherever I went for over a week . . . Rabat is a very fine modern town, beautiful homes & gardens, but it could be anywhere. On the Tuesday I went to Casablanca to get my boat. It was the most beautiful boat I had ever been on, we had a glorious trip [and] the sun escorted me right to Marseille! We stopped at Tangiers, but were not allowed to get off the boat. It looked very fine, built on seven hills overlooking a lovely bay . . . At St Rambert Monsieur Gleizes was waiting to welcome me with his great bear hug & he bore the stove off to the car in triumph where Juliette was waiting with radiant smiles. My welcome home was far beyond all expectations. I think everyone in Sablons & Serrières has welcomed me [and] the dear old peasants tell me they prayed for me every day. The children all swarmed to Moly on Thursday to make me give


31/5/02 11:43 AM

216

Page 216


them a lesson, & nearly every day I’m invited to lunch or tea or dinner. The Gleizes are delighted with me [and] come to take me walking or for a spin every day, & as usual I was invited chez eux for New Year’s dinner. Alas many boys from Sablons are at the front, the fine young peasants I have seen grow into men. The miserable types who work at the factories have all returned to make munitions . . . Mainie & Evie are working as if civilisation depended solely on their painting. Monsieur Gleizes is working at a second tome of La forme et l’histoire called Le temporel, which is splendid! It gives his method fully illustrated. We are all throwing ourselves into creative effort, & the effect to live ‘Not by bread alone’. There is talk of removing Moly to St Rémy because of there being [in]sufficient land to grow all we need there, & wood for heating. The great question of living without money must be solved, for money is at an end. If I were in your place dear, if ‘Glen Riddle’ sells I’d buy a little property which I could plant with fruit trees, grow vegetables, have a cow, fowl, etc. & place a reliable couple on it to work it for you, while you had your home & studio there. Excuse the liberty I’m taking making this suggestion but it is made because I feel it my very solemn duty to warn you my precious friend. I almost feel I should suggest that you should also apply your knowledge to some sort of craft-work also, [so] that if the necessity comes you could exchange your work for necessities. Don’t only read this literally, put on your thinking cap . . . Darling may you be kept from all danger this New Year, & may your work bear witness that even in this wicked time there were great & good. Bless you my precious one, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 24 January 1940 My dearest Smudge, . . . And here the thermometer registers 120° below zero (French reckoning) icebergs crack & groan & creak & bang & boom in the angry old Rhône. The ice sheets along the banks vibrate & ting-a-ling, the window panes are frozen, the water jug in my room had ice two inches thick on the surface this morning, & still snow falls. The ground has been white


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 217

1940–1945

217

for three weeks! Whew! how the wind went through me this morning walking to St Rambert by les Iles! But what must it be for the soldiers in a much colder part of France, & unable to light a fire? And then we read of earthquakes in Turkey, predictions of more at the end of the week, a huge one in Japan in March which will be felt in Australia, of others in Greece. Then the Côte d’Azur is to have its turn in June, with a rest for five months, followed by terrible ones in the Caucasus in November. An old peasant from whom I buy my milk sees this in a most interesting way. She explained that the effect of these upheavals is probably the cause of the upheaval in the minds of men. ‘When the wind of the south comes whistling you know that we have headaches twenty-four hours in advance. But at other times we have an old mad woman who lives on the quay, [and] when a storm comes she feels it twenty-four hours in advance. She yells, she crows like a rooster, and we await the storm on the next day.’8 I talked about this at tea yesterday chez nos amis at Serrières and they say it’s true, that they heard the doctor at St Rémy (who sent you the life of Van Gogh) say the lunatics always knew twenty-four hours in advance when the Mistral was coming. Naturellement we applied this to our painting. Man is a part of the elements, of the whole, he isn’t two balls & four sticks stuck on top of the world . . . The war has shown us more clearly than ever that illusion of progress—perspective—must die, that man must return to his own level, [and] that the machine means unemployment, wicked exploitation, greed, and exactly what has arrived . . . You must get sick of me repeating this, but I do so long for you to understand everything through & by these laws of order we have had revealed to us by the monuments such as Chartres, Vézelay & the history of those times when the world (Western) was united in one faith & each man gained his living by making things with hands & brains, like the artisans of Morocco still do . . . . . . I am having to teach English as my painting students are mobilised, or their husbands are. I only have one grown-up pupil for painting. Then the potteries are all closed, & I don’t dare put my Marocain savings into constructing a kiln & workroom until I see whether the spring will bring bombardments, etc. Besides I don’t know how I’d get wood [as] the saw mills are all requisitioned, & the men who brought fagots to poteries are mobilised. I am thankful to have four English pupils, two of them take two lessons a week, so I earn nearly 100 fr. a week, & can manage. Now 8 This quote was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

218

Page 218


& then I sell a pot, but as so many cars have been requisitioned, & essence is so scarce & so dear we have very few visitors now. The Musée d’Arles talks of buying the Crèche & big frieze the children did for the international Exhibition in Paris. They are exhibiting them at present, & talk of giving us an order for two more panels. Don’t be sorry for me for I’m able to live by these English pupils and have more time to paint than since I arrived in France. I’m really studying, & you know what that means to me. As for Monsieur Gleizes he is just wonderful. Every day they both come over & we plough our way through the snow talking painting. Probably many think it a very inappropriate subject now, but that’s because they have no insight. What a splendid word! Read the writers of the Middle Ages & Cubism, & paint, & don’t read the Sydney newspapers unless you want to be as cut off from us as Ruby is . . .9 In spite of earthquakes it is only land which is safe. If I hadn’t a garden I couldn’t live on 100 francs a week, but we have vegetables in abundance, apples, honey, wheat (which we grind for bread) [and] eggs. Then I teach a little boy drawing & get half a pint of milk every day in exchange, but I buy one pint per day for Pierre & Poulette . . . Goodnight darling, my fondest love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 4th February 1940 My dearest little mate, I wonder where you are? Ruby told me the poor mother Bird had been ill & that you had gone to ‘Glen Riddle’ to cook & that it was 110° in the shade. Then Fairy tells me of an absolutely delightful dinner on your roof garden with bunches of grapes hanging over the table, but she doesn’t say when? All the same, grapes don’t arrive in Australia before January, so I think you must be back in Sydney. I have been working with Monsieur Gleizes [and] we have had a lovely time with the reproductions of Middle Age manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Nationale. The consequence is a wave of humility which has brought us back to exercises 9 AD considered Sydney newspapers parochial, a situation made worse by Australia’s isolation during the war.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 219

1940–1945

219

in translation & rotation of the very simplest form—symmetrical. I’m going over again this evening, & when I feel I can give you enough to really be of worth I shall send you the method, but at present I am so disgusted by my attempts I don’t dare show them . . . We are very interested also in Plato’s Republic & especially St Augustine’s adaptation of it to Christianity. It seems the book for the solution of today. It’s [called] The City of God [and] the fall of Rome was the reason for writing it. Book 4 chapter 4 impressed me very much last night . . . I do hope you & Balson are working hard and that you will not be anxious about anything. Cubism has made it plain that time is carrying us towards order & a totally different way of looking at things than the material [world], which has brought us to an absolute standstill. Here we are having some lovely sunny calm days, unbelievably beautiful for the month of February. Already I have dug a corner of my garden, for this year Lucie & I intend to cultivate every part of Moly & grow sufficient, not only for all our provisions for the year, but to leave peanuts for seed so that next year we won’t have this expense. We are even growing a certain lupin, the grain of which is said to be a very good substitute for coffee, also we are growing cotton & flax & express beautiful thoughts. I think of the Marocain each born to his work—the son of a carpenter is born a carpenter, the son of a potter is born to the craft as he is born to his family. He doesn’t begin to learn his job after military training, at twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, he begins to learn discipline at two [as] he is sent to school to learn to sit still at this age. At four he enters the workshop, such a happy big boy starting work! And he is treated like a big boy, & he remains a happy child all his life. Imagine everyone an artist or a gardener. . . . You will think my letters crazy my poor Smudge, but I don’t want you to be so far away from me as Fairy & Ruby are . . . Letters pour in, everyone weary of Leonardo’s materialism & its results—the machine, industrialism & what they have done to lower man. Do you remember how shocked we were in Brittany when we saw men reaping with their scythes? And we thought we were superior! As the Marocains say, ‘Why hurry & grow unhappy & nervous like you? If I go too quickly my weaker brother won’t have anything to do.’ Goodbye darling, you are a marvel to grow grapes on your roof! Fondest love & all my best wishes, Anne.

K


31/5/02 11:43 AM

220

Page 220

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Moly 12th May 1940 10

My dear best friends,11 Your cable arrived this morning. It was a coat of armour to me, I am proud, proud of it & deeply grateful to you both. If I need help & it is possible for you to help me I shall cable, but I don’t think there is any possibility of leaving France now. I have left it too long & I should feel such a mean creature to leave my companions here & save myself. As long as France holds out I am not afraid. If only I knew what you think I should do! I have my passage money, but the French Company say they have no boats going to Australia at present . . . Meanwhile I earn enough for my simple needs with pupils & helping the peasants . . . Moly has three splendid barrel-vaulted cellars which were visited by the authorities & pronounced so solid that even if the house collapsed they wouldn’t fall in. We are arranging that they will each have two entries & on our gate is a big notice: Abri 50 personnes. [Shelter for 50 people.] Don’t worry about me. I feel I should stay [as] I am more use here than in Australia. The peasants come to me to help them nearly every day, they are terribly short handed & their crops are so important to France. The courage & loyalty is very fine here. The doctor is magnificent in spite of his potato nose, bless him! His example of superhuman effort & cheeriness is felt throughout the whole district. I am now in the war zone because of Italy’s entry into the war, but my friends the Grimauds of Annonay say they’ll take me away into the mountains if things get bad here. The Gleizes asked me to go to them in Provence but now they are in greater danger than I. I have a feeling that old Moly will weather through the storm. She was born for the life on the other side of this period [so] perhaps she will be permitted to see the beginning of it. She should have no fear for this machine war is Leonardo da Vinci’s death agony. In writing [of] the peasants’ work & interest she is playing the role she was formed for.12 May no harm come to Australia & all my very dear Australians. Thank 10 GC has dated this as 12 June 1940. 11 Presumably a letter to GC and other artist friends in Sydney. 12 AD is referring to Moly’s role both in disseminating the ideas of Albert Gleizes and as a model for leading a virtuous life.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 221

1940–1945

221

you with all my heart. If I am in need I’ll take your friendship as loyally as it is given, with love, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 14th May 1940 Dearest, I wonder if I should still be in Isère when I write again? Of course I shall always try to let you know where I am, but since the 11th we have heard so many whirring planes & screeching sirens & trains that our quiet little village is a bedlam, & the cuckoo & the nightingale have gone off disgusted. If Italy attacks France we shall have to go wherever we are sent & leave all we possess, as the poor unfortunates who have arrived from Belgium & the north of France. We sow our seed in the garden & water our tiny plants, but will we eat our pumpkin & turnips & melons? Will the sweet peas & stocks offer us the gift of their perfume? We’ve got to pass through this dark passage in time. Certainly it must be necessary for we are but morsels of pigment carrying out the great painter’s design. 18th May A friend & client from Belgium arrived yesterday, on her way down south of France. She had a terrible time escaping with her five children & ten nieces & nephews & two friends. They were bombarded for miles & miles & several times they abandoned their three cars to hide under mattresses in the gutters of the sides of the road till the enemy planes passed. She was in a terrible state over her husband, a doctor, [who is] naturally mobilized. She could get no news of him nor send him a wire to say they were safe. Today at mid-day he arrived [and] what a pleasure to tell him they were alright. He was amazed to hear they were a party of eighteen. He had been given ten days leave to find his wife & family. You reproach Monsieur Gleizes & me with inconsistency. Of course we are my dear. We are living in the machine age, we cannot buy a lump of sugar or a grain of rice that hasn’t been subjected to its poisoning influence, & man—born to be brought up from birth on chemical concoctions—is a poor degenerate who hasn’t the physical strength to walk


222

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 222


a few miles without being tired. Our weak bodies search [for] more & more ‘comfort’. To chop a bit of wood terrifies us (I know it does me, I give three hours of English every week to Lucie in exchange for not having to chop kindling wood) because we are clumsy & awkward. Do you think we don’t often talk of our own inconsistency? We sit like dummies in racketing motor buses doing nothing, being carried to some distant spot which has not as much to offer us as the one we left. But it’s all in the false doctrine of Leonardo, [as] before his time one turned within his own circle [and] the artisan worked for his town or his place. Now I have to go seventy-five kilometres if I want to pot. Of course it was weak of me to enjoy the fine boat & first-class cabin. I bathed in luxury after ten years of having to pump all my water, do all my own work, be surrounded with drinking workmen, etc. But I came back to Moly because I know the life here is truer than that life of luxury. We can do little, but we are not blind to our weakness. Perhaps we shall all be called upon to leave all our ‘comfort’, to go away into the hills without books or paper or anything. I think Monsieur Gleizes & I will be able to take up life better than those who have never thought of life without these luxuries. I am tired dear. I feel old & tired, for a wretched cold was upon me when all this turmoil commenced. But soon we shall get accustomed to the nerve-wearying excitement & I feel no fear, for after all one has to die some day. If one’s strength fails & one has no means of living, why want to live? It is terribly sad to know so many young lives are being stopped, but it fills me with still greater sadness to see the poor old women refugees, separated from all their treasured familiar belongings, their interests, their everything. Those that have always had pretty surroundings [and] dainty household things are now huddled into a dancing hall where a hundred bunks are placed & where an enamel soup plate is all that one has. Oh Smudge what a weariness life is when one is separated from one’s daily work! You must try to understand the difference of what the lessons I send out mean, & just the rules of the game I send, for it is impossible to give more than the method of constructing without copying objects.13 But the reason for wanting to do this is so vast—different with each one & yet the same for each one—a striving for more than materialism. You reproach us for ‘savouring the monastic life’. That is why Monsieur called 13 AD is trying to explain the basis of Gleizes’ theories to GC so that she can then build on this with her own work rather than copying the externals.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 223

1940–1945

223

Moly his couvent, it was a place where thinkers could withdraw & live nearer to their own beliefs & yearnings. If we believe in the happiness & rightness of the artisan’s life we must strive to awaken this joy in children before the factories swallow them up. As Monsieur Gleizes says, an artist should make an effort to put a stop to his shame & ignorance [and] show that he is not a useless plaything of the rich city merchants & their parasites, that he is a man with a profession. He has to be convinced, in spite of opposition all around him, that his profession is similar in its rules to that of the artisan and that it only needs intelligence to be raised to the top. And again he says ‘I wanted my art to be simple, direct, like that of the artisans which the intellectuals of the seventeenth century had broken all connection with. My life has been led in the country with peasants, bound to their work’14 etc. Morocco explained clearer than poor Monsieur Gleizes’ difficult writings just what we have lost through industrialism. That great city of Fez composed of artisans! No jealousy or hatred—the different métiers in groups & one can go from one to another—‘live & let live’ is natural to them. The peace & happiness of their lives! The beauty of their fêtes, their meals, & even the simpler artisans’ homes. Oh darling we have been robbed of man’s heritage by the catchword ‘comfort’, but if our minds & bodies were not so degenerate through the artificial food stuffs both have been drugged with for centuries, we would be perfectly happy sitting on a little cushion with crossed legs drinking tea & inventing thrilling stories, instead of needing central heating, & all the unhealthy inventions of modern ‘comfort’. That word has been the cause of this war, as you will see if you think the matter over seriously. ‘Money is the root of all evil’ the Bible tells; why have it? Perhaps it is it we are destroying. Perhaps we shall begin over again, [with] Leonardo’s diabolical period ended—his false perspective (an illusion, not the truth), his chemical manures, poisoned peaches, etc. etc. Don’t you see aeroplanes, airmail letters, the tearing across space to place one’s body in another place, all these things belong to that hole in the canvas perspective, not to the spirit which raised up great works like Vézelay & Chartres & Mouly Idriss. Monsieur Gleizes & I are wretched weak victims of our period. Look at me—a poor rolling stone—a lonely foreigner cut off from all those she loves. A victim of Leonardo’s teaching, of chasing a fixed point far away which doesn’t exist. The truth is not the other 14 This passage was originally written in French by AD.


224

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 224


side of the ocean, the truth is within in that inner man made in the image & the likeness of God. But man made God after his image, beard & all! And poor Monsieur Gleizes isn’t the example of the man of a coming epoch. He doesn’t walk from Serrières to St Rémy, but I’m very grateful to him for showing me Homocentrisme—that return to the centre—that unity between man & the absolute. I do hope you don’t think I’m preaching. It is so terribly difficult to see the working out of all these problems . . . Wouldn’t it be wonderful dear if we could make one tiny town in Australia a whole town of artisans? No hideous factory roofs, just artisans with their pretty workshops & salesrooms in one & each one a garden! A little Fez out in Australia! Poor Australia born in the ‘factory’ age can she give birth to a Fez? No. Certainly not yet. These children are not made out of their time, but time is not standing still, & certainly spring follows winter [and] morning follows night. Time rolls along & we have to go down when the wheel turns, & so on until we understand. Then unity & light! . . . God bless my precious friend & repay her for her great heart, & keep her safe, Anne.

K Moly juin 1940 Darling, We are all here well & sound at Moly. Pierre & Poulette also, but we’ve had two horrible days. Really one ought to be ashamed of oneself being un-nerved for what we had was so little compared to other towns & villages. Here nobody was killed or injured & only one house badly damaged. The bombs fell in the fields all round . . .15 [ . . . Since yesterday our two little towns have been like the heart of Sydney at Easter time, thronged with people and the roads one stream of every imaginable sort of vehicle all going south or west . . . And oh the poor tired soldiers worn out completely! They come any way they can, & oh they are hungry. The people who live on the road give, but this afternoon all the little shops had to close, their stocks were running right 15 The bracketed extract that follows is from a letter written by AD to her sister Ruby on 18 June 1940, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit. It has been included in this collection because it describes Anne’s experiences during the Fall of France, which none of her letters to GC adequately do.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 225

1940–1945

225

out . . . This afternoon I was gardening (for we are making a huge effort to grow winter vegetables in quantities for ourselves and the poor old people who can’t grow them when crack, crack, crack over my head. We thought we were delivered from the panic of aeroplanes when we asked for an armistice, but no, it was an Italian plane sending out a volley of grape shot at a French plane. I dropped my armful of weeds and skedaddled for the cellar, but three bombs crashed nearby (not on our property but not far off, later one man killed four injured) before we got there. Already the other members of Moly were in the cellar for they can go down a staircase beside the Geoffrays’ kitchen. Our neighbours came pouring in—the best of the cellar holds fifty people—& the guard tells us that even if a bomb fell on the house & crashed the roof in this cellar would bear the weight of the whole house. Poor old Mme Lornet whom you already know as such a grand & humorous old philosopher came trembling & white, but the Verrots carrying the baby arrived.16 ‘Oh where is aunt Rose?’ (La tante Rose is eighty-three, she remembers the 1870 war for she was then thirteen.) We thought she was here but she isn’t in the house or garden? And then the poor old woman came running. We caught her as she swooned [and] I thought she was dying. We got her in a deckchair & I ran upstairs to get brandy & eau-de-cologne [and] we got her round. After half an hour we heard the signal but the children made such a racket (there were eight) we didn’t hear that it was a fresh warning instead of the signal of the end of the first one. We all poured out and were lifting tante Rose when M. Verrot shouted, ‘go back, go back it’s a chase’. Jeanne Verrot aged fifteen picked up the old woman in her arms & ran back to the cellar with her. The planes roared & then we heard an explosion. The French plane had brought down the Italian. What a life! for a month every moment filled with dread expectation & the nights still worse. . . . My heart is heavy for France & for England who is going to keep on. What a terrible misery for millions & millions of innocent young things & frightened trembling old ones. It is 9.30 PM [and] we are going to a neighbour’s to hear if Hitler & Mussolini have stated their conditions. But I think they’ll wait till their army has taken Lyon, which is not attempting resistance. Lyon so big [and] empty tonight, tomorrow swarmed with Hitler’s army. And then? Will they continue their march to Marseille? Will we also see the dread sight and see the terrifying 16 Mme Lornet and the Verrots were neighbours of AD’s. Moës Verrot. See Personae.


226

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 226


racket? We are only forty miles from Lyon . . . And will man still say after this war that the machine is progress? If England is fighting to destroy the machine for ever & ever God will be on her side & she will be blessed & victorious. Men will all learn to work with his hands & love his work & find life full of joy & interest once again . . . I’m sleepy & tired but one dares not sleep. The roar of vehicles on the road all night [with] families going off with what they can take with them. But what can they take? And what are they going to do, for their 1000 fr. notes won’t buy food. How can they if all the food is eaten up before they get down south. Oh, it’s better to stay [and] we intend to stay. The German army doesn’t harm the civilian in the villes ouvertes & all towns & villages are now declared open.]17 Dearest we must be brave. Monsieur & Madame arrived last night. It was most wonderfully sweet of them to come up from St Rémy to know if we were alright. When I wrote to you I was furious with Juliette but she had a liver attack which lasted ten days, then her liver got seriously bad so her wave of naughtiness was caused by her liver. For before going to St Rémy she turned completely round & wanted to give me anything & everything for my pottery. However, I certainly won’t build a pottery now. I have several pupils for English & one pupil for painting, & the garden. Certainly it was a big disappointment when I read in your letter that I couldn’t continue the lessons.18 If I see I can’t keep going here I’ll try to return to you dear, but I don’t think I can now, I’ve left it too long. We shouldn’t be affollées [crazy] for surely we were sure it was going to come. Last night I talked a great deal with our dear master, he explained again the one thousand years ascent of the circle & the one thousand descent. But the great difference between all bygone epochs & that of the occident Chrétien is the resurrection, which conquered death forever. I forgot to tell you in my last letter that [the Gleizes] have a Citroën these last six years [as] they sold their beautiful car to buy a trailer to take their vegetables to the markets. And it’s Monsieur who takes his petits pois, cerises, haricots etc. & sells them himself, for they only have one man to work their huge property. Things have greatly changed, but what does the future hold? Let us read St Augustine, he is my breast17 From a letter AD wrote to her sister Ruby, 18 June 1940, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit. 18 Presumably the artists who had subscribed to the lessons organised by GC had decided not to continue with them.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 227

1940–1945

227

plate. Darling mate if in this great final act in history I too am called to leave the spatial & pass into time you mustn’t fret. Memory is in time, not space and you are the treasure of my memory for all time for I love you dearly, your Anne.

K 23rd June [1940] For three days our two towns have been occupied by the enemy. As I write the booms of canons mitrailleuse, and rifle cracks continue on the mountains three kilometres away. We keep the great shutters all closed for fear of lost balls or bombs. Tomorrow we hope it will be over for France she can support it no longer . . . I am glad I stayed. I’d love to see you all again but I am glad to judge with my own eyes and intelligence. Of course Mr Gleizes’ books are very popular. In the Retour à la terre movement of Maréchal Pétain, Gleizes is often quoted and one paper had two columns about La vie et mort de l’occident Chrétien, by Gleizes. We are longing to see the Gleizes but unfortunately the petrol prevents it . . . I have all I need. I can keep on the same way really and truly. I am all right . . . Anne

K Moly-Sabata 4th August 1940 Dearest Smudge, Goodness knows if my letters get to you, I don’t see how they can . . . The Red Cross in Switzerland is impossible now [as it is] absolutely stormed by French parents seeking information about their lost sons, or women searching disappeared husbands. Thank God we have news of all those we loved and knew intimately. Many, many are prisoners, but none were killed. Pouyaud is safe, but can’t return to his wife & family, who are in pays occupé. So he is to go to M. Gleizes at St Rémy when demobilised, & will call at Moly on his way up. My poor Smudgie! What a lot of worry & expense I have been to my dear loyal friends. I’ll try to make up by telling you things which will


228

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 228


make your blood run cold, things that will make you split your sides laughing, things which will make you cry, [and] things which will perhaps [fill you] with hope. Our two little towns were occupied [for] nearly three weeks by four thousand Germans. Now we have some hundreds of Alsatian soldiers waiting to know what’s going to happen to them. They are nice fellows—have arranged our beach, sing & swim all day— but they eat & our shops are empty [with] only bath bricks, stove polish, & brilliant shine left. We go on eating vegetables & fruit & eggs & have plenty of milk, so we are not badly off. But we want SOAP! Good common soap. And oil, & butter. Salads without oil, & vegetables without butter are difficult to tackle. You know perhaps that the Gleizes’ house at Serrières was occupied? They asked me to go & see it & tell them all about it. Two big vases were broken, the books strewn everywhere, but really very little harm done & even the beds were all made & the bathrooms clean & tidy. In the little room in the tower the first thing I saw was a letter in my writing. It was from Fez & telling the Gleizes many amusing bits about Mme N. In the library a great German volume was open at the passage of dedication, written in French in 1904, to Monsieur Jules Roche ‘with my deep admiration & affection, Guillaume’!19 Imagine them finding it among that ocean of books! Especially as the books of M. Roche are lining the stairway, where it is dark, & they had brought it to Monsieur Gleizes’ little den where all his precious books of the Middle Ages are. I couldn’t tell if books were missing, for the floor was littered with them, but the shelves where the English books are arranged had huge blanks. All the same I do not think they took anything. Nobody complains, & every house at Serrières was swarming naturally. Imagine four thousand!! . . . M. G. says, ‘If you are made a martyr tell me and I’ll write to Maréchal Pétain, and tell him what you have achieved over the last ten years for the artisans, peasants, and the children of France.’20 [And] M. Grimaud wrote me a wonderful letter of loyal friendship. Thank God Jean Grimaud is safe, although prisoner, I love this family. I have all I need darling. I think I can keep on in the same way. Really & truly I’m alright. If anything happens that merits it I shall go to Portugal & cable you, but I don’t expect any harm & M. Gleizes says ‘Plus que jamais j’ai besoin de vous.’ [I need you more than ever.] Fondest love my grand mate, your Anne. 19 This is presumably Paul Guillaume, a Paris art dealer and collector of modern French painting. 20 This was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 229

1940–1945

229

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 20th October 1940 My dearest Smudge, The American Consul at Lyon assures me that letters will get to Australia eventually, so I will send another, but I have received nothing since June, & I feel you have received nothing from me either. Here all is quiet, few friends come to see us—no petrol—but we are busy & well. Probably you know more about the war than we do. We have the sensation of being in a corner with our faces gazing at the blank wall. Next week I hope to go to the Gleizes at St Rémy. For weeks they have been inviting me, but I couldn’t leave. Monsieur Gleizes is painting hard, & says he wants me to help him execute three big canvases that he has blocked in. I get many letters from Morocco & Tangiers, & two-month old letters from Ireland, but nothing from Australia. I wonder & wonder about you all. . . . Every night I look at the sky as I pass through the grande pièce & shut the shutters on the little balcony. I think of those stars looking down on us all, on this poor troubled old world . . . Every night I read Saint Augustine’s City of God. It is the book of this moment, for history repeats itself, & the downfall was extremely like the period we are passing through. The ambitions of dominating, spreading & growing were the same then as now, & St Augustine so magnificently points out the false & the true. Autumn is more beautiful than ever. Lucie & I went gathering mushrooms up on the hills behind Serrières the other day [and] the colours everywhere were marvellous. I dreamt that I received a fat letter from you that night, & when I opened the letter it was full of fruit & sweets, & coloured sugar . . . Write me a postcard in French. That is what Mainie & Evie do & I get everyone. God bless my Smudge & grant that we may meet again. With all my love, your Anne.

K


31/5/02 11:43 AM

230

Page 230

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 1st December 1940

My dearest Smudge, Your previous letter of the 4th of June arrived two days ago. To see your beloved writing once again made me go cold all over in the post office. It was a perfectly perfect birthday present sent well ahead, but which arrived just in time you see. The news is old but what has happened since? I am as ignorant about the truth as you. One can only fill one’s days with work & wait & wait till this ghastly job is over. I have written many letters but have small hope that any have found their way out, as last week the Red Cross of Geneva sent word that the Red Cross of Australia telegraphed for my news. I guess that was you my loyal friend. But don’t spend money on me. I am well & working as hard as ever. I need nothing. Pierre & Poulette & Lucie & I have firewood & warm clothes. Thanks to Gleizes’ ‘theories’ regarding artists returning to the country & becoming artisans, as well as artists, growing their own needs [and] sharing one with one another, our lives are unchanged by the restrictions. Except, [that is,] in things we refused to put into practice, . . . [like] drink[ing] baked acorns instead of coffee because acorns can be found all over the hillsides & in one afternoon one could gather a year’s breakfasts. Well we didn’t obey & so we have to drink le café national, a concoction of burnt haricot & broad beans & pois chiches with half a dozen coffee beans to the half-pound. Next winter if this business is not finished we will gather acorns. But with our garden products, our bees & poultry yard we are little touched by all the food card restrictions. Also your recipe for soap only arrived two days ago [but] one is not allowed to buy one pound products of matière grasse (butter, fat, lard, oil, etc.) per month so we cannot make your soap. Lucie makes a concoction of ivy leaves & soda to do the washing, & Mme Rouveyre gave me a recipe for oil for the salad made out of lichen that one gathers on tree trunks. But actually the restrictions do not make the country people suffer. I walk fifteen kilometres a day & work on the wheel for seven hours, & don’t even feel very tired at night . . . On my [way] up [I] went to Mirmande, chez Mme Rouveyre, & worked at the Cliousclat [pottery] for ten days. Our old friends there never forget you dear. But it is pitiful


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 231

1940–1945

231

to see these painters from every invaded country sheltering at Mirmande. They can receive no money & haven’t a notion how to earn any. They don’t know how to do anything but paint. They rushed to Mirmande in May & June. They have no warm clothes, none of them had the brains to work for the peasants during the working months to make provision for winter. Oh how wise Monsieur Gleizes was! Lhote has done much for Mirmande, but if [only] he had preached the necessity of artists being artisans. PS. Your letter was censored three times.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 23rd February 1941 My dearest Smudge, Once more I am making an attempt to send you a little letter. I hope it will find its way to you, for I fear none of my other letters have . . . When all this terrible period has joined the long past I hope to go to you as quickly as I can . . . Is it terribly hot & dry out there? Here the wind is incessant, never have I known such winds, & of course you read about the snow & cold. Now we commence to plan the garden for the year. Already I have commenced digging, & have sown mes petits pois. I have very few pottery orders, but the children’s drawing class is packed [with] twenty-four pupils. Then I have three grown-up pupils. I spent a few days with the Martins of Grenoble in the beginning of the month, but see few visitors here now. Monsieur Gleizes wants me to send my pupils & my work to an exhibition at Avignon at the end of March. He is showing his three huge pictures of last year. I am working on three compositions inspired by Morocco. Tomorrow I hope to spend [time] on my two veiled women under a palm tree—it is thrillingly interesting [and] I don’t think I ever painted so many whites. Already violets & primroses are beginning to appear [and] Lucie has two little jugs filled with them on the table. Like them we should continue to fulfil what springtime demands, making our surroundings as sweet as possible. The Gleizes are always at St Rémy [and] it is lonely


232

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 232


to be so far from them. I spent October there with them & on my way back I saw Mirmande & our dear Mme Rouveyre, who always talks of you. I hope to see her next month, as I have work to do at Cliousclat pottery. Courage my dearest friend, we must be nearer peace than we were a year ago. With love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 18 May 1941 Smudge dearest, How I have longed to see your pretty flourishes!21 At last they have found their way to me, & found me at old Moly. So you are still painting! I haven’t touched a brush for three months, except for my pupils. Darling you will despise this humdrum gardener you have for a friend, since I came to Moly it is the spade that has replaced the paint brush. I have heard & thought much about painting, but I haven’t painted in oils myself for nine years. Have never had time or money to do so. I shall be afraid of you all. The garden occupies my every free moment this year. I have twice as much land to cultivate than last year, & mushrooms in the cellars. We are very fortunate to have land to cultivate & [I] am a real peasant woman now. I told Monsieur Gleizes (by letter) about your Tuesday gatherings. Another of his books has been translated, perhaps you will see a copy. I sent a big case of pottery & pupils’ work & a gouache to an exhibition at Avignon. All the pottery sold—it always does—but alas! I can do so little. The potter won’t fire. My pupil Madame Albert & her husband spent Easter among our old friends [at Mirmande and Cliousclat]. Madame Rouveyre & Madame Simeon & the potters all sent word that I must come & see them when the cherries are ripe, so I do hope to go & work in the pottery for a week or two [at] the beginning of June . . . I think of you all the time, I do hope I won’t be a burden to any of you if I return. I feel my work here is finished [and] I am marking time till 21 Grace Crowley’s writing was very elegant and full of flourishes.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 233

1940–1945

233

I can go to you all, but that is not yet. Blessings on you my darling, it is you whom had the courage to keep on painting. PS. I’m nothing but a gardener now. I should love to join your Thursday gatherings & hear Balson’s explanations. Fondest love & write straight away please, your Anne.

K

7th July 1941 My dearest Smudge, How perfectly marvellous of you to send me all those recipes! You poor thing! You spent hours & hours searching, days probably! We use saponaire [soapwort] tremendously, but we don’t know how to use horse-chestnuts. I shall ask the pharmacien. You remember we have two huge horse-chestnuts at Moly, & [although] the seed make such a mess it will be marvellous if we can utilise them. At present you needn’t fear I am dirty. Every morning at 4 o’clock (by the sun) I am in the river [where] I scrub myself with a brush. Summer is with us for these precious two months a year. Alas! it is terribly dry. I have to pump a hundred watering cans of water every day for my poor garden, and it isn’t anything—it needs thousands. Tomorrow I return to the pottery. For two weeks I dared not leave my garden, or all my young plants & seeds would have perished. A friend from Mirmande came & spent two days this week. She is a very fine painter, & her visit woke me up from completely turning into a cabbage or a potato. There is no doubt [that in] whatever one does one is obliged to give one’s all or it doesn’t succeed. I hope you are painting hard. Oh how I’ll love to see your work and be among painters once more! Give my love to your dear precious mother, to Flo & to all who remember me. Write to me & tell me about yourself and your doings, & thank you so much dear for the recipes. With all my love always your mate, Anne.

K


234

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 234

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Moly 10th aôut 1941

Smudge dear, Your lovely letter reached me safely & has given me more pleasure than you can imagine . . . How I have bragged about Aussie’s wonders [with] Zinnias 2 mètres 52 centimètres d’hauteur! . . . Evie Hone thinks all that comes is for our good. Yes, Evie, who for eight years lay on her back almost unable to move, says that with a certainty of conviction. She looks upon those eight years as her real education, the halt which saved her from a society life, & from being a brilliant popular artist. We have had a terribly short summer, & I fear that it is already over. I went for my dip in the Rhône yesterday morning, but it was so icy I didn’t have the courage to go today. We only had two weeks of real summer when one could wear a voile frock. My little kiln is about to come to pass. Pierre Grimaud (aged fifteen) is my partner. I love the Grimaud family very dearly, they have completely adopted me as their aunt, & three or four of them come on their bicycles every Sunday to swim in the river & bring me fruit or a cake. I often go to Annonay & stay a day or two. Monsieur Grimaud is my most interesting pupil. He has never painted or drawn much [as] he is a writer & bringing up a family of seven children left little time for other interests, but now he finds he has time . . . Pierre le vénérable is very beautiful still, but my poor old Poulette is dead. She was my most faithful friend at Moly. I shall miss her for a long while, & yet it is a relief [as] I didn’t know how to feed the two of them. When I got home from the pottery at nearly nine at night I had to boil potatoes & a squash to give her, for I couldn’t spare bread. She was very old & couldn’t understand why I didn’t give her the good têtes de moutons [sheep’s heads] she had always been accustomed to. But Pierre fait la chasse aux rossignols [chases nightingales] but you mustn’t tell Madame Gleizes, or she’ll say I must put him on a chain. What do you paint Smudge? I would love to see your work . . . Monsieur Gleizes is working very very hard in spite of difficulties of colours, etc. He says he’ll work with red, with grey & yellow ochre clays & yolk of egg if he can’t find anything else, but work he will! His nephew died last month, his heir really. He is sad & talks too much about being old. He will be sixty on the 8th December, a chicken compared with


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 235

1940–1945

235

Mr Ashton! He lives completely on his farm [at St Rémy], has sold his studio & garden here, but not the house [at Serrières. His maid] Eugénie came to see to things here & says they will come & see us when the farm season is over. He has really returned to the land, no longer drives a car, but works four hours a day with his farmers, & paints four hours a day. I wish I could find his last letter, but I read it to my pupils & have mislaid it. He says very humbly how he is trying & trying for a more beautiful quality in his work, ‘The older I grow the more exacting I become. Perhaps I shall be able to arrive at a more beautiful quality if I try & try, but perhaps I shall not. I feel my feebleness’ . . . Write again dear & tell me about your work & life . . . Give my fondest love to each one, the mother Bird, Flo, Bell, Mr Ashton & especially your dear self, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 12th November 1944 My precious mate, I can really write you a letter! Vive de Gaulle! Vives les alliés!! And now I’m expecting letters from home soon for probably you were not allowed to write. Straight away we had to wait for traffic to be re-installed a little & all the trains & cars (buses) were burnt, new ones had to be brought over from Africa. Now there are two passenger trains per day: the ParisMarseille express which passes here at midnight going down & the up train at 20 to 5.00 AM. Then there is an omnibus Valance-Lyon which passes any time between 3.00 PM & 8.00 PM going up to Lyon. It is only an engine & three ‘wagons bestiaux, 8 chevaux, 40 hommes’ [cattle trucks for eight horses and forty men]. Quite a hundred and forty crowd into each wagon & bring their bicycles & perambulators, sacs à provisions, disputes, jokes, etc. etc. Imagine travelling up to Lyon (sixty kilometres) like this! But oh we were excited when we saw the first train pass! With all the bridges destroyed it was weeks before communication of any sort could be organised. Letters still take a fortnight to come from Paris or St Rémy. But once we felt assured that no lost groups of Germans were lurking behind grapevines or in the hills we walked miles & miles to see friends, & friends walked miles & miles to see us. I almost


236

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 236


made up my mind to walk to Mirmande but terrible weather came on & has lasted just two months. Now the Rhône is all round us, in our cellars, backyards & coming in through the front gate. Perhaps we’ll get some better weather now, & perhaps I’ll be able to get a lift to Mirmande with Americans on the route nationale on both sides of the Rhône. American & African troops go up without interruption, but the Americans also have to go down to Marseille for provisions so I may be lucky if I try the auto stop [hitch-hiking] signal which of course is défendu [forbidden]. I’m longing to see dear Fifine & Mirmande & its crowd of queer painters . . . The peasants around Mirmande were like all the other peasants during these four hard years—mardi noir en gras [large-scale Shrove Tuesday] & all the rest they kept for themselves.22 I used to admire the French peasant, hélas! I’ve lost many of my illusions. Smudge dear you say you are working what at? I too long to be of use, to help finish the war. I wrote to the British Consulate at Lyon asking what I could do & they replied that they would call me if they needed any more interpreters, but to keep on making pottery at present as I was greatly needed. So I keep on walking fifteen kilometres a day & working as hard as I can making useful things which are greatly in demand, not dream things, only bowls & plates & dishes & cups & milk pots & even vases de nuits [chamber pots]!! It’s a great comedown but who cares as long as one is of use? Many people beg me to make fireproof dishes to cook in as one can’t buy any pots or pans but like nearly all patrons the potter is in prison & the workmen all drunk so the pottery is closed. The same state of affairs reigns where I still can work, the only difference is that the potter is not in prison [but] the workmen are drunk always ever since the Liberation. Oh poor France! I don’t know what is going to become of her. However food is not so scarce [as] we have been allowed to buy chestnuts vente libre this autumn. Then sixty kilos of potatoes were distributed to each person [and] we have much better bread, three quarters of a pound par jour which is enough for me. Before I had only two hundred grams & it was heavy & bitter flour made from Jerusalem artichokes & millet seed. But although promised half a pound of butter for the month we have only received fifty grams each month since the liberation (about a small tablespoonful) the same quantity as we had before. We are promised coffee (two hundred grams) & half a pound of sugar for this month, but we haven’t much faith in the 22 AD means that the peasants hoarded food.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 237

1940–1945

237

promises [as] those of last month were not kept. With potatoes, chestnuts & bread we shall be able to live & fatten, but it would be wonderful to have butter & sugar & tea or coffee. Monsieur Gleizes is very pessimistic. I received a long letter from him last week. He is still on his farm at St Rémy where he has plenty of fowls & ducks & pigs & rabbits, four cows & plenty of vegetables. But his house at Cavalaire & the one at Serrières have greatly suffered, both were robbed by the Germans & he doesn’t know how his flat & studio at Paris have fared. At St Rémy the Germans took one of his horses, that’s all, he has five others. Many here lost their only horse. A draught horse costs 80 000 francs! Monsieur Gleizes says he is painting small pictures, not having material for big ones. I thought he would come to make an estimate of his losses at Serrières for the insurance, but he is sending Eugénie. Oh Smudgie may I come home? I’m longing to return to you & my people & to Australia but I am ashamed to return without a penny. Moly has eaten up all my savings of Morocco. I am old but very strong still. Perhaps if I can work hard I shall not be a burden to anyone, I’m ready to give all I know. Do you think the government would help me if I took three or four war orphans as apprentices? The government of Morocco called me without any asking,23 also I was as a monitrice [monitress] to a Jeune France pottery at Macon (Saône et Loire) during the war but I left because the affair was too Vichy government. I know I’m too old to teach a whole crowd of young people, but I could give much that I have learnt to my country & long to do. How I hope this will be my last winter here. Write & tell me everything darling. Have you still the dear sweet mother Bird? Oh give them all my love & blessings. How wonderful the British have been, dear old bulldogs! French officers from Africa greatly praised the Australian soldiers to me . . . The bridge being destroyed cuts Sablons off entirely. We have to pay 10 francs to cross over to Serrières in a rowing boat. Darling when it is possible please send me two brushes for gouaches—no. 1 and no. 3 or 4— also a piece of soap & a packet of tea. Perhaps by the Red Cross you could send [them] now. All my brushes are finished & one can buy NOTHING. I have powdered colours & gomme arabique so if I had two brushes I could do some work to take home . . . Oh Smudgie perhaps this time next year I’ll be hugging you on the wharf in Sydney. Bless you 23 By this AD means that she was invited by the Moroccan government to instruct local potters and did not have to apply for the job.


238

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 238


dear for all these years of help & friendship . . . Au revoir et à bientôt chérie, vôtre amie [Goodbye and see you soon, your friend] Anne.

K 1st December 1944 Dear Smudge, You see I am giving myself a birthday present, a long chat with you. For a week we have been engarrisoned because of the Rhône—the biggest flood since 1918! But Lucie is putting on her bottes and is going to try to wade to the post office. The water has gone down tremendously but all along the quay there is still water, also in our own back clos [yard]. We are all above [the water line in the loft, and cut off] except for the daily visit of two gentil neighbours who came in a boat and who brought us bread, the newspaper and milk and one day a fricassé of pork, a present from the Dorets who not knowing what to do with their pig when the water rose killed him.24 I was tempted to do likewise with my gander but I want to keep him for the first Australian soldier who comes to see me. Will it be Raymond? Geoff Dangar (who is in the RAF) wrote to me a fortnight ago saying he was trying to get permission to pay me a flying visit, but that he had not been able to wangle it yet.25 The last time I saw him was that New Year’s day at Rosa Galla when the family arrived.26 He was thirteen now he is thirty-one! Oh Smudge what if Lucie brings me letters from Australia today! It is three months since that terrible 1st Sept. when the Germans left Sablons, but all I have had from home so far is a telegram from Fairy. Here we are not allowed to send telegrams except in our depart[ment].27 Only cards were allowed at first [so] I sent one to each of my faithful Australians. I hope you got yours . . .

K 24 All the farm houses have greniers, lofts, where they put the animals during the floods. In the worst floods the waters rose as high as the lofts and animals died. 25 Geoff Dangar was AD’s nephew. See Personae. It is unclear as to who Raymond was that AD refers to here. 26 When students in Sydney, AD and Grace Crowley rented a cottage called ‘Rosa Galla’, which was close to a cemetery overlooking a cliff near South Head. 27 The department AD lived in was the Isère-Ardèche.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 239

1940–1945

239 12 January 1945

Smudge dear, Do send me your news. Have had two telegrams and a card from J. B. Pye & two cards from Ruby since the Liberation but no sign of life from you & I’m just longing to see your dear handwriting once again. I have written you several cards & a long letter, but I fear the letter won’t reach you. August was a very terrible month at Sablons—many houses were destroyed by fire, explosion of the bridge, etc. etc. [and] M. Gleizes’ house at Serrières suffered badly—but Moly escaped. The Gleizes were also pillaged & destroyed by the Germans who occupied the house. After we were delivered, rain set in for four months [and] we had five floods, three being very big ones. Immediately after it began to snow & here I am in a ghastly white world frozen hard. Oh Smudgie I hope it’s the last winter I’ll see in Europe! Am going to the Gleizes at St Rémy-de-Provence for a fortnight at the end of February. I hope to work with M. G. all the time. At present am potting like mad [as] many friends [who] lost everything implore me to make them necessary utensils. One can buy nothing useful in shops. You couldn’t conceive how emptied we are. All my very best wishes for this year dear, may it bring us peace . . . your Anne.

K 5th March 1945 Dearest, I’ve written you a letter but goodness only knows when it will reach you as I’m not allowed to send by air. Had a lovely surprise last week [when] Geoff [Dangar] & two friends came to see me! He’s such a great big simple Australian! His visit made me very happy & proud & he brought me all sorts of good things—even Palmolive! He & his English friends insist on me writing my experiences & impressions. They were thrilled by all I told them, & I think poor Geoff thinks I shall have much more success with these facts than my Cubist pictures. He frightened me about going home [as he] says things are terribly difficult & dear, taxes high


240

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 240


& that I won’t find anything to start a pottery. But I must go home— another winter here will kill me—I’m too old for Moly. I can’t walk fifteen kilometres to work; dig & cultivate a huge garden; carry water from the Rhône; chop wood, etc. etc. A way will open for me I’m sure & I must go back to you my precious friend, with all my love, Anne.

K

22nd March 1945 Dearest Smudge, I was hoping for another letter from you this month but none so far. Today is real springtime, a glorious warm day & all round the fruit trees are dazzling white. This morning I had the children’s class. Suddenly we saw on the opposite bank under the poplars crowds of soldiers. For a second I was filled with horror for two years [we had German] soldiers & I simply had to let the children go for they couldn’t work any more.28 And all day we have had these cheery joking voices calling out orders, etc. instead of the awful barking of the Boches which we had to listen to every day. Before the war this spot was a favourite picnic & camping ground for those who came down in little ‘canoes’ but it seemed haunted by Germans until now. Again we can look across & feel those dark years are over [and] these laughing French soldiers have made it once again la douce France. Smudge dear you must count again [as] it is fifteen years since I arrived at Moly not thirteen. My next letter will be from St Rémy [where I] hope to go for Easter. It is two years since I saw the Gleizes. Fondest love, Anne.

K 28 Presumably AD had to stop her classes with the children for a period of two years because of the presence of German soldiers.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 241

1940–1945

241

Chez Monsieur Albert Gleizes Les Méjades, St Rémy-de-Provence Bouche du Rhône, 20 April 1945 Smudge dear, Your sweet letter came yesterday, also one from Ruby, & I don’t know how to express my deep gratitude for your wonderful loyalty & affection towards me. I hope I shall never disappoint you. But when I read that you were sending me clothes I became quite alarmed because I have lots & lots of warm clothes. Lucie being a weaver years before the war, she receives an allowance of wool & linen . . . So I implore you to prevent Fairy & Ruby from sending me clothes. I am hoping to arrive home for Xmas with a little suitcase. I know I can take very little luggage & I want to take drawings most. I shall certainly have to leave nearly everything I have behind me, but if I spend another winter at Sablons & we have 6 floods like this year I shall leave my skin. I burn with shame & pride over your ‘investment’ [as] I owe you a very huge sum already. I have a little money to start with, poor old aunty dear didn’t forget me. Thank you my wonderful friend [and] we shall talk of all those things when I get home. I’m sure you envy me when you read my address. It is indeed a great joy to be again in Provence & to be with Monsieur Gleizes. These five years have made his hair nearly white & his dear face sadder & softer. His work is magnificent! If he held an exhibition of it, all other French artists would dwindle off & become little pigmies beside it. But he never shows anything but old work. Smudgie the only real work of art I did in my life was the day in the Palais de Bois when I realised the greatness of Gleizes compared with all the other painters. Oh Provence is wonderful in springtime! The light & strength & charm are far greater than the memory can retain, and to be drawing again with Monsieur Gleizes surrounded by his huge canvases! I shall miss him terribly, Monsieur Gleizes, the family Grimaud & Pierre the Venerable! I’m staying for another ten days then going to the Grimauds who have an adorable farm château fourteen hours voyage (by car) from Avignon. There I shall paint with Gaston Grimaud. Don’t bother about me, brushes are beginning to appear. An ordinary pencil costs 10 francs but tant pis, I raise the price of pots. Really I’m not at all an object of pity now dear, it is the poor old people who retired on a tiny income who are to be


242

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 242


pitied, those who can work are not in want now. I’m not very afraid about myself in Aussie. I have the possibility of doing many kinds of different work in clay. I prefer architectural panels, but tiled tables or pots may be more easily launched at the beginning. Brought a drawing of a sundial to show Monsieur Gleizes [with] all the signs of the zodiac done in Cubism. He considers it a very fine drawing. I’m going to a pottery near Bourges to execute it in stoneware at the end of June. If it turns out well I’m sure it will sell well. A gallery at Lyon will buy anything I care to let them have. Some day you & I will come over & hold an exhibition with them, but alas! We must hurry up, time passes. Monsieur Gleizes wants to write to you so I must leave a tiny space. Must only send 5 grams. Kiss the dear mother Bird for me dear. She is waiting to welcome her eldest daughter, bless her. My fondest love dear wonderful friend. Madame Gleizes sends her love also. Always your Anne.

K chez Monsieur Gaston Grimaud St André de Cruzières par St Paul-le-Jeune Ardèche 4th May 1945 Dear Smudgie, Your lovely long airmail letters are a boon & a blessing. The one dated April 5th reached me May 3rd & it was posted on here from Moly. I shall be very often absent this year but please address to Moly always. I want to learn all I can in different potteries so that I shall be able to work with whatever materials I can find in Australia. Smudge dear you frighten me when you say I’m a ‘great artist’, etc. etc. I’m not at all. I have hardly touched oil paint since coming over, it was always too expensive, & I fear I shall be very rusty when I begin again. I have only done tint gouaches most of the time. My little pupils have done decorations 6 mètres de longeur but I have only done one canvas (1 metre by 1 metre) & a few smaller ones. Your news of the dear old mother Bird filled me with longing to see her again. How brave of you to build up her faith in herself. . . . I have just come from the Gleizes’ farm at St Rémy-de-Provence where I spent three weeks. It was lovely to see Monsieur Gleizes again after nearly three years of separation. His hair is nearly white, & he is


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 243

1940–1945

243

sad, & much less excitable, much sweeter & gentler & more broad minded. But she is a devil, & leads him a devil’s existence. For the first time in her pampered life she has been definitely refused what she wanted & so she stamps & storms & threatens to commit suicide until poor Monsieur Gleizes has to withdraw more & more within himself & his work for protection. He never leaves his farm, never even goes to St Rémy (three kilometres) or Avignon (twenty kilometres). His painting gets grander & more beautiful every year. He is writing his memories, [and] two of his books are being published in England so he is overlooking the translations. While I was there he had a wave (he always worked by waves Mainie & Evie say) of souplesse [versatility]. For this purpose he was doing tiny tempera miniatures (half the size of my envelope)— absolute gems! His studio aux Méjades [at St Rémy] is much too small [so] he is going to build a room [in which] to place his huge canvases because he simply can’t move in the studio now. Since I saw his work in January 1941 he has painted at least twenty-five enormous canvases, probably a hundred pen & ink drawings, many being full size sheets of paper bigger than Michalet,29 and countless gouaches of every dimension. [He has] also [painted] l’évangile [the evangelist] illustrated in tempera, the plates being about 18 inches by 12 inches & of a beauty & richness only known in the long gone past. Three gigantic canvases, a ‘Crucifixion’, ‘Transfiguration’ & ‘Ascension’ are what Monsieur Gleizes considers true mural painting, perfectly flat. I can’t help longing to see them executed in glass as church windows—as church windows they would be des merveilles!!! The colours are so rich & deep they call for light behind them. All his other latest works are modelled, but keep the flat nature of the canvas surface. These he terms peintures au chevalet [easel paintings]. Smudge, nobody perhaps (unless Mme Gleizes & she doesn’t realise his power) has seen Gleizes’ work as I have. He held a small exhibition in Paris two years ago, but didn’t show any recent work. Nothing will persuade him to exhibit as he should or publish a book reproducing his work. He says it is not yet complete. I begged & implored him to show now, for Cubism has taken on new life since the Germans left. They didn’t allow any Jews to exhibit, so Picasso, Chagall & several others were bouclés [locked out] during five years.30 Lhote is almost too popular at present [and] I fear he will topple off his pedestal before long, it’s 29 Michalet is a brand of drawing paper. 30 Marc Chagall. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

244

Page 244


too high. Picasso’s work has gone down & down, Braque continues to do good work & Metzinger has again come to the fore with good work . . . . . . I seem to have done nothing in life but make new starts. Certainly one shouldn’t become attached to ‘things’, but I can’t live in ugly surroundings. Also will be hard to say goodbye to mon petit (Pierre le vénérable). He’s the sweetest most faultless creature I have ever come in contact with. Really he hasn’t one fault, & is so affectionate & handsome & lovable I don’t know how to leave him to Lucie. She kisses him all day long, but wouldn’t share the tiniest morsel of cake with him, or deny herself anything when she knows he has had nothing nourishing for days. Poor Pierre! He lives on bread & water & rats & vegetables without any fat when I’m away & gets so thin it breaks my heart when I return. When I’m there I steal a quarter of our quarter pint of milk for him. I give him all the scrapings of pots & plates & bowls & leave a little bit of extra always & share my 60 grams of meat with him, etc. etc. I almost wish he would die before I leave but he doesn’t want to die at all. Am going from here to Mirmande. I can’t pass by without stopping & I long to see Fifine’s beautiful toothless shining smile of welcome. I shall stay with her four or five days and try to persuade the potters to let me return & make twenty big plates. I can easily sell them at 500 fr. la pièce so I’ll offer him 50 fr. each for the baking. I should love to work on that lovely hilltop & return each evening to Fifine’s good dinners, & the stone wall under the acacia trees where the painters meet & ‘yap’ in the evening . . . Blessings on you my Smudgie, & thank you for your wonderful welcome. I hope I won’t disappoint you when I come. All my love your Anne.

K

Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 1st June 1945 My dearest Smudge, What does the month of June in France awake in your memory? On the table before me there is a green pot with pinks & daisies & delphiniums


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 245

1940–1945

245

of soft & deep blues. Le bon Dieu has sent us rain at last & the garden & crops peal forth a magnificent Te Deum of gratitude & praise.31 I do hope Australia is also rejoicing after beautiful rain . . . . . . I feel I am directed to prepare my departure & am already more [than] halfway there, having told the Gleizes I am going, told my pupils here, sold some of the material I had set up [for the] pottery here, given away all sorts of things, promised my garden for October,32 & arranged all the time I have left. I feel so strongly my way points home that I have to obey. It is curious, for I know I have arrived at an easier life here at last. My work is sought after & known here now, I think I shall always be able to exhibit & sell it in France. I like the sort of work I am asked to do here—religious subjects, bénitiers [fonts], etc.—[and] with the same amount of money that I shall have to start with in Australia I could set up a perfect little pottery at Moly. And I love France & my French friends & the appreciation & understanding artists receive here. But with all that, & my pretty room & this charming old home (in summer) the call home dominates. I feel I should return. I long to see my family also, but the feeling of being told to go is stronger than everything else. I think I was sent on this planet to fight obstacles, I’ve had a terrible fight here, you know how all I found here was a roof over my head. My métier of teacher was useless here. I had to learn to pot & the only way was to enter a drunken peasant’s pottery where I was paid 20 francs to decorate a hundred plates, but I could practice on the wheel as much as I liked. You know the years & years of poverty I have had because these wretched lazy drinking potters wouldn’t work & fire. The helplessness of my situation has been a daily fight to find some way out. And now at last I have the necessary tools to start for myself & be independent of these potters. But that way is barred, the finger post indicates ‘Australia’. . . . Eighteen days [I have] spent in Monsieur Gleizes studio doing tiny exercises together. I say exercises & yet they were also dreams. He indicated point de depart [the point of departure]: ‘Laissons nous faire un jaune, maintenant nous ferons des tons sombres.’ [Let’s use a yellow colour, now we’ll use dark tones.] ‘Si nous faisions un avec un fond en deux tons très différent, deux bleus par example’ [If we use one with two quite different tones, for example two blues], etc. And then we would work for hours & forget everything & even each other in the absorbing game of balance, light, 31 A Te Deum is an ancient Latin hymn of praise. 32 In other words, AD has organised her garden for Autumn.


246

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 246


movement, until Mme G. burst into the studio with the four dogs exclaiming ‘Albert, il faut marcher’ [we have to walk]. Then we would look at each others’ little pictie [sic] & I would realise what a poor old clumsy duffer I was beside this great French painter . . . After my trip to the Gleizes I went to the Grimauds at St André, wrote to you from there but probably you’ll get the letter after this. Then I went to Mirmande, no other place on earth eclipses Mirmande! Once again I saw the old town rise up before my eyes glowing with the last sun’s rays! Mirmande played a most important part in the Liberation. I shall have to tell the tale in another letter. Fifine & Madame Simeon always ask after you & say, ‘Dites elle beaucoup des choses pour moi.’ [Tell her that we send our best wishes.] It was lovely to see Marcelle & Blanche Fournier[-Terrassier] & Mathilde Camli & hear their heated discussions on art after Mme Gleizes’ pessimistic & bitter conversation. I revelled in art students again.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 10th June 1945 My dearest, How can I ever thank you for all you have done, are doing & offer to do for me? Never, never, reproach yourself for the miracle you worked to send me to Moly. I have never regretted coming. NEVER! NEVER!! Moly has taught me to be able to say to Monsieur Latour,33 ‘One must not live by bread alone’, & when he takes me & shows me his kingdom & clay pit & house I can answer with a laugh ‘Get thee behind me Satan’. Mass production!!! After fifteen years with Albert Gleizes!!! Poor little Frenchy! When can we hope for peace & love on this earth while such types swarm over the face of it trying to monopolise commerce? I quite believe he is an idealist, otherwise he wouldn’t be such a fool as to stay & work with artists. My jugs & pots never will & never have pleased ‘mass’ taste. If he wants to mass produce he must find a good commercial ceramicist who will make fine hard conventional porcelaine ware without a sign of originality or fingers or love. The masses hate all these marks. You may think I’m too sure of myself dear but I don’t feel afraid 33 M. Latour was a French commercial potter.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 247

1940–1945

247

of starving even in Australia. It is wonderful of you to invest your money in an old woman who might have a stroke any day . . . Wherever I go I am a disciple of Gleizes, an ‘artisan’ working with my hands (& feet) and trying to create the love of handwork. I have returned to do a good many things in the way of ceramics but I am not at all an ‘expert potter’. I think I shall find a little group who will like my work—art students, architects, those who have travelled—those who feel when they see forms & colours which they like. [Also] simple people like Ruby who like to have pretty things in their homes, etc. etc. Here in this tiny village hand machine made ware is much preferred.34 But I sell all I make, & could send twenty times more than I am able to make. It took time to be known & time to know how to express in clay, but I am sure I could earn a good living in France if I had a pottery of my own. My clients come from towns [and] generally they belong to the above list. If in Sydney I can’t make a living with my rustic pots perhaps I can with tiled panels, or jewellery (I do a lot at present) or mosaics. If I can’t make a living there Monsieur Gleizes says to return to Moly. But I shall never consent to industrialising my work. . . . In the meantime I shall have an exhibition at Moly in spring, & try to work up another (much more important & a one-man show) at Lyon during winter. Am going to Cliousclat on the 18th to do eight big plates (45 centimetres diameter) which I shall hide until this exhibition at Lyon. Then in July I am going to Bourges to carry out the design for a sundial that I drew last winter. It will be done on sixteen tiles each 20 centimetres square & the design will be in low relief. It is the signs of the zodiac but Cubist. The clay in this village near Bourges is exceptional [and] resists all weather. It is glazed by salt firing only, & the colour when fired is a dove grey. Oh Smudge I am longing to see your work. Is it altogether non-representative? Mine is much more representative (in a way) than ten years ago, but the representative part comes out of the construction at the end instead of being the starting point. I bought a glorious book the other day, Fresques de St Savin.35 The plates are all in [a] lovely golden colour. That is why I must wait a year & bring these treasures with me, don’t you think so? If I came now I could only bring myself, & I am [a] much older bulkier woman than the one who left fifteen years ago. I’ve quite gained all the flesh I lost under 34 Non-electric machinery. 35 Presumably AD has forgotten that she sent GC a copy of this booklet just before the war.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

248

Page 248


Hitler’s diet . . . Bless you my precious friend for all your help & goodness, my fondest love, your Anne . . .

K Series of postcards Moly-Sabata 5th August 1945 My dearest Smudge, Two lovely long letters arrived last Thursday, the one you had returned to you, & the one you wrote in bed [on] 17 July when at Wilfrid’s.36 How lovely it is to be so near to one another! Only a fortnight’s distance now!37. . . I love company & visitors & at Moly I am nervous when alone in this big isolated house now Poulette is dead. I can’t have another dog [as] it is difficult to feed even Pierre le vénérable. When Lucie is absent I go to bed as soon as it is dark or I get too creepy. I wasn’t like that fifteen years ago. I lived here alone five months after the Pouyauds went away. I have just returned from la Borne, a little village of potteries thirtyfour kilometres from Bourges. One of my Macon pupils married a young potter there & invited me to go & do some work. I had drawn a calendar with the zodiac signs in Cubism. When I showed it to Monsieur Gleizes he said he liked it very much & that I should do a sundial, it was too much work for just a calendar. But the clay here doesn’t stand frost, so when I heard of the wonderful salt glaze stone clay of la Borne I decided to go to make my sundial there. My first sight of the village was a great surprise for it is much more like an English village than a French one. And when I visited the potteries next morning the potters hailed me with ‘cousin’. They explained that Louis the XI who was from Bourges married a Scotch woman who told him about the wonderful new way the British were firing stoneware. They fired with salt & this acted like a beautiful waterproof glaze that could support vinegar, salt, frost, & every other test. So he brought over fifteen potters from Scotland to la Borne who built the village and established grès au sel [salt glaze for stoneware] in France. And these potters with their blue eyes & high 36 Presumably Wilfrid Crowley, GC’s brother. 37 Presumably the mail was more regular now with a letter from Australia taking only two weeks.


31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 249

1940–1945

249

square shoulders & sandy hair bear such un-French names as Cameron, Talbot, Baden, etc. I’ve had a delightful fortnight in their company & have been eating butter & fromage blanc & drinking milk. I had to work fifteen hours a day, standing all the time & going for my life, for the clay dried so quickly & I had to keep the whole surface going at once. It is made of sixteen square tiles 20 centimetres each. But I had to work on the whole sixteen at the same time as the zodiac signs are in high relief & are united. Then I chose a motto from St Augustine’s treatise on ‘time’ & that is in low relief. The dial will be pale lavender gray, the whole of the rest in the natural mottled gray of the clay. I’m longing to see it fired. I shall exhibit it at Lyon at Christmas for I am invited by Folklore (the best galerie at Lyon) to hold an exhibition the 8th January. The cathedral at Bourges is magnificent but the windows were missing. They haven’t yet come forth from their war hiding place. I bought a book with coloured reproductions of them—we will gloat over it together soon. Smudge dear I have to return home, I feel I must. I am an Australian even if we are Barbares as the intellectual snobs of Madame Gleizes’ clique term us, even if Australia’s highest idea of art is Lambert,38 even if I love & need France [and] the French most terribly. I feel I must return & do my poor little best for my native land. The war taught me how truly British I am. Of course I hope to earn enough to return to see my dear friends here where the beastly jealousy & spite of war influence is quite over but I want to go home & work, & I must go quickly or I’ll be too old to make the huge effort this new start in life demands. If I stay here two or three more years I shall be finished— fifteen kilometres walk by day to work on a potter’s wheel is too much for me. I feel as if all my bones are broken when I get to bed after my day’s work. Oh Smudge dear I shrink from being a burden to anybody but I shrink terribly also from breaking down in health & having to end my days in a French poor house with all its dirty old women. I’m still very strong [and] I think I shall be able to make good in Australia [although] I’m not ‘a great architect’. I’m a very simple woman potter, not a wise chemical potter or expert turner, but I love clay & have the knack of making funny little pots which draw love from those who have the power to feel. Then as well I have had a rather special education in painting but alas! I’ve never had enough money to stop potting or buy paints. For fifteen years my ears & eyes have been studying, but my 38 George Washington Lambert. See Personae.


250

31/5/02 11:43 AM

Page 250


hands have not been painting. I wonder where on the whole globe a painter who has no money can find a roof & a bed & food & perfect liberty to paint? . . . At Moly one could work if one had an income & could find une femme de ménage [housekeeper] & a gardener, but where one has no femme de ménage & no gardener one never gets time even to write a letter except on Sunday afternoon, especially since the war. Oh Smudge all these parcels that you have posted me make me blush with shame. You shouldn’t send me so much. I’m thrilled to know they are coming & that it was you who thought of all these comfies [sic] & luxuries for me, but I am unhappy I can’t bring you lovely presents from France. What can I bring you? . . . Prices are high for pottery but the potters drink & talk politics & don’t fire . . . My fondest love my precious friend. Do get quite well & strong dear & tell me how you are every time please, your Anne.

c


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 251

6 La Poterie Moly-Sabata, 1946–1949

In the post-war years Anne Dangar continued to entertain plans to return to Australia, either through being repatriated or putting up her land in Australia as collateral for a passage home because she could not afford the fare. As she explained to Grace early in 1946: I went to see the consul at Lyon but he wasn’t there. I explained that I should like to return to Australia but couldn’t pay the voyage & I asked if the Australian Government would accept my South West Rocks land in exchange for a passage home. I confessed that I hadn’t paid rates for about ten years because I received no note for them but that the land was valued at £200 in 1919 & that it certainly had risen in value since the railway to Kempsey. The clerk who wrote down my case has been at the consulate for seventeen years & considered my proposal ‘very feasible’. I received a card saying my demand had been sent to Australia House London, & that they had stated that I should like to leave in January 1946. At first I wanted to go before winter but the best gallery in Lyon, Folklore, begged me to say farewell to France by an exhibition of my work with them. I liked the idea—they want the exhibition for the 8th December until the 8th January. Do you think my idea is a good one? . . .1 1 AD letter to GC, 12 February 1946.


252

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 252


However, AD was ultimately held back from returning home by her dedication to Gleizes’ vision and her love of the region, despite all the hardships she had had to endure. Such was the state of Moly after the war that she believed the place would have to close if she did not stay and build a pottery there; that her presence would keep Moly alive. She was also afraid that her views on art would not gain a sympathetic hearing in Sydney, and in a letter to GC written in May 1946 she joked about people in Australia torturing her with their ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ about art. The difficult war years had made AD more patriotic about France; she had identified strongly with the Resistance movement and developed a great deal of respect for the French people in her region. After the war commissions for work, such as decorating the large dining room at the Hotel Schaeffer, started to pour in. At this point AD was justifying her desire to stay on by telling GC that she would be able to pay her passage with the new work. AD continued to save money for her return to Australia but in early 1946 the franc was devalued from 200 fr. a £1 to 480 fr. a £1.2 At the same time she received new commissions such as the decorations for the salle de fêtes and adjoining cinema for the Hotel Schaeffer. AD was excited about her new commissions and wrote that she would be delaying her trip until August 1946. She wrote to GC saying that she was inquiring about the possibility of travelling via Caledonia since it would be cheaper than going on an English boat from England at the cost of £110 (at the time equivalent to 52,800 francs). However, once she had realised her long-held ambition of establishing her own pottery in France there was no turning back. After all the planning and so many false starts, AD’s ‘Poterie Moly-Sabata’ was finally completed eighteen years after her arrival at Moly with the help of money sent by GC. Built inside the old stables of Moly-Sabata, the much-awaited pottery heralded a new but, unfortunately, short era of productivity for AD. Her wedging table for clay with its engraved stanza from The Rubayat of Omar Kayyam, of which she was so proud, still greets the visitor on entering the small workshop.3 The traditional wood-fuelled kiln stands like a sentinel at the gates to the house, the garden walls forming one of its supports. The small window looks out 2 ibid. 3 Omar Kayyam was a Persian poet who wrote The Rubayat, trans. Edward Fitzgerald, H. S. Nichols, London, 1898.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 253

1946–1949

253

onto the garden that AD loved and tended but both garden and pottery have, however, seen better days.

c Moly-Sabata 16 January 1946 My dear Smudge, Three packets have arrived from you at the same time. You spoil me utterly . . . The packets were hardly touched; perhaps some got lost at the douane for only five arrived. But everything else was here—the eight blocks of delicious chocolate & sultanas, cheese, sugar, tea, & oh the huge tin of coffee & one of powdered milk. We drank some of the coffee straight away [and] it is the best coffee I have tasted since before the war. The milk is excellent but I sent half to my poor friend in Paris & have done up two small tins for other friends who never taste milk. . . . Thank you dears you are too good to me. Not only do you send these delicious luxuries but I see how terribly expensive it is to send them & you buy calico to envelop them, & spend hours of your precious time arranging them daintily & sewing them up, even soldering the tins against these wretched thieves. The cake is a marvel, did you make it Smudge? Lucie dissects it with the interest of a monkey as she eats it and wants to know what the red jelly pieces are . . . . . . Oh how it amazes me to hear that Australians don’t realise what France did for the Liberation! From that night in June 1940 when de Gaulle’s booming voice came over the wires from London calling France to organise on his side, all the men I know were secretly dangerously organising l’armé de la resistance. During five years I trembled for Captain Steinbach, Lieut Jacques Martin, my plucky pupils Raymond & Riri Etiènne, & hundreds of men & boys I knew who were hiding in caves & grottes & being hunted by their fellow countrymen who sold them to the Germans & Vichy. This great volontier army of France more than wiped out the stain of Vichy. Can it be possible that you are kept in the dark regarding all it did & suffered? At Charnas, only four kilometres from here, over seventy in the little village were killed & burned (one little girl of seven thrown into the fire alive) because they had some brothers in the Maquis . . . And after years they had proof of their right


31/5/02 11:44 AM

254

Page 254


judgment when we had to get up in the night [and go to] trenches in fields because of alerts; the sky was all alight & showers of fairy [lights] flowing down in the direction of the Alps. ‘C’est les Anglais qui parachute nourriture aux Maquis’ [It’s the English parachuting food to the Maquis], we heard, & oh I was proud! But I wasn’t proud when l’armé le Clerc4 & twelve soldiers slept at Moly. . . . We had a very good récolte [harvest] this year so I am able to give to those who receive few pleasures. It is these old people who live on invested money or pensions that suffer terribly now that prices are crazy. We who make things to sell raise our prices as living goes up, but they can do nothing. An egg costs 20 francs at Lyon, 30 francs at Marseille. We find three every fortnight on the market of Serrières at 8 fr. each for at Sablons il n’y-a pas, il n’y-a pas [there isn’t any], [because of] a man who collects them to sell at Lyon [for] 130 fr. the dozen.

K Chez Sue Nounez5 21 rue Jeanne d’Arc Biarritz 9 February 1946 My dearest Smudge, Here I am at last chez Sue! She is just the same sweet gentle Sue, with her lovely smile & thought for everyone but herself, [and] it is lovely to see her again. We parted at Fez in 1939, little thinking what she would have to go through shortly after. For all through the war she had to wander round hiding.6 The train journey took just twenty-four hours . . . The architecture of the farmhouses between Pau & Bayonne made me forget my weariness [and] I bobbed from one side of the train to the other trying to take in all the different droll roofs. Biarritz is not an interesting town, big modern hotels of jumbled architecture. Of course the beaches are lovely & the shops fine. Bayonne (where we spent the afternoon yesterday) is far more 4 The army of Maréchal Leclerc, which liberated Paris in August 1944. 5 Written at the home of Pierre and Susanne Nounez (née Alexandre). See Personae. 6 This was because Susanne was Jewish and during the war Jews were rounded up and imprisoned or deported to Germany by order of the Vichy government.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 255

1946–1949

255

interesting & beautiful. There is a very fine cathedral & a dear old château (11th century) and many delightful Basque houses . . . I brought Sue a tinful of your milk Smudge. You can’t imagine the joy that milk brings to my friends. I sent Lydia Leppik a good sized tin to Paris, for she is half starved there.7 She has written three times thanking me & saying how wonderful it is. Really it is wonderful [and] almost nicer than fresh milk. I was also able to bring Sue some tea & she just loves it. Her husband is rich, but they can’t find either tea or coffee. It is great to find Spring already here. Moly is infernal during winter [with] Lucie, Pierre & I cooped up in a tiny smoky kitchen together. One can’t afford two fires in a house now [as] wood is a colossal price & there is no coal. When I return it will be the 1st of March [and] one can commence gardening. Also I shall have much to do, for Schaeffer asks me to decorate his new cinema & salle de fêtes with local scenes. Yvette will help. We have decided upon putting four panels in the cinema, two will have 2.80 metres by 1.78 metres & the other two will be very narrow, 2.80 metres by 80 centimetres. Then on the loges et balcon [boxes and balconies] we will put the armories de [coat of arms of] Serrières families of olden times. The panels will represent (Cubistically) ‘transport of water’ (the arrival of boats drawn by eighty horses & an auberge d’autre fois [inn of the early days]) & ‘transport by land’ (the donkey troupes laden with farm products [and the] old route which climbs over St Sornin in the foreground). With the mariners big panel will be the narrow one of mardi gras in the time of équipages [horses and carriage] & with the other will be Serrières en fête, the château with the dames et messieurs du château who descend towards the place of the chapel tower where the village folk are dancing. I count on Yvette to turn my trop sévère Cubism into something more charming & young. For the salle des fêtes we will put a frieze (pochoirs) right round, [and] on one wall will be the Farandol (dance of the Rhône) [and] on the other le bourret (dance of the Ardèche) & at the end the minuet. We hope to finish all by the 1st of June! I wish you were here to help. I’m terrified that I’ll be giddy when they hoist me up to do the work. Then the 1st of March I am asked to take a pottery class at le centre d’apprentissage at Péage de Roussillon,8 [for] four hours a week at 100 francs the hour. Schaeffer will pay me 50 francs the hour; I couldn’t ask more for the job would have cost so much he would have 7 Lydia Leppik was a good friend of AD’s who lived in an apartment near l’Etoile, Paris. 8 The Centre of Instruction at le Péage de Roussillon, seven kilometres from Sablons.


256

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 256


given it to a dreadful old man whose work would ruin all we’ve done for the hotel. I know I’ll work ten hours a day often for I shall be too interested to stop, so it will be a very good day’s work for me. Also he wants me to do some plaques in [clay] relief for the staircase leading up to the cinema . . . Knowing I had just arrived here, I received a letter from the Gleizes asking me to make my children’s class compete in an international exhibition at Paris [on] the 1st March! Three subjects are given & the size of pictures! I told them I must have this month with Sue & Limoges & that I couldn’t return for this work for the children [and] that I couldn’t buy colours, cardboard or coloured pencils even. Just imagine them asking me to return at once when the train trip costs 2000 francs! I’m going to have this month to myself before attacking this huge work. I’m too tired after working for two exhibitions, without a week’s interval between, to take breath. Last night we went to hear an American lecture on l’art murale, at the American university here. It was absolute piffle, the lecturer didn’t have the slightest notion what a mural painting was. He showed many slides of easel pictures painted on walls. Tonight we are going to another lecture (French) at the Société des Amis de l’Art (next day). It was really the reunion to open a branch of this society which aims at bringing modern art to [the people], & that all the great painters of each epoch had those qualities which make a work of art.9 For example, Poussin would be but a very mediocre artist if he had only thought of the superficial representation which the public so admires in his works, [and] that modern artists understanding this have freed themselves from the unnecessary superfluities. Immediately a professeur de peinture académique got up & declared that this new society was nothing but a réclame on the part of the exaggerated moderns, & organised to faire de la propagande [make propaganda] in a wider field than Paris. He puffed out his chest more as he related how his opinions were taken for gospel at Toulouse, & that his pictures [were] likened to those of Delacroix! At first the president (elected by Paris) waited patiently for him to finish. Then the young artists cried to get a word in, but he went on & on. The meeting broke up into groups & he was left spouting to two old cronies he had brought 9 AD is referring to the use of artists from the past as models for present-day artists. Nicolas Poussin, for instance, was admired for his classical proportions and for the architectonic construction of his paintings.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 257

1946–1949

257

along to support him. Next Friday [a] lecture & cinema on the works of Picasso will be given so I shall stay for it. The society is doing a great work for art & folklore—we must belong to it in Australia, dear—they will lend films, reproductions, gramophone, discs, etc. of lectures & have branches in America already. At Pau I went to a delightful exhibition of children’s work in England. These children will wake up England’s art bye & bye—Dobell & company will not last forever. How I long to see your work now! And that of Balson also. Has Wakelin grown?10 Does Dorrit send word to Sydney?11 I hear she has written poems [but] I can’t imagine it, her letters were so poor . . . Since I left the other day they have raised railway fares 40%. An airmail letter to Australia now costs 40 fr., an ordinary letter 10 fr. Never in France’s history has the franc been so low [with only] 480 fr. to the £1! One buys nothing in the way of clothes or house linen. What there is to buy is made with rayonne or some other filthy remplacement & costs a fortune. And points, we haven’t any [bon] points [vouchers] so have to buy them also from the shops, & they charge marché noir prices for them. Food is dear but more plentiful than when the Germans were here. Bread & flour are juste, but one finds soya beans & other things which make flour [though] it takes up an awful lot of time grinding these hard grains. Sue has lots of lovely potatoes which I’m revelling in. Goodbye dearest, paint all you can [and] raise the standards of art in our poor isolated country. Art alone will give prestige & honour. Fondest love my brave Smudgie, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 28th February 1946 My poor, precious Smudge, I’m terribly anxious about you. I know how you never give in until it is really serious & was so thankful when your trip up the country did you so much good last year. Perhaps it is the terrible heat that has knocked 10 Roland Wakelin was a New Zealand painter working in Sydney. 11 Dorrit Black had returned to live in Adelaide where she held art classes.


258

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 258


you up dear? The newspapers, Fairy & Ruby all tell me how dry & hot this summer is . . . Sue and her husband took me all round St Jean de Luz, which is almost on the Spanish frontier & a most delightful fishing port, much prettier than Concarneau.12 Then we went to Bayonne very often to Sue’s relations & to Pierre’s property Château Lartigue, St Bartholémy (Landes, fifteen kilometres from Biarritz), returning with eggs, poultry, vegetables & flowers. For Spring has arrived there, while here the garden shows no signs of it yet. I went as far as Poitiers on my return trip as it was so close to Limoges, [and] it is a most wonderful storehouse of 10th, 11th, 12th century treasures. One day I took the train to St Savin to see the fresques. The train was a war relic [with] no glass in the windows, one or two shut up with planks, the rest open. You can imagine the courant d’air [draught]. The train took four and a half hours to go forty-two kilometres, [which even] beat the old train from Tamworth [to] Barraba manoeuvres. Coming back in the evenings it had no lights & the north wind swept through like a torrent of ice [and] of course I caught cold. But St Savin was well worth all this [as] I think it is the loveliest work of man I have ever seen. But is it a work of man? No, the monks that painted St Savin were more angels than men. Next day I went to Limoges where Sue’s (Pierre’s) nephew, Dr Willard, lent me his apartment. I worked in Magadoux’s atelier with six apprentices, dear art students who did their very best to show me all they could of the technique. I learned a great deal [and] think I could go ahead alone, but if possible shall return for a week when Magadoux has orders for Champlève & cloisonné work, for at present the work he is doing is all in opaque enamels or painting on enamel. He couldn’t show me how those wonderful enamels of the Cluny musée13 were done but he explained the techniques of them in words . . . Oh do take care of yourself and try to let me know how you are. I feel those packets were far too much for you & were the cause of your illness. I hope sincerely you won’t have jaundice again. Bless you my poor darling, your Anne.

K 12 Concarneau, a seaside village favoured by painters in the nineteenth century. 13 The Cluny Museum of decorative arts in Paris.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 259

1946–1949

259 26 May 1946

Oh Smudge, What can I say or do? Six more packets arrived yesterday! I feel frightened & stupid. Please imagine yourself right in my big shoes unable to send anything out of the country & receiving always! They won’t let me even send you a little book—Nôtre frère le peintre14—no money or parcels accepted for foreign countries . . . Really poor dear France is in a bad way! In two days it will be your birthday & all I’m allowed to send you is a letter with my love & wishes! Oh may things change before next May! Yes dear all your little packets have come—all your hours spent on searching, buying, & wrapping these gâteries! Beautiful choice cheeses, chocolate, tea, milk, & your own allowance of sugar! Smudge dear I can’t bear to think of you depriving yourself to send me your sugar. I know how little you have. Why has the whole world become sugarless? If nobody wants to live in cane sugar climates why not grow beet & make beet sugar. It’s nearly as good, France knows nothing else. Oh if only I could send you strawberries & raspberries & cherries. It is a shame the quantities we eat every day. I used to think strawberries needed cream & sugar, but when one has neither they are still very good & I know all those fruit are doing me a world of good. I’m not so quickly cured as Fairy likes to believe dear; my silly old head burns & turns & can’t work many hours yet, & the doctor says my heart must be looked after for several months, but I am ever so much stronger these last two weeks & I feel cleaner. Cherries are the best inward Turkish baths one can take, & for two weeks now I have eaten quite three pounds a day! Our old cherry tree had a splendid crop. Now it’s strawberries [and] we have far more than even we can eat & give baskets & baskets away. Of course nobody can make any jam for even in the Black Market sugar is now unprocurable—it went up to 450 francs the kilo. then disappeared altogether. Living is a terrible price, & to live I have to ask outlandish prices for pottery. [My brother] Hastings writes saying prices have been raised three times higher than ever before war in Australia. Strawberries sold for 1 franc the kilo before the war, now they are 84 fr. the kilo! A little duckling could be bought for 5 francs before, now the price is 14 Our Brother the Painter by Zagophos.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

260

Page 260


100 fr.! . . . And yet France NEVER was so beautiful as this Spring! Oh darling if you could see the fields just now! If only I could send you the gift the Creator has bestowed upon us this year! . . . With all my silly weak heart I thank your great & true one dear & beg you not send anything more please, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 23rd June 1946 My dearest Smudge, Every letter I write you commences with ‘thank you’. This one also . . . Well dear I’m back from Paris. Smudgie, Paris! I had to go & see, I couldn’t believe it. Paris is exactly the same!! The Parisians have changed but Paris hasn’t. Yes, the Parisians have lost elegance, they go hatless & clack clack their wooden soles, the children in the Luxembourg gardens are shabby & terribly shod, & their little boats have only paper sails. But the shops manage to disguise their emptiness & assume an elegance as of old, although you can search fruitlessly every big shop in Paris for a metre of material to make a summer dress or blouse. Velvet, brocades, & furnishing materials are all the stuffs that are for sale. The windows are filled with summer costumes, holiday costumes, bathing costumes (in rayonne) & blouses, the prices of which would horrify you. A simple summer frock in cretonne [is] 4500 fr.! A white imitation cotton blouse 1800 fr.! As for corsets they excel everything [in price]. For the simple summer corset at 45 francs before the war one must pay at least 1800 fr. Now one never sees anyone buying anything but food, but for that nobody seems to mind what he pays. For little rockmelons on a barrow marked 125 fr. the pièce you see a long, long queue waiting to buy, & Felix Potin [the department store] shows all the luxuries as of old (frogs’ thighs, crabs, white-bait, etc. etc.) & crowds push & dispute to buy them at fabulous prices. I was very happy chez Mlle Leppik [who] has a quaint little apartment near l’Etoile. Rue Poncelet is a quaint little street full of barrows with flowers, fruit, & vegetables, but one enters an imposing porte & finds oneself in a little courtyard where the concierge directs you to pass through a passage between two high buildings. Here you find a bigger courtyard


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 261

1946–1949

261

with a big round garden which Lydia has managed to get possession of, & plant dahlias, roses, marigolds, & lobelia. Her living room & kitchen look out on this garden & her window sills are filled with geraniums in flower. Her bedroom looks out on a third courtyard which is rather cheerless, but her room is comfy & arranged with taste. She has a little square entrance hall & a very nice cabinet de toilette with big wardrobe, so really she is wonderfully lucky. The Trocadero was pulled down for the International Exhibition in 1937, & two very fine buildings were built on each side of the park of the Eiffel Tower. One is the Palais de la Fresque, one Palais de Chaillot, & the other is Le Palais de l’Homme. At the Palais de Chaillot one sees copies of all the French fresques of the moyen age reproduced exactly as in the old churches. I can’t agree with the idea. The copies of [the] fresques of St Savin hurt & shocked me because I had so recently visited the originals glowing with all the fervour of the monks who painted them in the eleventh century, & with the mellowing effect of time, but others which I saw for the first time gave me deep pleasure. Then in another part the architecture & sculpture of the Middle Ages is shown. I went with Sue Nounez (Alexandre) to the magnificent exhibition of tapestries du moyen age jusque nos jours [from the middle ages to our time] at the Palais de Tokyo (also built for the 1937 exhibition). What a privilege! Oh Smudge have you ever seen reproductions of the tapestries of Angers? They represent the Apocalypse & are 11th-century works. Those lovely tapestries of the Cluny were shown with about twenty others of the same colours & series. After looking at all the Middle Ages work I couldn’t look at the Gobelin chef d’oeuvre of the 16th, 17th, 18th & 19th centuries [and] we ran past them to the moderns.15 For really France has revived the art of tapestries & for the first time I saw the original works of Gromaire, Lurçat & many other most interesting tapestry masters.16 I detested the tapestries d’après Picasso, Braque & Matisse—they were only pictures in wool. Lydia & I went to l’Exposition des artistes décorateurs. It was not as good as when you & I visited it. Lack of materials make this difference. The furniture in ordinary white wood for week-end cottages was delightful, but any attempt at luxurious furnishings was pitiful. Many of my friends exhibited potteries, but nothing sensational. I saw a most interesting little exhibition of potteries by the grand-daughter of 15 In 1440 Jean Gobelin established the Parisian tapestry workshop, Gobelins, which was revitalised under the patronage of Louis XIV in 1662. The modern factory is at 42 avenue des Gobelins, Paris. 16 Marcel Gromaire; Jean Lurçat. See Personae.


262

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 262


Matisse, near la rue de Seine. Saw Raymond Duncan’s shop & all our old haunts.17 Michaud (Director of Folklore Gallery at Lyon) now has a gallery in the rue Bonaparte, Paris. I went to see him for we are great friends & who should come in but Lhote!! It was eighteen years since I had seen him but I knew him at once, & he knew me. ‘Est-ce Crowley ou Dangar?’ he asked with his flashing smile. His hair is thin on the top & he covers the bald place with a greyish mesh, he is heavier but not very different. He has altered less than Monsieur Gleizes, who has become so thin, & his hair nearly white. Lhote had just returned from London & was very enthusiastic over the courageous attitude of the English, who, in spite of having a third of London blown up are boiling over with building plans & improvements, etc. etc. His new wife (Mlle Camli’s sister, the girl who got Lhote to paint her pictures) begged me to come & see her brotherin-law’s pottery & stay & work with him during winter. Am I naughty to fear she was not altogether disinterested? It would be rather a triomphe to steal me from Monsieur Gleizes, but I have no intention to fall into that trap. I am more than the disciple of Albert Gleizes & I say it in ‘proud humility’. Michaud begs me to have an exhibition chez lui in Paris before going out to Australia. I really think it would be wise to do so, don’t you Smudge? But it means staying over here another year. Pierre & Sue Nounez beg me to go & work in Sue’s new pottery at Bayonne if I don’t go to Germany or Australia. Everyone is just wonderful to me, I don’t know why. Michaud has persuaded M. Gleizes to hold an exhibition in Paris in October of his latest work. I think it will be a revelation!! I won’t see it, but am oh so delighted that he has consented. The younger painters don’t know Gleizes—he disappeared about the same year as Juan Gris died [and] refused to exhibit after. And even now he’s doing so for Michaud’s sake more than his own. Evie Hone asked me to buy her books, so I revelled in book shops up in our dear Boulevard de Montparnasse. Yes, the Dôme & everything look the same but at the Dôme they serve only beer, or tea without milk & sugar, water ices sweetened with saccharine, & nothing to eat! A cup of watery tea costs 15 francs! . . . I went to visit a new very fine modern church decorated by Zagophos who wrote Nôtre frère le peintre. We also called on him & were rather deçus [disappointed] by his paintings, too 17 Raymond Duncan was a friend of AD’s.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 263

1946–1949

263

much a copy of Fra Angelico for 1946 . . . Paris is the fountain of fresh ideas, my fondest love dear mate who never leaves me.

K Moly-Sabata 14 juillet 1946 My dearest Smudge, Mme G. asked me to send you her note of thanks, so I am putting in a line. Have decided not to go to Germany. The cold climate frightens me & would oblige me to buy a winter coat & wool bloomers & all sorts of extras. Also I couldn’t possibly finish Schaeffer’s mural decorations comme il faut [as it should be done] by the 20th September, the date I should arrive in Germany. Tant pis! I don’t think the milieu of army officers & their wives & families would have appealed to me. It was the pleasure of knowing another country which appealed, especially as my friends there say the architecture is most charming at Baden, Fribourg, etc. That door has closed. Will another open leading to Australia? At present I am working on my wall designs & not thinking of anything else. The work is a great joy. Yvette [Schaeffer] is ill now [and] has to go away for a holiday so I shall have to do her work as well as my own. Actually I think I am glad to be alone, a pupil is such a responsibility & takes so much of your time. You give your energy, ideas, & hours & nobody realises that it is you who is doing the work. I’m getting very anxious about the coffee—it hasn’t arrived yet. Lydia Leppik is coming to us for a fortnight arriving tomorrow. I hope she will enjoy her holiday, Moly-Sabata is very lovely this summer. I love the old home more & more, & realise what a haven it is for artists. We are hoping the Pascals will return to live here, if so Pascal will start a pottery here, & his wife will weave with Lucie.18 They were here in 1938–39 & we were very fond of them. I don’t think it’s any use going out to Australia until I can start a pottery out there. I’d go mad if I just went about visiting. Fairy would say ‘All will turn out for the best’ & I think it will. My fondest love to you & to the dear mother Bird. Very affectionately, Anne. 18 M. and Mme Pascal. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

264

Page 264


K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 28th July 1946 My dearest Smudge, . . . At present I am enlarging my drawing of the local dance La Farandol. Yvette is on Le Boort, an amusing dance of Ardèche & Avergne. Then we have to do the Quadrille du Pays. For this I felt so terribly at a loss for document that this morning I went round asking the old Sablonites to come & dance it at Moly one evening, & André Buard will come with his trombone.19 I have never seen this dance, for I was at St Rémy when they danced it for the Victory.20 I’m not at all satisfied with my panel ‘Transport par l’eau’ for the cinema. It is only the maquette [model], we won’t commence the cinema walls until the (Salle des Fêtes) is finished. The panel of the ‘Transport par la route’ is much better. [It is of] the muletiers with their mules arriving at St Sernin. Seen from an aeroplane in the year 1500!!! I think, for one couldn’t see it as in the picture from any other place, but what matter? I’m so interested & busy I haven’t time to think of anything but this work. Every afternoon Yvette arrives at two, & we work till seven on the floor of the vestibule. There are two movements of Le Boort, two of the Farandol, & two of the Quadrille which we will turn into stencil patterns & repeat twice (three times the Boort) to make a frieze. The hall is 14 metres long & 7 wide & the frieze is 120 centimetres high, but the music takes up 30 centimetres of this space, for we shall put the music under the stencils. I do hope you are quite yourself again Smudge, please tell me all about yourself when you write. . . . Monsieur Gleizes wrote me a very happy letter this week. His work is bringing him a very much greater reward than the Jew marchands de tableaux [picture dealers] of Paris can offer. Intellectuals from all over the world are discovering him. A Hindu professor of Theology at Boston has become his greatest friend these last ten years, & now from England & India he has received letters & visits.21 Now a monk is being sent by 19 André Buard was Joseph Buard’s son. See Personae. 20 The defeat of the Nazis. 21 Professor Ananda Coomeraswamy. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 265

1946–1949

265

a monastery near Vézelay to study with him, for they have discovered in his Cubist paintings the laws of religious art of the middle ages.22 He is being surrounded by the small number of elites who yet remain untouched by the bombe atomique period we live in. I am happy & thankful to see recognition for his life’s work. It shows that even while the world is seeking means of self-destruction with a fury of haste, this seed of resurrection & light is being brought to life. After La vie et mort de l’occident Chrétien, there will be already this germ springing up. How nauseating the réclames of Picasso, Matisse & Braque compared with the hermit of St Rémy receiving visits from the wise men of East & West in his atelier built under the roof of his barn! Oh Smudgie how was it that we—simple ignorant Australian students—chose this Master of Masters? How amusing to imagine all these monks doing exercises in ‘rotation & translation’ as we did! The Sidney [sic] Ure Smith clique of Sydney is no filthier than the Picasso–Matisse clique of Paris23. . . Blessings on you my wonderful Smudgie, please tell me about yourself & your work. With fondest love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 12th August 1946 My dearest Smudge, It seems ages since I had a letter from you, but a lot of very wonderful little parcels arrived this week . . . Now we have unskimmed milk everyday, & you make it possible for us to have tea every afternoon when I’m here. Also I take a little tin to the pottery & make myself a cup at four o’clock. It wakes me up these heavy hot thundery days of August. We long for rain & yet dread it coming as we know summer will be over if it rains. Lydia Leppik was with us for a fortnight. It was very hot & dry but she had a big cool room & a good rest. She insisted on giving me treatments. I was very interested for she is really a very great artist in her work of beauty specialist. I’m sure you would be thrilled Smudge. She works so gently (especially at first) but gradually you feel a vibration that seems to dance rhythmically under your skin. When she 22 Dom Angelico Surchamp from l’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire. See Personae. 23 Sydney Ure Smith. See Personae.


266

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 266


worked on the back of my neck I couldn’t support it for long, it was like touching a live electric wire. She loves her work as we love ours, & studies continually. Am very busy on Schaeffer’s decorations. Yvette is ill so I have to shoulder her part of the work also. Yesterday les vieux of Sablons came to Moly to dance le Quadrille du Pays for me to see it. I emptied the big studio & gave it a deck scrubbing for them. It is a very charming old dance & really papa Buard was majestueux! He danced it as his ancestors taught him, avec la déférence et la galanterie d’autre fois [with the politeness and gallantry of earlier times]. They all danced very well & the older they were the better they were. Monsieur Pegeron, who is only fifty, completely missed the spirit & elegance of an epoch he had not known, the epoch when France was truly French & all that means. Today I wrestled with the first movement. It is curious how little one’s mind can take in—for the life of me I couldn’t remember if they all started off on the same leg—all sorts of details bothered me. For although the decoration will be very stylised stencil designs I want them to give the true spirit of the old dances . . . I had a very lovely letter from Monsieur Gleizes. He is radiantly happy, for at last his work is being appreciated by les élites from many corners of the globe. Yes, while Picasso, Braque, Matisse & company sound their trumpets & employ all the Jews of the rue Boëtie to publish their réclames (at Lyon one sees shop windows full of artificial ‘Picasso’ silks),24 the quiet hermit of St Rémy-de-Provence is working in his barn studio with pigeons cooing overhead, & all the rest of [the] cheery poultry yard noises coming in through his windows. He hides himself from Paris & publicity but somehow his work penetrates where no Jew merchants’ wiles can find entrance. From Le grand Mosque d’Algers students were sent to consult the author of Homocentrisme. From India letters come from Hindu philosophers asking questions, & rejoicing in the works of this simple hermit. The progress of history at the University of Aix has discovered Gleizes & the absurd faults in the history that only Gleizes pointed out . . . Then a Dominican priest arrived at the door of the studio asking admission. He stayed four days doing exercises of translation & rotation. But the latest triumph is the most astonishing, even greater than that of the Mosque where ‘Jews, Christians, & donkeys’ are refused entrance. A letter arrived from a Benedictine monastery [in which] the 24 Picasso’s designs for silk fabrics.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 267

1946–1949

267

Abbé wrote saying all his monks were thrilled by [the books] La peinture et ses lois & Homocentrisme, [and] that they were convinced that Monsieur Gleizes had discovered the secret of the paintings of the middle ages. They longed to study under him, but how could they—cloistered monks— do so? Could Monsieur Gleizes give lessons to one of them—a very exceptionally gifted painter—if the Abbé obtained a special permit for the monk to go to St Rémy? And all this month of August the young monk [Dom Angelico] is aux Méjades working on the same exercises of translation, rotation, time, rhythm, & light that you & I learned from the same master. And in September, he will return to teach ses frères. Can’t you imagine them pouring over Celtic illuminations & Middle Ages mural painting reproductions, analysing, discovering, rejoicing!! Yes, while the world is searching all possible means to blow itself up this tiny germ of the resurrection after La vie et mort d’occident Chrétien is taking life. Dearest there is a society called Réalités Nouvelles which only exhibits non-representative pictures.25 M. Gleizes made me a member of it [and] as a member I have the right to present another non-representative painter. Would you like me to name you? You would have to exhibit three pictures next July. It is perhaps the most sincere group in Paris. My fondest love & deepest gratitude—Lucie also asks me to thank you—always your same old Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 28th August 1946 Smudge dearest, Another box of sugar arrived safely yesterday, also a big grocery parcel from Ruby, so we are thoroughly spoiled . . . These last days of August will always bring back these terrible weeks of two years ago. The scent of rockmelons & tomatoes will always be associated with machine guns & the ‘oooough oom’ of diving planes. But it is astonishing that two years have already passed, that the world is still topsy turvy & war still rumbling & threatening, that the marché noir is stronger than ever, [and] 25 Salon des Réalités Nouvelles; Fredo Sides. See Personae.


268

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 268


rationing more wickedly arranged than a year ago. Yves Farge26 has just raised the price of bread to 13.50 francs, meat to 300 francs the kilo, cut down the meagre soap ration, [and] cut out completely the children’s & old people’s (seventy years) precious chocolate & cocoa ration, etc. etc. etc. The bridge over the Rhône [has] not even commenced. We cross to Serrières in a prehistoric pulley punt, not even a punt like the one at Annonay. To go to Serrières means half a day lost. . . . I’ve quite decided to wait another year [before returning to Australia]. It’s no use going out there if I can’t find anywhere to work, & I see this year will fly by with all the work for Schaeffer & an exhibition at Paris in the Spring. I’m going up to Lyon next week to discuss this exhibition with Michaud [and] fix the date (about) what he wishes me to expose [sic], etc. etc. He’s a most understanding & sympathetic little man. Some day you too will hold an exhibition in Paris chez lui, Galerie Mai, rue Bonaparte. It’s a fine galerie next door to the Beaux Arts & he has a very interesting clientele. I think he has persuaded Monsieur Gleizes to hold an exhibition next October, but of course M. Gleizes is too happy teaching his Benedictine monk exercises of rotation & translation to speak of his exhibition when he writes. Michaud will have to just go & select & carry off the pictures if he wants them. M. Gleizes won’t stop painting to bother about an exhibition. What a man! Or should I say ‘what a saint?’ For in these days of materialism he is a saint. Goodnight Smudge dearie. Thank you for all your goodness to me & please write soon, fondest love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 22 September 1946 Smudge dearest, Your lovely red letter made me happy for days. Everyday I groaned ‘pas de lettre de mon amie’. A few days before it came Lucie replied, ‘Non, mais il-y-a 2400 fr. du dentiste de St Etiènne.’ [No, but there is 2400 fr. from a dentist at St Etiènne.] ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I’d rather have a letter from my friend than 10,000 francs.’ I always fear you are ill when months go by & no 26 Yves Farge was probably a French politician.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 269

1946–1949

269

word from you [so] please forgive me for being a pest, but I can’t help it. Well the very same mail I had a sweet letter from Monsieur Gleizes ordering me to come down at once before the cold winds. Of course I’ll go, it’s too great a temptation, & also it will be such a good opportunity to arrange for you & Balson to exhibit at Les Réalités Nouvelles next year. But I felt a pig to go off again to St Rémy when Evie, who no longer has Mainie to help her, hasn’t seen Monsieur Gleizes’ work since 1937.27 So I wrote her an airmail letter telling her to come over by aeroplane to Lyon, where I could meet her, & we could go down to St Rémy by a rapide in three hours. If she can’t come I’ll go alone next week for three days. I’m thrilled to be going to see his work again & hear all about his monk pupil, & see his big lovely smile . . . I don’t know the work of the artists you mention—the sculptor Gabo & painter Joan Miro.28 Really I move in a narrow circle & see few exhibitions or periodicals. . . . Am at work on my last composition for the salle de fêtes. After that Mme Schaeffer will help me cut the stencils & all will be ready I hope when Yvette returns [at] the end of October for us to tackle the frieze. Of course it is far more folklorist than Cubist [as] we had to remain fidèle to the ancient costumes & the local dances. The panels for the cinema will be more serious, but I fear Monsieur Gleizes will not be satisfied. The muletier is terribly realistic, but I like him, tant pis! am I a backslider? No I don’t think so, for often I long to finish this work for Schaeffer so as to have time to enlarge some of my tiny gouaches which are pure painting, non-representative. Really, Smudgy, life is good isn’t it? when one can paint one feels one loves everyone & everything . . . It is heroic of you dear with your unusual gift of draughtsmanship to sacrifice applause & praise & paint all alone what you feel. Send your work to France, dear understanding generous France. I fear Monsieur Gleizes’ exhibition in Paris won’t take place. Monsieur Michaud is very seriously ill. My show will also fall through if he doesn’t recover, & I greatly fear it is that disease mother had, a severed nerve of the spinal column. He is only forty-six, a poet, & very active organiser & lecturer. I’m going up to Lyon one day this week to see his wife & hear the truth. Have to go & get my passport renewed, buy corsets, & try to buy pencils & rubbers for [the] children’s class, 27 Mainie Jellett died in 1944. 28 Naum Gabo (1890–1977) was a constructivist artist who later worked with Ben Nicholson. Joan Miró. See Personae.


270

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 270


but have little hope of finding them. Paid 26 francs each for pencils for myself, but refuse to pay that price for youngsters who sharpen a pencil from beginning to end in a morning if one turns the head for a minute. . . . Bon soir chérie, bonne nuit, je vous embrasse tendrement [Good evening my dear, good night, I kiss you tenderly], Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 20 octobre 1946 Smudge my dear!! Tell me what I can say? Your letter announcing a multitude of packets leaves me speechless & breathless . . . What can I do to give you pleasure? First, Monsieur Gleizes says he will nominate you & Balson immediately [as] members of Les Réalités Nouvelles, & for you each to send three pictures straight away as the exhibition next year is to be held much earlier than it was this year. He is delighted that you want to exhibit with his group, Pouyaud, Evie Hone, (poor Mainie! we will miss her splendid work!) Chevalier, Pascal, Dom Angelique (the Benedictine monk) & your old Anne.29 I went down to St Rémy last week & spent five delightful days aux Méjades . . . leaving here at 10.00 AM. Arriving at the station [I] changed to [a] droll little train for St Rémy [and] found Monsieur & Mme Gleizes in this train . . . Oh Smudgie the midi [the south of France] is wonderful in October! I had seen it with Fairy, but this time it appealed more than ever to me. Vilmorin (the biggest seedsman in France) pays all the people who have properties down there to grow flowers for seed. Wherever you look there are fields & fields of flowers, & the great giant dark Cypres trees for the wind. The Gleizes grew carnations, petunias & zinnias this year. The farm next to theirs had dahlias & magnificent marigolds. To walk between these fields of glory is really intoxicating [and] one almost reels with the dazzle. 29 Robert Pouyaud; Evie Hone; Mainie Jellett; Jean Chevalier; Pascal; Dom Angelico Surchamp. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 271

1946–1949

271

Monsieur Gleizes grows sweeter & more saintly every year, Juliette was perfectly charming this time—couldn’t do or say enough to please me—in fact she monopolised me too much. I wanted to study & copy down passages from the lovely books Monsieur Gleizes lent me, & she always called me away to walk or talk. Monsieur Gleizes is enraptured with the young monk who was his pupil all the month of August. He is only twenty-two, but writes on modern art in a revue called Témoignages better than any one I have ever struck.30 I shall send you some copies, but I fear that you do not know the writers & musicians of today in France. These monks seem to follow everything that goes on in the world of art, music & literature. Monsieur G. read all the letters he had written him, really he must be an adorable kid! And of course I saw all M. Gleizes’ work since my last visit. Even after nine days I still feel flooded with light pouring down & enveloping me when I think of one [of his] great canvas[es]. Another carries me up & up until I lose myself in the rhythm. I have ordered photos of these two for you, as well as many others. There is absolutely NOTHING of Gleizes in colour, & I don’t know when there will be, for he withdraws himself more from contact with his contemporaries & their Jew dealers of Paris. Lhote seems to grow more & more Beaux Arts & self-satisfied as years pass. Braque & Dufy lick the feet of the Jew dealers, Rouault & Matisse are well over seventy, & really the young painters like Pignon, Gischia, etc. only repeat bits of Picasso and Matisse badly.31 Pouyaud sent M. Gleizes a very fine composition in body colours. The drawing was really superb but the colours (as always) thin & acid. I’m writing to him to beg him to carry out the design in stone [as] it would be wonderful for a HUGE stone panel. Oh Smudge I’m so excited to be going to see your & Balson’s work! I took my coloured sketches for Schaeffer’s halls to show the Gleizes, also those of Yvette. Madame was delighted! Monsieur Gleizes said they were very good, charmants, etc., but I know he only really likes me to work as he does, although he understands I can’t do pure Cubism for Schaeffer & Serrières. Mme G. wants to come up when we start on the walls, but I won’t tell her until we’re nearly finished or she’ll drive us mad. Am sending you a few photos of Monsieur G.’s work, but hope to have some of more recent work soon. Then in January Témoignages is devoting a whole number to Gleizes’ work, & M. Gleizes is doing some steel plate 30 Témoignages. See Personae. 31 Raoul Dufy; Georges Rouault; Edouard Pignon; Léon Gischia. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

272

Page 272


engravings for it. I had to go to Marseille to see about pottery glaze. Took a car from St Rémy & passed through Aix with its doors & fountains. The warehouse people told me I must go to Aubagne to see their glaze after firing, so I took the tram that we so often took together dear, & passed along the familiar road accompanied by you . . . Arriving at the tram stop for Rufisque I hardly knew it [as] the gate no longer exists & a nest of little jim-crack [sic] villas has cropped up all round. But Aubagne hasn’t changed. I was pleased to go to a cafe on the place to eat the lunch Séraphine had given me—restaurants are impossible now, 100 fr. [for] a repas sans vin & pourboire [a meal without wine and tips]—& commune with memories. Of course the glaze was awful. Ever since the Spanish frontier was closed we’ve been unable to find good alquifoux;32 we’ll have to make friends with some contre-bandiers. Do you know the books of Ananda K. Coomeraswamy (I think) professor of philosophy at Boston? He has become a great friend of Monsieur Gleizes just through the works, they have never met. I’m sure you would enjoy his books on art. I’m sending you the little brochure Nôtre frêre le peintre by Professor Zagophos. The part on preparation of panels was so interesting that Pascal & I went to see him in Paris. But we didn’t like his picties [sic], weak imitations of Fra Angelico . . . May you be blessed forever my precious friend, may Xmas bring the pure joy of the year.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 25th November 1946 My dearest Smudge, Your lovely, lovely letter all about your flat has been a great treat. I have read [it out] to several of my pupils & friends, but after all they can only see it like a plan, for the centre, the raison d’être, they don’t see. Balson & I on the other hand see every part belonging to that centre from which all were derived, to which all are attached, & without which they are but the background of the picture. I’m sure it is a most entrancing home dear & you must look delicious in such a perfect setting for you—for your 32 Alquifoux, used in making a red glaze.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 273

1946–1949

273

dainty little person, for your hair, your skin, your eyes, your hands & chic little feet, everything! But what a great contrast my home out there would have been! For I have been thinking over the impossibility of buying furniture out there for years, so had made all sorts of sketches for furniture substitutes. I had thought that perhaps I could find a stable with a loft [and] make the stable my pottery & live overhead. A log of wood cut in halves lengthwise for a dining table, with two long seats made of another log cut in halves on each side. Heavy, but they wouldn’t need to be moved often. Everything else was in keeping, but the setting couldn’t be a city suburb. Alas! I’m too 20th century to not want electricity & a shower bath, so I couldn’t go to live in the bush. Well instead I am at shabby old Moly. She needs Balson very very badly but if he once started on Moly it would be his life’s work, & I’m afraid she needs to be a bit shabby.33 You know she is going to celebrate her two hundredth anniversary in ten years, 1756–1956! I often think of her on the banks of the Rhône, just as she looks now, when Cook first sighted Australia! Last week we all had a thrill, especially ‘the wild Irishwoman’ as Mme Gleizes calls me when I get excited. I received a letter from the association France-Grande Bretagne at Vienne, saying the Director of the Tate Gallery was coming to give a lecture on ‘Modern Art in England’, & the committee would like to bring him to visit Moly & see Monsieur Gleizes’ works on Monday afternoon the 18th. You can imagine my first thought was to sell a glorious Gleizes to the Tate, which would be the crowning triumph of that magnificent collection of French painting. But oh what a calamity that we only had twenty-year-old work of Gleizes here! The portrait of Stravinsky is a very fine example of that period—what price should I put on it? If I asked Monsieur Gleizes he’d only say, ‘Whatever you like my dear Anne, you know better than I.’ So I covered pages with calculs—‘If George Lambert asked £600 for a photograph in oil colour sixteen years ago how much should I put on a creative work of Gleizes, twice the size NOW?’ How much is £600 in French money now? If Braque can sell a much smaller work than this for 30,000 fr. Gleizes picture is at least worth twice as much. How much is 60,000 for an Englishman? etc. etc. I wrote Monsieur Gleizes. I enclose his answer & of course he didn’t send any photos. Well, I dressed up the vestibule with Gleizes’ works, a sort of resumé of all the different stages between 1912 33 Ralph Balson earned his living as a house painter until he joined GC at her studio.


274

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 274


to 1926. And of course la grande salle was a real salle d’exposition as usual, but we arranged beautiful autumn flowers & branches. The chimney needs repairing & smokes outrageously, so we couldn’t light a fire there, but I lighted one in my room & arranged the tea table there. It was a hazy November day but the sun came out now & then [and] at 3.30 PM two cars arrived with the party [of] eight! . . . Ah Smudge I didn’t sell a Gleizes to the Tate. [The director] Ironside is a Sur-realist to the marrow in his long graceful bones! A Sur-realist who adores Turner & who showed ‘Modern Art in England’ at his lecture by work as like Turner’s as peas in a pod! I was so thunderstruck that I didn’t grasp the names of the painters [but] Sutherland & Piper were two of them I think. So that’s what Dobell is trying to pin on his Gibby training?34 I couldn’t imagine why he blurred & streaked here & there on his heavy photographic work. We had a very happy afternoon at Moly. Mr Ironside is an extremely nice man [who] likes ‘poetic literature’ in painting. Bought my pottery (for himself, not for a gallery) & asked whether there was an hotel here, because he has sent in his resignation to the Tate & wants to return here next summer & paint. ‘I feel I’ve real friends here, so I’d love to come back.’ They took me with them to Vienne & I stayed the night at the Raibaud’s (Mr Raibaud is my pupil you know) after attending the lecture. Questions were asked concerning the outcry in London over the exhibition of Picasso. Ironside replied that French newspapers had made the most of what to London artists was a great joke. The exhibition of Picasso was very big, so had to be shown in a hall which was accustomed to only hold the most orthodox Royal Academy artists’ exhibitions. The crowd who were accustomed to visit this gallery had never heard of Picasso ‘& so there were some old ladies who just picked up their skirts & fled’! Oh Smudgie can’t you see their stockings!! Ironside greatly admires Picasso, considers him a great artist because he expresses all the horrible état d’esprit of our epoch. Raibaud & I held out that was just why he wasn’t great & wouldn’t last. A great artist is a prophet to a future epoch. And so we considered Gleizes the greatest living painter because he paints in this disorderly unruly ‘Jack’s as good as his master’ epoch, [and does] works of perfect équilibre, of orderly movement, of unity, spirituality founded upon religious tradition. 34 AD is denigrating Dobell’s art by inferring that it is basically realist overlaid with expressionis gestures. William Dobell; Henry Gibbons. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 275

1946–1949

275

Oh Smudge it’s very late & I haven’t said half what I want to. I want to tell you how comfy I am in your red pull-over, your wool combination, your long-sleeved spencers, your lisle thread stockings & your felt slippers. You clothe me from skin to envelope. I’m very ashamed but beautifully comfortable. Blessings on you my dear . . . Fondest love my precious little mate, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 5 January 1947 My dearest Smudge, Three letters from you have come since I wrote, the first asking for an address to send your pictures to, the second [giving me] a very severe scolding, & the third which arrived yesterday, a lovely long letter which told me more about your mother . . . One can never tell what to expect. Somehow I can’t worry about my future, I suppose I should but I haven’t time. I know my heart plays up when I carry too big an armload of wood or two watering cans of water, so perhaps I won’t have to grow too old— I’m old already you know. And yet here I am full of hope & interest going to buy a kiln & install a pottery at Moly, when Schaeffer pays for the decorations, as if I was twenty years old.35 I can’t help it dear. Really I haven’t time to stop & think, the days are so full & I sleep too well when I go to bed. . . . I know Mondrian’s work very well, but I can’t say it appeals to me, so that is why I didn’t say anything when you wrote about it.36 But I don’t know Joan Miro’s work [and] I must ask Michaud where I can see it. Lucie says she has seen a Joan Miro work at Folklore but I think she didn’t read the name right probably. Perhaps I am terribly blind concerning Mondrian, [but] I only see in his work a movement of translation & a well-divided plan. Monsieur Gleizes always says he has never 35 After years of uncertainty regarding her future, AD finally decided to build her own pottery at Moly rather than returning to Australia. 36 Mondrian was a constructivist artist whose work was based on geometric, anti-humanist principles, whereas AD’s was based on natural forms and religious ideals.


276

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 276


gone on from those 1st essentials the young group of 1908 realised.37 But Seuphor (a writer who stayed at Moly for a year) used to roll his eyes & call Mondrian pur. All the work I have ever seen of his was in black, grey & white, red, yellow & blue. And for the last ten years nobody ever mentions him & his works are never seen or reproduced. One can say the same of Gleizes, or almost, and yet Gleizes has been doing his very best work these last ten years. What you say about his work & what it reveals to you is quite natural, for quite without intention Monsieur Gleizes has discovered & built his work on the same principles as the painters of the 11th & 12th centuries. His whole aim was to find truth. When in 1921 he abandoned a subject as a starting point, & simply asked himself ‘what is painting?’ he took a little canvas & said, ‘I must make this a living object.’ You see the difference he makes between ‘subject’ & ‘object’. A painter is a craftsman who makes a picture, a potter [is a craftsman who makes a] pot. The potter uses clay. The painter colours. Monsieur Gleizes thought much about how to give life to his work. Life on earth is a passing through time. Time being circular movement this seemed very necessary to him & here he parted from Mondrian. Gleizes at this time was not a Christian [and] had never even been baptised. He had no idea where his sincere desire to find truth was going to lead him. Once he commenced his movement of rotation—time—he was forced to ask where this movement led, & very naturally the circular movement of the change of colours in the spectrum gave him the answer: ‘Light’. From 1921 to 1933 he worked & worked upon his construction of an object (picture) always more & more interested in nature’s way of growing things, making things. In 1933 he knew he was no longer an unbeliever, & that in everything in this changing, passing, dying universe there was the unchanging, eternal & living spirit. It was that year he nearly destroyed all his works & then he tried to paint things he felt & added grey lines which enveloped & intertwined all over his pictures. He ruined many for these lines were on top of his works, not in it. But from that time his work became really religious art. In 1940 (I think) he was baptised & confirmed like a little child, & since then he has lived quietly on his farm almost like a hermit. He is a much gentler man than the brilliant conversationalist we knew. But he is not going to be allowed to rest in his hermit’s cell. Art has a leading article on him this last month written by a very well-known monk critic of art in answer to an article by 37 Gleizes is referring here to the basic premises of cubism.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 277

1946–1949

277

Michaud, ‘L’Eglise et l’art sacré ’, demanding why the church patronised sentimental sickly work like that of Maurice Denis etc. & ignored the truly religious traditions of Gleizes’ work. What you feel about his work is exact, for the same principles exist that were used in medieval fresques & he will not change these principles for something else . . . Fondest love & blessings on you & your work. BON COURAGE, bonne santé! Your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 9th February 1947 Smudge my dearest, . . . The cold got the best of us. We had to give up working on the walls. The colours froze every three-quarters of an hour & we had to carry them to the kitchen to melt. Our hands were in an awful state. After three weeks of caring for them wearing gloves at night, etc. etc. I have only just finished curing the open cracks round my thumb nails. But since Thursday it is much warmer. Tomorrow we recommence . . . Do you know Smudgie I didn’t feel the cold at all this winter except for my hands when I worked with frozen colours. Dressed in your long vests (I put the long sleeves of the short wool vests on the long vests you sent last year), pants, stockings, combinaison & Fairy’s green coat over a knitted pull-over I just couldn’t feel cold, or catch cold or have sore throats or lumbago or anything. Also we found splendid wood for the fires this winter. For seven years we have had only poplar wood (& very little) that the peasants cut & sell in mid-winter, [which] smokes & drips & is finished. Oh what an experience! I understand now why all the people here burned their forefather’s looms & everything up in the attics during the war. My pottery at Moly is being fixed up by a darling Italian mason who is very interested. He utilises all sorts of things so that I won’t have to spend too much. There was a big window in a goats’ shed looking only into another unused shed, so he is cutting a hole on the north side of my stable & placing this square window one metre [by] one metre before my wheel so that I shall have an unchanging light all day. Then years ago I bought two fine glass doors when Schaeffer modernised his cafe & sold them for 600 francs. The menusier told me he would give me 8000


278

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 278


for them now, but I thought it best to keep them for if I bought jimcrack [sic] new doors they would probably cost as much & rot in a couple of years. It will be a dear little pottery [as] it faces the midi & grape vines grow over the door. Perhaps you remember this corner near the Grande Grille? & the little green gate of the back entrance. The little door & window belong to another small room where I shall keep my clay. I don’t know what I’ll do for a kiln as c’est défendu [it’s forbidden] to put [on] the force [power] all this year, & anyway even with the force I could never [get to] 1000°, for the people with electric stoves often can’t [even] cook their dinners. We are too far away from the transformateur. I’m going to paint my doors & windows green like those of Moly outside, but terre rouge inside, & have a fountain in red over the red basin next year when Sablons is going to have water laid on. The ceiling walls will be lime washed with a sulphateuse [spray-gun] of a neighbour, the woodwork of the wheel painted brick red, also the cupboard perhaps or left white like the walls. A red shelf will be on each side of the window. Two little stools & two sets of trestles complete the furnishings of a very comfortable practical pottery for one person. Next winter I shall have to buy a big sawdust heating stove. They are the cheapest to buy & are altogether excellent. We have one at Bert’s pottery. It is best for me to stay at Moly. I’ll try to go out [to Australia] & see them all & stay six months, but I see I’ve stayed too long over here to return to earn a living out there. You will come over, of course you will. Your work will be appreciated in France, but Dobell’s stuff is Australia’s niveau [standard]. Oh Smudge dear you can’t imagine what pleasure your coffee gives. We gave some little packets to people we knew [who] just craved for café. Mlle Marthouret for one. She’s a dressmaker living alone & before the war she lived on strong black coffee & beefsteaks. Now she has neither & neither eats or drinks. She just couldn’t believe her eyes & nose when I took her a little packet. She deserves it, for in her we have a Frenchwoman who ‘never let us down’, who worked for & with the Maquis from June 1940 to the end, & [whose] great black eyes flashed if anyone dared say ‘Les Anglais ne viendront pas.’ [The English won’t come.] She had more faith than anyone here & that’s saying a lot. Nearly [a] third of France worked for us in spite of the Vichy government, those traitors of Milicieux 38 & the Germans all over France. It took pluck. Oh I’m THANKFUL that I was here & know the truth. When I 38 The Milicieux was the National Front, an extreme right-wing political group.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 279

1946–1949

279

think of M. Targe! Who is Monsieur Targe? Only a retired railway employee who keeps bees. He is dying & Lucie & I are sad. Not only because he was our bee guide & stay but because we know he laid down his life for us. This old man joined the Maquis. They put him on the railway. Every night he put six or seven wagons out of action, more than one thousand and five hundred in the last year of the war. With Germans swarming over every railway station, in all the railway sheds, it was almost certain death. For eighteen months he dared not enter chez lui or sleep at an hotel, or cafe, or at a friend’s. He lived in caves & barns like the boys & wore himself to death. And then on the memorable night when the Maquis took Annonay & made all the Germans prisoners, a train came up from the midi full of Otages ! [Hostages], Jews & resistance boys chiefly being taken to the prisons at Lyon where few were left living long. It arrived at St Rambert & crossed to Peyrand to come up on the Serrières side of the Rhône. Monsieur Targe was hiding at the railway station. He & the driver had an idea—to attach another engine at the Annonay end of the train & when the signal to part came to detach the engine at the Lyon end & mount the train to Annonay!! And they did it, with the German soldiers on board asleep or half asleep, & they didn’t realise what had happened till they reached Annonay (fourteen kilometres) & were taken prisoners while all the Otages were freed! Oh Smudge this is but one incident in thousands that we lived through . . . Goodnight Smudge dear. No news of exhibition. Fondest love always, your same old Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 9th March [1947] (Daniel’s first birthday)39 My darling, The vita weets have come! Yes only three days ago, but they are as crisp & fresh as the day they were baked & just delicious! . . . I feel I am a great flabby sponge sucking up all I can get. I’m terribly disappointed over your picture & Balson’s. I was so longing to see them. Do please send me photos [soon] of both of your works, for although I know your 39 Daniel Steinbach. See Personae.


280

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 280


colour is always so lovely I’m sure your beautiful drawing counts a lot in your non-representative work. As for what you say about Gleizes, dear, it’s because I can only show you so little of his huge production. His paintings for churches always have a subject, but he painted a great number of works in 1945 & all were quite non-representative. Monsieur Gleizes has waves of different interests which take possession of him. In 1944 when bombes were crashing all the time at Tarascon he painted only from nature. Still-lifes of fruit chiefly. He said he couldn’t think. But although he always says the painters of the Middle Ages [are] our masters he doesn’t want to repeat their way of working. Their principes are full-time Christian doctrine of living, but a voyage through time & space leading to light rhythm & unity—Gleizes doesn’t believe in progress.40 The nature of time being circular he considers the popular idea of progression in a straight line an illusion, even as optical perspective is an illusion.41 The magnificence of the works of the 11th century was the result of a thousand years of ascendancy of the wheel of time. . . . Yesterday we finished the sales de fêtes pochoirs. It is very gay [and] everyone who strolls in begins to sing or whistle after a few minutes. We still have the music & words ( patois) to paint in grey, white & black beneath the pochoirs, but our hands are in such an awful state that we won’t do this before all the cracks & holes in our fingers are healed. Yesterday it snowed heavily again, but today although the wind is very fresh [it] is the first day of spring & in the garden the little birds are chirping semez vite, semez vite [sow quickly]. Tomorrow I am going to obey them. What a joy! . . . My late pupil Monsieur Raibaud (you’ll like him Smudge) has painted three very nice non-representative canvases for the Exposition des Réalités Nouvelles. Of course I’ve not commenced—how can I? And Monsieur Gleizes wrote again yesterday urging me. My pottery clients are furious with me because I don’t execute their orders & I worked 1686 hours on that salle de Fêtes! . . .

K 40 Gleizes was against the materialist belief in progress since the world that he experienced in the early twentieth century was worse than it had been during the Romanesque period. 41 Gleizes believed that time evolved in a cyclical movement and that a linear development was a facile and incorrect way of understanding existence.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 281

1946–1949

281 Moly-Sabata Sablons 15 April 1947

My dearest, How faithful & generous & pleine de bonté you are! Four more carefully sewn-up, addressed perfect bundles have just arrived. Four pounds of sugar by rail & two pounds (in separate bundles) and a box of beautiful Australian soap! To just say thank you seems so terribly little for all the thought & time & care & self-sacrifice & money you spend on me. I wonder if you realise the gratitude they awaken in me to you. To this proof of life’s best gifts to the Bon Dieu for my dearest friend. I try to make others happy also with your gifts for you send me so much. I am able to give friends a cake of soap often. I don’t give away sugar or tea because they make a real welcome when friends come . . . We have had a glorious week of calm days. Nature & the birds & all those who have eyes to see & lips to tell are singing a great Te Deum! Never, never have those who are living experienced such terrible weather in January & February & March. We had snow late in March mixed with hail & driving winds when the apricot trees were a mass of blossom. All the flowers were killed & every one thought their trees were dead, but this last week of warm weather has brought them back to a pathetic effort to take up life in spite of losing all their fruit & leaves. We hope the other fruit trees were not damaged. They hadn’t flowered when the hail came. Well dear the salle de fêtes is finished & the mason is here mending Moly’s roof & chimneys for Monsieur Gleizes who has signed a contract for 40,000 fr. worth of réparations. Then the same mason will build my kiln & fix up my pottery. Some of my materials have arrived, & the mason & I are going down to town for the bricks for the kiln [at] the end of the week. Oh how delicious to have warmth & calm & lovely spring again! The garden is a dream [with] the wisteria on the terrace coming into flower, the great chestnut tree covered with blossom & the bees & birds so busy & happy. Blackbirds & cuckoos all around us, but Maggies [magpies] have built in the chestnut tree so the Nightingales are afraid to come to Moly. I think I am going to be given a Siamese kitten . . . Goodnight my dearest. I hope the dear Mother Bird received my letter? My fondest love to her & to you darling. I do hope you are well & that life is good to you. Again THANK YOU, also from Lucie, your own Anne.


282

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 282


K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 23rd April 1947 I’ve just sent off an airmail letter but they are too short for my big hand writing [and] I haven’t half finished what I wanted to say. First I want to tell you how excited & thrilled I was when the dear mother Bird’s own young handwriting [arrived] just the same as ever! Isn’t it marvellous? And as I read it I heard her voice & saw her just as she was when we tried to paint her in the wash house verandah at ‘Glen Riddle’. Please thank her for her precious letter. I don’t answer it because I don’t want her to feel she must answer me. She has all her other sons & daughters to write to . . . You will think me terribly changeable about Moly. Those weary years of war alone here with Lucie drove me to despair over Moly. Each year she became more & more dilapidated. The Gleizes were at St Rémy & I couldn’t gain enough to pay my way, let alone pay for réparations that were most necessary—for instance, the pumps didn’t function [and] windows were broken (the winds are so fierce the old windows rattle & the panes drop). The flood made the walls damp, & plaster & even cement fell in great slabs. None of our friends from Lyon or Annonay could come to see us, we were cut off from all & from everyone, we were cold & hungry. In winter we couldn’t buy wood & even still there is no coal. The liberation was more than the end of the war for me. It meant Australia once again in my life. I so longed for you all [that] my one thought was to flee from all my nightmares to you & sunshine and warmth & love. But slowly things got better here. I commenced to earn again & could repair the pumps & mend the windows & grow flowers instead of corn & soya beans & all our potato crop for seven months of winter. I kalsomined my room [as] wood became plentiful, [and] all your lovely packets of warm comfy clothes, pretty clothes, brought me courage again. The Gleizes (who were terribly paralysed financially during the war) came to life again [and] commenced to talk of repairing Moly. And [my nephew] Geoff’s visit brought very closely [to me] Australia’s views concerning art . . . Old tumbling Moly is my home, I love her dearly & if I won the lotterie nationale I would repair her from beginning to end & feel that my life had not been in vain.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 283

1946–1949

283

For Moly is a beautiful monument of French architecture before architects made plans in city sky-scrapers & dumped their straight lines & cubes on the top of the earth. Moly is a chef d’oeuvre, a poem. The long low houses on the plains of Sablons follows the movement of the Rhône in her sinuous lines. The building has three distinct angles which blend into one another. The foundations go down to the river bed rocks & the house grows out of the ground—her cellars are much bigger than the ground floor [and] the attics smaller. I haven’t won the lotterie nationale but if I leave Moly the Gleizes will have to close her, & the municipal counsellor & the mayor (produits de la guerre) would immediately requisition Moly & put workmen’s families here, which would turn her into a complete ruin in two years at least. And [so] I decided to build a pottery here. Immediately the Gleizes wrote to Tomassini (the best mason) to repair the roof & the shutters— 40,000 francs of réparations.42 It seems as if the old place is learning her gratitude. Never has the wisteria been so perfect, nor the chestnut tree such a marvel. And now Lucie & I have had Tomassini to plaster & repaint our kitchen & breakfast room. Why Moly is gay this lovely spring! Lucie says that she is ‘bien confuse et très très reconnaissante pour la laine’ [quite overwhelmed and very, very grateful for the wool]. It is really a wonderful present Smudge, for with pretty colours she will sell all the scarves she can make at 500 fr. the scarf. Thank you very, very much dear. She should be glad to know Australians, this little peasant of la Bresse! She used to be so fresh & gay & stimulating, but now she is thirty-eight and very fat & asthmatic & cranky. I think she wants to marry & begins to realise she has lost her charm & only hope. She’s a very intelligent fine type & I’m fond of her, but I feel that very likely I made a mistake in lifting her out of her own environment. I wish I could show you my border of forget-me-nots, they are gentian blue [and] just marvellous! Thank you dearest for your good wishes for my little pottery. I feel your sympathy is a benediction . . . Monsieur Gleizes’ exhibition opens 2nd May in Paris. He is vexed that I couldn’t exhibit pottery with him, but I have so little now because of Paquaud’s manouvres.43 He wrote again today asking me but I only have two pieces that I wish to exhibit & it would be silly to send only two . . . Bon soir darling, je vous embrasse très tendrement, Anne. 42 Tomassini built AD’s kiln and his descendants are still builders in Serrières today. 43 Jean-Marie Paquaud. See Personae. Paquaud was slow to fire AD’s pots and she also blamed him for using her designs for his own pottery.


284

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 284


K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère juin 1947 Smudgie dear, All your packets came along safely, it is wonderful. Yesterday I received the coffee safe & sound sewn up in new calico. We have mended all our towels & sheets & made pillow cases with the calico of the parcels. And we still had nearly one pound of coffee left from your last big tin, although we gave quite a number of coffee lovers little packets. Poor Ruby’s parcels all get lost [though] I can’t think why unless they are stolen where she posts them. Thank you dear once again, what would we do without you? Here things get worse instead of better. In summer we can snap our fingers at the political thieves & their marché noir but in the winter it isn’t the same. At present they pretend there is no flour. The bread ration is cut down & the bread is appalling! You can’t imagine France selling dark yellow putty & calling it pain can you? Of course it is impossible to buy wheat or flour . . . The season is superb [with] fruit & vegetables & flowers in abundance. But at Lyon they have to pay 90 francs for one kilo of strawberries. Pickers & freight & middle-men are all so dear [that] prices are treble. We have quantities of strawberries, currants (red & black) & raspberries. I took about three kilos to friends at Lyon this week. Cherries sell here at 10 fr. the kilo, at Lyon (one and a half hours by train from here) they are 55 fr. to 70 fr. My train fare to Lyon & back is all but 200 fr.; before the war it was 12 fr. You know our darling Evie came over? She was only allowed to spend £75 in a month [but] it only lasted a fortnight so she had to return home. She was amazed at the prices here. She stayed at the Hotel at St Rémy [and] the first day she came to les Méjades (three kilometres) in a taxi. It cost her 600 fr. After that Monsieur Gleizes arranged for a friend of his to bring her each day & he only let her pay the benzine, 20 fr. the litre. The Gleizes’ car was stripped of wheels & everything but its body by the Germans in 1940 & it is impossible to buy cars now, a tyre costs 20 000 francs . . . My kiln is commenced! I don’t know how long it will take to construct it, certainly it will be a costly affair, but I’ve made the plunge [and] I can’t turn back, nor do I wish to. I’m lucky to have a most conscien-


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 285

1946–1949

285

tious & capable mason. He’s a terrible tease [though and] every time I see him he frightens me by such remarks [as:] ‘And the bread oven? Have you demolished it?’ But when I gasp that it is he who must take it down, ‘Oh if you like, but to demolish it would be expensive, more expensive than buying new bricks.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Ugh, you will see’. . .44 . . . The war made many people bitter & avaricious especially the ignorant classes. You remember Eugénie & Séraphine the two maids of the Gleizes? They were given the whole charge of house & food & everything outside the intellectual life of Gleizes. Well these last seven years they have grown impossible. Suspicious, impertinent, vindictive, lazy & just unbearable. Now Eugénie has left as she is sixty-five & has her pension. Séraphine has another six years to wait. She refuses to let the Gleizes replace Eugénie with another maid & refuses to do anything that Eugénie did. So it is Monsieur Gleizes who has to replace Eugénie, for Juliette is incapable of doing anything but break everything she touches [as] she is so clumsy & short sighted. Poor Monsieur Gleizes has to make the butter, the beds, lay the table, clear it, make the coffee, feed the six dogs and seven cats, etc. etc. I don’t know what’s going to become of them, they simply can’t go on like this. You remember their comfortable, well-ordered home at Serrières? If you could see the disorder & discomfort aux Méjades you would pity them. For it was Eugénie who kept house [while] Séraphine cooked & washed. Now she refuses to wash [and] they never know whether she will prepare a meal or not. She does what she likes & that is next to nothing. And yet they say ‘We can’t send her off, she’s been with us forty years.’ . . .

K 15 June 1947 I went today to consult a homoeopathic doctor as I have had a swollen knee since January & it has become stiff & sore lately. He examined me as I have never before been examined: back of the head, eyes, glands of neck, nails, finger joints, pulse, knees, ankles, sciatic nerve, all the way down to the leg, and the heart. The old machine is pretty groggy Smudgie—heart is very dilated, fair amount of blood pressure, liver not as sound as I thought it to be . . . I’m telling you this dear because it is best for you to know in case anything happens. I want 44 This conversation was originally written in French by AD.


286

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 286


you to know how precious your friendship is & always has been to me—the sweetest thing in my life—a wonder & joy each day! Perhaps this doctor is going to make me strong & young again; perhaps I’ve worn the machine out & I can’t be made new. If I can’t go on working I pray that I may snuff out without delay, for I can’t face the horrors of dependence, & I’ve never been able to gain enough to put money away for my old age. I fear nothing but not being able to work. So I’ll take all his tiny pills & drops & do all he tells me to do for I really feel confident in this doctor . . . Here I shall never make more than my living. Perhaps my life has been a failure because I’ve never been able to gain enough to stow away. I can’t keep it. I’ve done all I am capable of.

K Moly 15 July [1947] Smudgie darling, . . . I’ve finished having to go to Roussillon potteries! The ‘Poterie Moly Sabata’ opens next week! I still can’t believe it but it’s true. I have a perfectly ravishing kiln of my own & a big, light, agreeable & wellequipped workroom, & a very smart cave for my clay. Monsieur Tomassini is a worker of miracles! How he constructed this magnificent kiln & pottery out of all the old rubble he found at Moly is unbelievable. He’s a perfect darling Smudge [and] when you come over you must [get to] know Tomassini. Monsieur Gleizes will get the surprise of his life when he comes. I’m saying very little to them about the kiln & pottery [as] I want to have the whole thing going before they come, & if I say much they’ll come too soon. They are delighted with your charming letter to them. When they come they are going to have a lease made out for me so that if anything happens to them—God forbid!—their successors can’t put me out of the pottery for fifteen years! In fifteen years time I certainly shan’t need it any more. I’ll send you photos of the pottery as soon as I clear up the mess. Next year it’ll be prettier as I’ll make a garden & my grape vines will be much bigger. I feel ever so much better. I really believe the treatment is doing me great good & now [that] I won’t have those weary fifteen kilometres to walk I’ll patch up my silly heart.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 287

1946–1949

287

The foundation stone of my kiln was laid yesterday. ‘Il faut l’arroser’ [We have to drink to it], said Tomassini, so I made tea for us all [as] he doesn’t like wine or coffee. By the end of the month I’ll probably do my first firing which is the baking of the kiln. After that two more firings of just a few pots to test the kiln. Talk about not getting nuts until you have no teeth to crack them, but I hope to still be able to profit even at my age . . . Fondest love my precious friend, Anne . . .

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 3 aôut 1947 My dearest Smudge, It seems a long while since I wrote to you or received a letter from you. My days are so filled with all the little incidents of my installation [and] the wangling necessary to procure the materials: ciment [cement] (I had to go on my knees to the sous-préfet [deputy commissioner] de Vienne to have a [voucher] to buy it); lime (had to pass my order through a house painter); nails (had to take huge & tiny [as] no ordinary sized nails to be found); & so on & so on. At last the kiln is finished & the workroom possible to work in, but far from finished. I started working here Saturday the 26 July. My first firing is but a trial so I dare not [do] anything but the most ordinary things. I let an old potter from the hospital at Serrières come & make over a hundred flower pots this week to help me fill the kiln, & I have a firing next week. He was so happy to get the wheel again poor old chap! Of course the neighbours are filled with curiosity & perhaps a little pride over Sablon’s pottery, but a much greater event in their lives is Sablons plage! About half a kilometre from Moly there is a lovely little beach, surrounded by great poplars. Alas! An enterprising baker who has made a fortune selling white bread & croissants au marché noir at fabulous prices has built a shed there, made a cement floor for dancing, & advertised the opening of Sablons plage. Every afternoon hundreds of flappers & jeune gens pass by Moly’s back gate on bicycles, motor bikes and automobiles going to the plage. They come from long distances & every direction. A terrible jazz gramophone has chased [away] the rossignols, the grass beneath the poplars has all been trodden into the sand & dust, & papers & tins strew this paradise of violets &


288

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 288


primroses. The baker man sells beer, lemonade & nougat (the last costs 8 francs for a tiny square like caramel), hires costumes, & canoes, & (probably) sells white bread & croissants in secret. When I [first] came here the natives were terribly shocked because I went bathing with the Pouyauds [and] they called us the ‘nudists’ & would hardly say bonjour. Now their girls & boys lie about on the sand sun-bathing, & dance together in the meagre costumes of la mode today & we are looked upon as prudes because we bathe in front of Moly instead of joining the multitude à la plage. Oh Smudge we are having a summer as hot as any in Australia! The garden is all dead. I counted over a hundred rock melons on my plants & this morning I found only four that were not black with the sun. The tomatoes are all black too. Vegetables & fruit here are like the French, they can’t endure great heat. Lucie hasn’t slept for over a week [and] she looks awful—her head aches, she can’t eat, & nearly everyone is the same. Only the Ponton family (born & raised in Madagascar) & I feel very fit in mid-summer. I don’t know whether it is due to the homoeopathic doctor or the heat, but I feel splendid since the hot weather . . . My little drawing pupils won 2000 francs in a competition & wanted to go for a trip with the money, so we went to Mirmande last Thursday. We left Moly at 5.40 AM. Mme Rouveyre’s son met us with a camionette [van] & the dear Fifine (to whom I had posted half a pound of your beautiful coffee & half a pound of your sugar) had a wonderful cup of café au lait waiting for us. Poor old darling she has failed since Gustave’s death. She smiles, but she isn’t her same gay self. I got one of my boys to take a photo of her for you [and] will send it as soon as he prints it. Mirmande was in full force: the Neagoes [were] there, back from America, [as was] Marcelle Rivière, Mathilde Camli, Lhote & his new wife, & painters, painters in the weirdest costumes everywhere.45 My flock of twelve were greatly thrilled & we had a very happy day. Everyone asked after you. Mme Neagoe said she couldn’t believe I was here & you so far away. She always looked upon us as one, like her husband & self. They have a delightful home at Mirmande & she only paints abstract pictures. Yes, abstractions from still-life and landscapes & people, not non-representative constructive work. Oh darling do try & buy Ananda Coomeraswamy’s books [as] they are excellent—so inspiring & stimulating & helpful & necessary. I read Why Exhibit Works of Art? at 45 AD thought Marcelle Rivière one of the most interesting painters in Mirmande.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 289

1946–1949

289

the Gleizes, & then Evie sent me Figures of Speech & Figures of Thought. Before I had only read articles by him. He is Hindu, & a professor (of what I don’t remember) at the Boston University. . . . I hope all is well with you darling? Fondest love & kisses from your Anne . . .

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 9th September 1947 Oh my Smudge, I blush to acknowledge seven parcels! two pairs of corsets. Simply marvellous! Do you realise each pair would cost over 2000 fr. here? What can I say to thank you? . . . You can’t imagine the helpless feeling I have . . . I spent three days au grand bois last week. It is 11 500 d’altitude [and] the air is so pure & perfumed by the pine forests all round. The Steinbachs have a chalet there & . . . I hoped to stay a week, but received [a] letter saying the Gleizes were sending a Benedictine monk to Moly. His name is Dom Angelico Surchamp, the one who writes in Témoignages on art. He is the most promising of all the painters who follow Gleizes. He brought lots of his work & really we just loved the four days he spent with us. He is only twenty-three & really I never met—not even in Morocco—anyone so like an angel. I’m sure they gave him his name when he entered the monastery at seventeen because of his face & the way he floats about the house seeming never to touch the floor. He is very friendly with Pouyaud & Marc (Pouyaud’s son aged sixteen) who live near him. . . . Oh Smudge dear you must feel the loving grateful thoughts your name brings to us all over here. We can only say our miserable little thank you, but we wrap you round with love & thanksgiving all the time. Kiss the dear Mother Bird for me, & do take care of your poor little tummy. Dieu vous bénit [God bless you], votre Anne.

K


290

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 290

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 20th September 1948 46

My dearest, Your precious book has arrived & I have read most of it before writing to thank you for the great sacrifice you have made in sending it. But I shall not keep it dear for I don’t deserve it. You will be terribly disappointed & perhaps angry but this American doesn’t convince me in spite of all the good his food doctrine has done you, & his way of writing shocks & irritates me as the American literature of today always does. For the four days of Lucie’s absence I have followed his principles except for a cup of tea in the afternoon yesterday when an old lady of eighty walked from Serrières to see me. But poor Mowgli doesn’t like Dr Hay. For when I ate only carrots (which he hates), cauliflower & cottage cheese & pears for Sunday dinner the poor pussy had only cheese, and for the rest of the day he had only milk. [And] bread & milk soup without potatoes & pumpkin doesn’t interest Mowgli, even the ducks refused to eat it. As for Lucie, cheese without bread is an impossibility. I shall read her most of the book & we shall certainly arrange our meals in a less contradictory way, but I am sure the digestion needs to work & would soon become lazy if coddled to only function in the easiest way. The great authority on vegetarian diet in France is Doctor Carton. He agrees with Dr Hay in many things & he disagrees with him in other things. His disciples are a lean, pale band, [although] those that have read Carton & not taken him to the last letter, but have learned to eat more fruit & vegetables & less white bread, are the sanest & most intelligent French. The nuisance is [that] it is impossible to buy wheat or brown flour or brown sugar . . . No dear we must agree to differ about Dr Hay & about Dom Angelico perhaps, but I can’t help hoping that you will not always be bored by religion. For art & all things which make man other than an animal are always leading to the spiritual instead of the material, and I can’t imagine a non-representative art which is not built on this belief & for this purpose. Gleizes’ whole life has been a search for truth. An unbeliever & Bolshevist 46 Only two short notes were written by AD to GC between September 1947 and September 1948. Presumably AD was too busy with her pottery to write more than brief thank you notes to GC during this time.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 291

1946–1949

291

when young, he commenced by painting from nature with much poesy & observation & talent but soon the aspect of nature didn’t satisfy him. Cézanne’s influence on his art started him on constructive form & seeking in nature her way of working & constructing instead of her surface appearance. He was led on through space & time to rhythm & then came the revelation of perfection & light. Man is made in the image of God in his power to create in the mind or spirit, that’s all. Otherwise he is animal . . . The very talented Picasso is two years older than Gleizes. He looks twenty years older & the torment & abuse of a life lived for fame & the satisfying of his body with women & wine is written on his tragic face, while dear Monsieur Gleizes’ face is illumined with inward joy & peace & BONTE! Picasso, from being Gleizes’ rival, has become mine!! What fun! Yes, he has become a potter at sixty-seven ans! Of course he can’t turn [so] he has a turner, perhaps several. And of course a man of such talent & knowledge of the art of every country can’t help doing interesting decoration on potteries, but I have received many letters comparing my little pots born in love to these tortured powerful last efforts of the Spanish art hero, & saying that their familiarity with my work made them shudder when they saw Picasso’s! It’s amusing. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see poor old Picasso arriving at my pottery door one day, I’d be delighted to see him. But dearest why spurn Gleizes [when] some [but] not all of his pictures suggest the theme he is working on?47 It doesn’t matter a scrap. The Tapisserie de Bayeux48 & the fresques of St Savin are very representative in a way, but they were not constructed from the outside view. Angelico’s analysis of the old tapestry is startlingly convincing, & even the Celtic monuments & manuscripts of the 6th century with all the magnificence of their deep spiritual signification have frequently men & beasts intertwined in the ‘time’ portion of the composition. It is an education in symbols which perhaps would enrich your means of expression. Also if you read Ananda Coomeraswamy he will greatly aid you . . . My fondest warmest blessings on you, Anne . . .

K 47 This comment would suggest that in one of her letters GC accused Gleizes of inconsistency. 48 The largest surviving medieval tapestry that depicts the Norman conquest in 1066 AD.


292

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 292

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Mirmande 11 novembre 1948

My darling my best friend, Here in the big best bedroom of Fifine I have wakened early [and] my first thoughts were naturally of you. A long film of your life’s friendship unrolled, filled with all the love & sweetness & wonderful kindness of my friend through all those years! I feel guilty of a mean miserable return for all I have received from you! It was you who prepared the big glass of milk & nutmeg for my return from the night class, you who made me the pretty voile frock & taught me to want to look my best, in Paris it was you who bought the extras to make our tiny apartment pretty & inviting—all through it was you—& now I am fed & almost entirely clothed by you. In my lovely green costume yesterday on the platform at Avignon a lad offered to put my valise on the train, as I was impossibly laden. I had a huge plate which I had gone to fetch from L’Exposition d’art sacré, my leather Milan bag heavy as lead, the valise with potteries from the exhibition & my big sac-à-main. All the same the youth said with a tone of conviction: ‘Première classe, Madame?’ ‘Oh no troisième.’ I gasped [for] at Montélimar another passenger offered to descend [sic] the valise & he carried it to the car for Saulce. Even the war hasn’t spoiled the warm-hearted Meridionaux [Southerners]. At Saulce I left my valise & the big plate & took the little track to our Mirmande. There she was towering up, the irrefutable witness of an epoch of the grand thoughts & works and états d’ésprit of a grand people. Dear little old Fifine was serving tobacco behind her counter! She is seventy-four & a little deaf & much smaller, but her hair is still black & shiny, her toothless smile is sweeter & more beautiful than ever. There are two fountains to which I go when I want to be refreshed—Monsieur Gleizes & Fifine! I’ve been with both of them & am filled with the pure deep cool draft of this living water they offer. Oh my Smudge I want to share this most precious thing I have received with you. Did you get the photos I sent you of Mirmande over a year ago? . . . Mme G. is huge, untidy, sloppy & more impossible than ever to Monsieur Gleizes. With me she was charming, but she is really cruel to him. Talk of a dog’s life! Taboo their old dog is seventeen & they refuse to destroy him. Monsieur Gleizes has to wipe up pools on the tiled floor every half hour of the day! Whisky, Doucette, Taboo, & Sniff also live


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 293

1946–1949

293

in the living room on the armchairs.49 Fortunately the dogs refuse to let the cats enter, for there are nine in the kitchen. And it’s poor Monsieur Gleizes who is obliged to feed the dogs [as] the maids refuse. Sometimes he revolts but it is useless; it only makes Mme Gleizes open the door to the farmer’s three dogs outside who come in & demand to be fed also. Never was man more martyrizé than the saint-homme. All day long she prods him with long needles [that] her tongue lances. The TSF shrieks from morn till night, & he’s not allowed to stop it or to speak. His studio is cold & damp for it is in a shed. She won’t let him buy a Mirus [stove] for it & all winter he works in a tiny corner of the living room with the TSF & the dogs & this tyrant. He was correcting the manuscript of his latest book. Smudge it is the book you ask for, the book we have all been searching for since 1924. As he corrected the pages he passed them to me to read & I read them with growing joy. For at last Gleizes has written a clear simple book for all who no longer desire to copy the aspect of things. Will it be printed? That is uncertain. For with his usual candid criticisms of those who deform (like Lhote), and those who replace femmes nues & maisons et arbres [female nudes & houses and trees] with triangles & squares & scattered geometrical forms he is without mercy. You will like this book Smudge. There isn’t a word about the religious significance of art. Those who seek this will find it in Gleizes’ teaching, but those who do not feel it & do not want to will have, all the same, a logical, most helpful book on the practical reason & working of non-representative painting. The analysis of the eye is most interesting. He humbly acknowledges that when he wrote La peinture et ses lois, he was wrong in calling rotation the inclined plan which still belongs to space & not to time. ‘Time’ & space are of totally different natures. Our bodies are by nature spatial at birth (and before birth, conception, a word worth reflecting upon), we enter a period of ‘time’ which gives to the inert body the power to move, etc.50 But ‘we’? What is that ‘we?’ It isn’t ‘time’. ‘Time’ is a period we pass through. Milestones on the road have two significations. For the Sablonites sixty kilometres means un lieu [a place] à 60 kilomètres de Lyon. It is un arrêt [a stop]. But for the motorist dashing through Sablons the milepost is 49 Mme Gleizes’ dogs who had preferential treatment in the household. She was so fond of dogs that she was considering leaving all her money to a dog charity. 50 AD is referring to Gleizes’ theories about time and space in abstract painting: space is represented by the two-dimensional space in a painting; time requires movement in space and refers to the third dimension.


294

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 294


an indication of a period he has passed through since Lyon. We mustn’t confuse the natures of ‘time’ & ‘space’ or try to make them one while painting space. The material part of the body is the well-furnished home we are given to use while passing the short period of time on earth, therefore we must know its possibilities & limitations. The eye & the hand are the painter’s special tools. Gleizes recommends special exercises . . . for the hand & wrist & elbow & whole arm—the exercise of lines straight, curved circles, spirals, double curves, etc. . . . For exercises in tone Monsieur Gleizes considers pen & ink the best—white paper to black ink! After that the tonalities in colour will be better understood. The eye has given us the chromatic circle to aid us in this pilgrimage to find the light . . . Then when learning the possibilities of the spectrum we must remember that we see colour on dull days, in the early morning & until light goes. Exercises of the circle in many densities of colour are very necessary —the gentle passing on of colour into another in a long slow movement— [from] the limited eight or ten coloured circles for beginners, to the uninterrupted continuous unity a well-trained eye can discern.51 Another thing which may interest you is how Monsieur Gleizes prepares his canvases now. As before he coats them with the best quality blanc de zinc en poudre [powdered white zinc], (Lhote’s recipe) & gelatine melted together with water. When he has a gouache he desires to enlarge in oils he first gives the whole canvas a coat of gouache mixed with egg yolk to give more body to it, to cover the white, & [to] give the general colour & tone beneath. It is a wonderful help, & dries in an hour or so. Then he really begins his song, for as he says, ‘The aim of painting is to sing about light and not any other thing, the song is man. I swear that I don’t find any tree nor house for a nude lady, nor for a horse, but simply for the colours formed from a melodic harmony. These realities which are to my eyes for [the] joy or melancholy of my heart or my soul.52 Measure, cadence and rhythm follow one another happily, and I really am their possessor. They are there when I want them and without having to ask.’53 If only they publish this book I will send it to you immediately, for it will satisfy all your needs. I hope also to be able to obtain a copy of a book in memory of Mainie Jellet with [an] introduction by 51 AD is referring to Gleizes’ theory that the circle was at the basis of creation and of design in art, and that the rhythmic progression of circular movement and appropriate colours was the starting point for painting. 52 AD is referring to Gleizes’ definition of painting. 53 This passage was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 295

1946–1949

295

Monsieur Gleizes—one for you & one for myself—but I must arrange that by exchanging money with Evie when she comes in Spring. This dear old Fifine has at least fifty men in the café drinking aperitifs before a big dinner chez Mme Bert for the 11th novembre. She trots from the café to the shop smiling & joking, & serving everyone’s needs, for they demand cigarettes, tabac, allumettes, one after the other instead of at once. And here is an example of a voyageuse dans le temps [time traveller] already reflecting that lumière she approaches, which she has gained by fulfilling the daily exercises which make one perfect. I left the sordidness of Sablons tittle-tattle to help myself to be less feeble when I return, through the examples of these two saints—Monsieur Gleizes et Fifine . . . Mirmande stands apart, [a] superb monument of unity & strength. All these weird scarecrows in hideous garments with big canvases are no more to her than the ants, but Mme Simeon & Fifine & many of the old folk belong to her, the last of a splendid past. You & I darling, in spite of being étrangères & born perhaps in the least understanding country in the world, love & feel Mirmande & the time she marks far more than these guys who disfigure themselves & her narrow streets. I hope to be able to procure you a book La lumière du moyen age but M. Gleizes says it is epuisé [sold out]. It puts you in the true atmosphere of that time & makes you understand the difference of unity through love, & unity through ambition & force. You have loaded me with goodies & pretties [sic] dear [and] I can only send what I have—thoughts gleaned in this old country where the culture has always been its wealth & stay . . . May the message of Christmas be with you my darling—La paix sur la terre. Here at Mirmande they ask after you & want you to return. When will you come my mate? With all my love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 8 May 1949 Smudge darling, Je suis honteuse! [I am embarrassed!] I can’t remember if I wrote & thanked you for the yeast & raisins which arrived the 26th April. Today I made bread with the yeast & felt ill with remorse, & yet dimly I seem


296

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 296


to remember thanking you, but I can’t be sure. I don’t forget to put some raisins in my orange peel drink for the mornings. Is it possible that I didn’t thank you for them? For actually I am thanking you all day long for one thing after another . . . This dinner service with Celtic designs has occupied my thoughts & hands & feet for weeks. I finished it yesterday [and] hope to finish firing it this week. Le Capitaine Montantême, who ordered it, bought a big aubergine black & cream soup tureen & dessous de plat last summer.54 When he took it home he & his wife liked it more & more & got me to make six soup plates to go with it, with Celtic designs. And then came the order for all the rest of the service & another six soup plates. The dining plates, dishes, etc. are creams & brick red, then the desert plates & dishes green & cream & a sort of apricot, [while the] twelve goblets & the water jugs have all the colours—aubergine, black, cream & a sort of apricot (made with red clay & white clay) & the designs sans fin. My head reels with Celtic designs [and] I can’t draw anything else at present. They are most intriguing—you have to find the key of each one & then they just develop like Cubist drawings. Birds & animals form from the construction almost like a joke, not at all because the artist sets out to do a drawing of a bird or animal. I realise at last (it took me twenty years to do so) that this is how figures form sometimes in Gleizes’ paintings. It isn’t because he wanted them, but . . . [as] they developed, he smiled & said ‘Tiens! tu est arrivé?’ [So, you have succeeded?] & made a few dots & lines to help them. It’s of so little importance whether they are there or not, so long as the pictorial construction is what it should be.55 Pouyaud sent me his latest brochure. It is a useful collection of quotations rather than the thoughts of Robert Pouyaud. But unfortunately he also copies the pretentious vocabulary of René Guénon, the little god of a great number of young French intellectuals. As Guénon boasts that no woman is capable of understanding him you may be sure I don’t like him. He [also] has the gift of making more literary snobs than any other French writer. I liked Le roi du monde, also Le pouvoir temporel et l’autorité spirituelle, & Le symbol de la croix, but his other books bored me because of his certitude of being an élite, & because his vocabulary couldn’t be found in my French dictionary. Probably being a woman I couldn’t follow him. 54 Captain Montantême. See Personae. 55 AD is observing that Gleizes was guided by an inner spirit to formulate his art.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 297

1946–1949

297

Dearest you said you wished I would teach you modern art. If only I could do anything for you it would make me happy as the sun. But I never paint, only teach babies [aged] from seven to fourteen years & let them do whatever they like. However Monsieur Gleizes asks me to take some pupils who pester him for lessons. I’ll have to just give a two-week cours [as I] can’t possibly do more during la belle saison for [my] work in [the] pottery. [I] have to organise a most important exhibition for 16th July, but when it is over I’ll shut myself up in the studio for three weeks & do exercises & make my program for the two-week class. Then I’ll go to Monsieur Gleizes for one week to show him my program, exercises, etc. & receive his corrections & councils. I’ll send you the exercises & program & my experiences with pupils. My class will be a cruel mixture [of] debutantes, beaux arts students, & advanced modern painters! Darling, [I] have been trying for weeks to write a proper letter but my firing was not good & caused such an upheaval in my head that I just couldn’t write. [I] don’t know why my pots were all very dark again, & many were dry & harsh to the touch, & oh I had taken such thought & care of them! Monsieur Bert is refiring some to see if they’ll come right. If only we could discover the cause! . . .

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 14 August 1949 My dearest one, For months I’ve only written scraps of letters; summer is so short that every second is necessary to get through all the work before [the] rain & cold return. I’ll almost be thankful when the short days give me again time to write & think & read, for in summer I can’t find a moment for these necessary foods. The correspondence for Moly is generally business & very uninteresting, but it has to be done & it all falls on me. Well, at present I have changed from physical wok to mental & it is a great pleasure. The cours de Cubisme commenced last Monday. So far there are only four pupils but several more arrived for the second week. Those who went to Gleizes’ cours last summer are coming up for the third week only, as they did exercises in translation all the time last year, & I won’t


298

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 298


let new pupils commence rotation till the third week. It is a big undertaking but the pupils seem very interested & contented. We begin each morning by reading aloud from Gleizes’ books, or Pouyaud’s, or Gilson’s Philosophie du Moyen Age, or Coomeraswamy’s Figures of Speech & Figures of Thought, or St Augustine’s Confessions, or articles sent by Monsieur Gleizes & others. It is a curious way of teaching perhaps, but it is a sort of preparation. [It might be] far less perfect than that employed by Hindu & Chinese painters but it certainly helps to put one into a right mind & shake off the outer garments (Coomeraswamy). I arranged the studio for the first lesson with works of Gleizes from 1900 to 1916, about twenty-five pictures. On another wall hung little children’s work, & on the remaining wall Morocain illuminures. A table is piled with books of reference, books on Celtic, Persian, Chinese, Mediaeval, Egyptian & Modern art. We work from 9.00 AM to 12.00 o’clock. In the afternoons the pupils can work in the studio if they want to or go for promenades. I prepare the next morning’s lesson all the afternoon. Most (all but one) of my pupils [are] from Les Ecoles des Beaux Arts.56 They know nothing about colour. The pictures of my six-year-old pupils are their guides. They are intelligent & eager for what we have to offer, except that they are terribly afraid of losing their precious personality & individuality which is the curse of our poor divided world of today. They love the art of the middle ages, but don’t realise its perfect unity of état d’esprit. They brought tents & pitched them in the clos. Mlle de Cissey has a magnificent orange fly, which is waterproof over her khaki tent, big enough for five.57 It has a waterproof carpet in dark blue green. This lovely tent is just outside my pottery, for she wanted to profit by the big electric light at the door. . . . I saw a splendid exhibition of Art Murale at Avignon [and] for the first time (to my knowledge) I saw a Joan Miro. I didn’t like it at all. It was a white background with about forty symbols of every contradictory signification scattered over it without any attempt to make a composition. Symbols are la mode Burlet & his pupils make pictures which are a sort of catalogue of symbols.58 Lhote had the same old picture of three nudes that was in his studio in 1927. Delaunay’s big canvas was a superb blaze of light on the lovely stone wall of the Palais des Papes. 56 Presumably the students were from the Lyon or Grenoble Beaux Arts. 57 Mlle Geneviève de Cissey, now Mme Dalban, a student of Gleizes’ and AD’s. She became the potter at Moly for a period after AD’s death. 58 René-Marie Burlet. See Personae.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 299

1946–1949

299

Leger had a huge mural decoration, not at all beautiful but truly architectural & mural. Gleizes’ big picture was much more plastic & quite as mural. In another huge salle there was an exhibition of modern tapestries which was very interesting & good . . . Madame G. couldn’t have been nicer, but oh she’s so fat! Her head seems too small for her big, quite shapeless body. It’s an awful pity, she used to be so slim & elegant. The people here say her mother was very fat also. On the way up I went to Cliousclat for the plates I decorated there three months ago. They are absolutely ruined! I think it’s the fault of the glaze. Anjaleras the potter can’t see at all that they are spoiled. He doesn’t understand my drawings at all. That all the forms have run together doesn’t mean any harm to him for he sees the colours are rich & the glaze brilliant. I had to pay him 3000 francs for firing eight plates & the train fare & board & lodging cost 2000 fr. It was a terrific day of heat & wind & dust but I couldn’t be so near & not go to Mirmande. Fifine insisted on me going to the exhibition of pictures. There is a lovely high hall at the Mairie [town hall] & it was very well arranged, but it seemed as if time had gone back twenty years as I saw the work of Mme Neagoe, Mathilde Camli, Blanche [Fournier], & many other old acquaintances & friends. As for Lhote, he has become genteel & ladylike in his old age! His two stuffy, overladen, sweet landscapes made me gasp. Only Marcelle Rivière has moved ahead, & at present she’s going through agonies of orange & yellow & black & blue, but she’ll come through & have gained something. Marcelle is the most interesting painter of Mirmande. . . . Living goes up & up although shops are overcrowded with everything imaginable. A tiny tube of gouache costs 90 fr. and nobody buys anything but food. I sell ducks instead of pots now, & next year I’ll raise far more ducks for they sell at 700 fr. each. Of course their food costs a lot also. . . . Goodnight—my blessings. I’m a painter again. Write me a letter about your work please & let me kiss you goodnight, Anne.

c


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 300

7 ‘Life on Earth is a Passing Through Time’, 1949–1951

On 27 November 1950, Anne Dangar wrote to Grace Crowley: Many think pottery a little—a minor art. But no craft is minor, for whatever creative work we take up demands the whole of us—all our brains, strength time & even soul. For after all, by our work we are searching for perfection & it’s always so terribly behind our reach! That’s why I long for you to come over dear—I want to see your work & you to see mine—to see the result of twenty-one years’ effort. Tonight in my pottery when I finished my little bonbonnières I thought of you & wondered if you wouldn’t think I had wasted my life to be making these ridiculous things at the age of sixty-four? Smudge dear I’m not sufficiently gifted to be a painter. I’ve found my own level & am happy in being a humble potter. I can’t even be a great potter because I haven’t the physical strength. But my work is respected by the traditional peasant potters of Dauphine & loved by artists & architects. If I had continued to paint I would never have been able to get as far, for painting is too great for me.

Unfortunately, the pottery came too late for Anne Dangar to realise all her ambitions. The eighteen years of hard labour that had preceded the building of the pottery had undermined her health, and her ‘weak Galvin heart’ gave way, triggered by a fall in August 1950. Her last letter to Grace was written on 7 July 1951 and she died two months


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 301

1949–1951

301

later on 4 September. Prior to her death she had been communicating with Dom Angelico Surchamp about converting to Catholicism and in March 1951, Albert Gleizes and Mme Grimaud had acted as godparents at her baptism and entry into the Catholic Church. Her conversion led people to regard her more as a local, and allayed people’s traditional suspicion of les étrangers. AD was aware of this changed attitude when she wrote to her sister Ruby to explain her actions. I have joined the Catholic church! It is the only church here naturally, & for twenty years I have lived among Catholics, & gradually, gradually all my ignorance & prejudice against the church could not but be overcome. You may think our family has never been Catholic, that the sister of the rector of Enniskillen was killed by the Catholics, that the family left Ireland because of all this, etc. etc. . . . I am much happier now that I have taken the decided step . . . We have at Sablons a most saintly & intelligent & broad minded curé whom I love dearly. You can imagine how happy I was a few nights before my baptism. I dreamt that mother & father came to my baptism! I saw them there beside the font, with Monsieur le curé, & they looked so pleased & perfectly in accordance that this dream seemed a real confirmation of their approval. . . . [Now] I feel I belong to a French family as well as my Australian one, but instead of feeling separated from my family in Australia it seems to link up the families, French, Irish, even grandmother Dangar, & right to the first Christians, for really time is so short we are all one family.1

AD was buried in the Roche–Gleizes family tomb on the heights of Serrières cemetery, with the populations of Serrières and Sablons processing after the funeral cortège up the hill to the cemetery. Albert Gleizes in his funeral oration ‘spoke of her as his ‘spiritual daughter’, and described her as: ‘Anne Dangar, a potter, a great potter. What is more a great soul. And those who knew her understand me.’2 Judging from the number of letters expressing their respect and admiration for AD received by Lucie Deveyle following the funeral, there were many who understood Gleizes’ words. As for those local children whom she had taught, many still remember her principles to this day and their affection for her has not faded with time.

c 1 Letter from AD to Ruby Singleton, March 1951, Grace Crowley Papers, op.cit. 2 Albert Gleizes, ‘Funeral Oration for Anne Dangar’, op.cit.


302

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 302

Earth, Fire, Water, Air Dans ma petite poterie Moly-Sabata 22 septembre 1949

My darling, While waiting for the potter to come with clay & glaze I’ll just write in pencil, for the peace & quiet here alone with you is too precious [and] if I go to the house I’ll be drawn into household worries. I’ve been thinking of you a great deal this last week—wondering about your painting, what your thoughts on painting are. I know absolutely nothing about your work dear. Tell me please your reasons for completely abandoning the subject—what you are striving for? You forbid me to mention religion to you in connection with painting. The only reason for sujet à l’index [abstract art] to me is that subjective painting is only observing, only spectacular, purely material. But as soon as we desire something other than material there is but the spiritual to replace it. I understand you want to make an object in paint; to create & construct this object with your knowledge, reason and whole self. You want your forms to be pure & strong & living, your colours to be beautiful & harmonious, you strive for unity, rhythm & light. In fact your whole work is an act of your whole self towards perfection. Subjective painting is regarding the exterior of objects & painting their appearance. It is exterior & belongs to the senses. I’m sure you agree with this. There are a great number of painters who have put le sujet à l’index they think, but who paint geometrical objects like spheres, circles, triangles, etc. instead of nudes & landscapes.3 And there are other painters whose work is completely objective & yet a subject is suggested by a few lines growing out of the construction at the last minute. The subject thus suggesting itself has nothing in common with subjective painting, sometimes it is necessary to the painter himself. Le Pape et l’Empereur, Autorité spirituel et pouvoir temporel,4 for example, was a problem Monsieur Gleizes needed to work out for his own inward growth & satisfaction, and very often necessary to carry further a certain purpose such as painted walls 3 Nudes and landscapes as subjects were frowned upon by abstract painters and AD is saying that although some artists paint geometric forms they do so in the spirit of figurative art. This concept originates with the writer and artist Maurice Denis. 4 ‘The Pope and the Emperor, spiritual authority and temporal power’, painting by Albert Gleizes, 1939.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 303

1949–1951

303

of churches, theatres, salle de fêtes, cafes, etc.5 For my part I no longer feel it a backsliding to decorate a plate with a subject if this subject grows out of the plate itself & belongs wholly to the movement of the wheel which constructs the plate. As Coomeraswamy says, ‘ornament is a sort of harness necessary to the full equipment of the thought.’ You ask me to tell you what I taught to my summer class. I’m sure you know far more than your simple rustic potter friend. Those weeks preparing & giving this cours were for me a very great joy—there are so many painters in France! The exhibitions of les Réalités Nouvelles are formidable!! Far more pictures than in the Salons of spring & autumn.6 I haven’t seen them [and] I don’t want to. The thought of them makes me feel as weary as if I had. Perhaps I’m narrow but whenever I see exhibitions I feel more & more convinced that Gleizes is the greatest painter of our time—the greatest painter since Cimabue—& the herald of a new spiritual état d’esprit for mankind . . .7 I’m ashamed to send you the first lesson that I gave my pupils [as] they are what I give my babies of seven years old & you had all this years & years ago. But what else could I give Beaux Arts students who had never had a lesson in colour or composition or how to draw a pure straight or curved line? I think I told you I prepared the studio by hanging Gleizes’ work of 1901 to 1916. The lessons were not sufficient to follow this development [so] we kept these pictures until the Tuesday of the second week. Then we took them down & hung 1921–26 with some Marocain designs showing the movement of translation & rotation. The third week we hung the few works of Gleizes’ that we have [from] the period 1926–36, two pictures [by] Mainie Jellett, three of Pouyaud’s & three of Evie Hone’s, also photos in quantity of works of this period.8 In la grande salle hang seven beautiful works of Gleizes painted from 1943–45. So really they followed his life’s work. Every morning [one of my pupils] Mlle Crouzet read about a half to three-quarter hour extracts from Gleizes’ books, or Pouyaud’s, or translations from Coomeraswamy, [or] Celtic poems, or quotations from Gilson’s Philosophie du moyen age, or St Augustine’s Confessions, etc. etc. . . . I loved the pupils, they were an 5 In other words the purpose of painting is not only to take care of the material aspect of covering a surface but also the spiritual context. 6 The salons of Spring and Autumn were the major exhibitions in Paris. 7 Cimabue, c.1240–1302, an early Italian Renaissance artist considered to have begun a new age in painting. 8 Paintings that could not be hung were represented by photographs.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

304

Page 304


exceptionally selected group . . . The older pupils (except Mlle Crouzet) lived at the Hotel Schaeffer; there were eleven in all. We have decided to repeat the experiment in two years [with] three weeks [of] cours, then a week’s congrès of all our group! Monsieur Gleizes, Smudgie, Evie, Pouyaud, Chevalier, Dom Angelico, etc. etc. Tell Balson he must come too. A week’s congrès at Moly Sabata! Oh Smudge I hug you for joy! What a wonderful time it will be! My fondest love darling, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 4.00 AM, 28 October 1949 Smudge my darling, . . . I lighted the kiln fire at 3.15 AM. It is best to begin very early so as to be able to see clearly when the firing is finished. A cold north wind is blowing; I hope it won’t become a hurricane later on. Yesterday it was awful & it makes the firing a terrible anxiety. There are about three hundred pots & plates, etc., two months hard work . . . . . . A whole salle was given to our group.9 At 5.30 PM we all went to Burlet’s studio & Monsieur Gleizes & Pouyaud gave causeries [talks]. Burlet gave a little introduction & said that so many young painters considered it necessary to exhibit in Paris, study in Paris, & didn’t realise that the Salon d’Automne at Lyon this year was of a higher standard than any exhibition held in Paris for several years. Monsieur Gleizes said that all his old friends who exhibited this year at the exhibition d’Art Murale at Avignon reproached him saying, ‘But Gleizes have you completely left Paris?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I have left Paris to live in France.’10 Then he went on to say how Paris, like all grandes villes, was an international weapon used for war.

K Novembre. Jour de la Toussaint [All Saints Day] La cuisson est faite—une très belle cuisson! [The firing has been completed— it’s a very successful firing!] Much has happened since; two more packets 9 A whole room was given over to Gleizes’ group at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. 10 This conversation was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 305

1949–1951

305

have arrived from my wonderful terrible Smudgie, one packet containing two packets of sultanas & the other coffee beans!! . . . The farmers are really alarmed for they have no winter feed for their bêtes, & have to kill their goats & sell their cows to save their horses. Neighbours came & cut down our mulberry trees for the leaves & mowed all the stinging nettles & grass at Moly. Never was the old place so spic & span in autumn. We expected the Gleizes for la Toussaint but they haven’t arrived. After the firing I got a young girl to come & help me clean my workroom most beautifully, for the Gleizes have never seen it & will get a surprise to see the old gaping ruin sans doors transformed into a bright sunny pottery with glass doors & three windows! Already grape vines cover the trellis, & their leaves are all yellow, & cosmos, nicotine, marigolds & portulacas are very gay in the garden before the pottery. Behind the big table where I batte la terre [wedge the clay], I have a brick red-tiled panel on which I wrote in English Omar Kayyam’s:11 For in the marketplace one dusk of day I watched the potter thumping his wet clay And with its all obliterated tongue It murmured ‘Gently brother—gently pray’.

The floor is my despair—just Sablons dust! And of course the water problem is difficult, but I’m wonderfully lucky to have this pleasant, light, sunny workroom chez moi & I’m very happy in my work. Monsieur Gleizes insisted on taking me back to St Rémy with him for four days. I’m so glad I went for I feel I was present at another great moment in his life—perhaps another great moment in the history of art! One evening in his studio he was talking about young painters—especially non-representative painters & how ignorant & vain they were—and of the exhibitions in Paris like les Réalités Nouvelles [that] showed thousands of these pictures [but] which had absolutely no construction, no knowledge of colour or form or the métier. Pictures painted by all these self-taught painters who feared to learn the métier because they might lose their personality—their individualism—& who had no knowledge of the tradition of painting. Suddenly he became really angry, ‘I’m tired of lending my name & my works to all these arrivistes [careerists] who use them as background for their exhibitions. I see through their plausible letters 11 Omar Kayyam, op.cit.


306

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 306


& cunning manouvres. This very night I’ll send my resignation to the whole box & dice of societies exhibiting such works, & the first letter will be to les Réalités Nouvelles!’ We were all silent for a long while feeling something very great was happening. Then Monsieur Gleizes turned with a smile & laid his hand on my arm: ‘Anne, you were with me when I discovered the grey line— that period was the greatest moment in my life.12 And now you’re with me tonight! I turn my back on all those individuals and personalities. Our school is the only one today that follows the long, long line of tradition. We are not many but all the better! ‘I’m going to write to Pouyaud, Chevalier, Dom Angelico—these three will form the group. Burlet, Regny and the others who exhibited with us at Lyon will be invited to join us, but if Raibaud and all those others want to chase publicity and the picture dealers, they won’t exhibit with us.’13 At midnight he was still writing at his desk when I said goodnight. I’m sure this decision is of great importance . . . Monsieur Gleizes says that Picasso & Braque were the most advanced of the Cubist group in 1910–12. That when he studies their pictures of this period he realises how far they had gone—right to the crossroads leading from materialism. But they feared to go further [and] they took the easier turning, which led to the rue de la Boëtie & all the other Jew marchands of today. I brought back five etchings of Monsieur Gleizes & had them framed. They belong to his Pensées de Pascal collection.14 He’s very weary of this work for he still has another hundred etchings to do, & he’s longing to paint again . . . very grateful thanks & sincere love for my dearest friend & mate, your Anne.

K 12 In 1934 Gleizes reconsidered his painting methods and decided to add a grey bounding line to his colour spheres. He called this grey line a cadence because it enabled the colours to vibrate and added movement to his picture plane. 13 This conversation was originally written in French by AD. 14 Gleizes did a series of aquatints commissioned by Editions de la Cigogne at Casablanca to illustrate the book Les pensées de Pascal [The philosophy of Pascal] by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). A mathematician, physicist and theologian, Pascal was a member of the Jensenist convent at Port-Royal. Les pensées de Pascal, a book of Christian truths, was first published in 1669.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 307

1949–1951

307 Dans la cuisine de Fifine Mirmande (Drôme) 18 novembre 1949

Smudgie chérie, Always you are with me at Mirmande. Here during this evening of November by the fireside with dear Fifine and her cat. I would love to talk to you. ‘Are you writing to Miss Crowley?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Please give her my regards and tell her that Fifine is very old’, [which she said] in the masculine . . . I don’t know why she didn’t say vieille but the French language is always a mystery. Fifine is never wrong.15 Oh Smudgie if only you were really here this autumn! Never in my life have I seen or imagined such splendour. Mirmande, the old town, is always the same. The architecture of ten thousand years ago loops upon twenty years as a mere flea bite. But the valley & hills round Mirmande have greatly changed in the twenty years since you saw them. Fruit culture in France has tremendously increased. Instead of growing wheat for the needs of her own people France whimpers & whines to Russia & America to send her wheat, because her peasants discovered they could become millionaires if they grew fruit for England, Belgium & Switzerland instead of remaining poor by growing wheat. From Montélimar right to Lyon the whole country has become an orchard, but the most renowned fruit of France come often from the district round Mirmande. The little farmhouse where we bought some honey harboured the couple who began the fruit rage. They bought the big farm where we lodged chez les des Felix, about a mile from Mirmande. Gradually they bought the whole valley & planted fruit trees everywhere. They put in an irrigation plant, bought up one farm after another [and] bought a whole street of Loriol [with] hotels, shops, etc.16 Now they have hotels at Nice & simply don’t know where to place their money. The fruit trees are the most magnificent I ever saw. The cherry trees are nipped when young & become very spreading, but not high, [and] the peach trees also have this form.17 The leaves of these trees are three times as large as those which grow at Sablons. All the valley is one mass of orderly, magnificent fruit orchards. 15 This paragraph was originally written in French by AD. 16 Loriol is a village near Cliousclat. 17 This form creates espaliered trees that allows for the fruit to be picked easily. It is a practice that can still be observed today.


308

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 308


Then on the mountains behind Mirmande a long-sighted Monsieur who loved the old town had the idea of planting a pine forest with the hope that this forest would be the means of saving the town if he left it in his will to the commune. In twenty years this forest has spread & grown until all the hills round Mirmande are now lovely dark pine forests. If only you could see Mirmande this autumn sitting on her throne surrounded by all this glory! The elms, poplars & oak all yellow & yellow-green & gold. The cherry trees vying with one another to excel in reds—violet reds—the peach trees bronze or yellow according to species, grape vines of every autumn tint, apple & pear trees yellow also, & the great mass of Mirmande’s stones reflect an orange light which dazzles one. As Fifine & I came out of the dark pure pine forest we cried out as we saw the old church tower & the dark cypress trees rear up behind us against the sky. I had never seen Mirmande from the back. It seemed, as I started in awe, that tower was a twelfth-century witness of its own epoch shining in the sky. And I thought how we were taught to call these master minds who built such monuments ‘men of the dark ages’. I thought of our factories & suburbs & the awful reconstructions we are building since the war smashed France, as I gazed on that noble witness d’un autre état d’esprit [on a different level of understanding]. But—Gleizes! What a relief! The thousand years of the descent of time’s wheel is nearly over. Gleizes is the forerunner of the ascent, & tells us to already live in the conviction of its truth. The old tower seemed to give me the strength to be able to do so. Most of the houses are closed for winter . . . Fifine wants to make an infusion of vervain [verbena] so I must drink it although I’ve never been able to like infusions. Goodnight my darling, you are not forgotten at Mirmande. The Deschauds & several others always ask after you. My fondest love dear comrade of all those long years, your Anne . . .

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 12 January 1950 My dearest, Your lovely long letter was the best New Year gift I received & as you know I received some very beautiful ones . . . Perhaps I’m very narrow to


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 309

1949–1951

309

feel no need of another master, I can’t help it. All the work I see seems to show one of the stages of Monsieur Gleizes’ work; Mondrian, for instance, the division of the plane before it is put in movement. But Gleizes has passed on & arrived at a unity & light which makes him le phare [beacon] (as Dom Angelico calls him) of this epoch . . . Really dear if you can get Figures of Speech & Figures of Thought, & Why Exhibit Works of Art? by Ananda Coomeraswamy you will possess more treasures than all the banks in the world. I’m sure you will love them. I was sent two pages from a sort of geographical review on the art of Australian aborigines. I was absolutely thrilled & took them to Monsieur Gleizes when I went in October. Of course he wanted to keep my precious pages but I refused him, so he typed the article by Chloe McMillan & asked how he could send money to Australia for you to buy him The Australian Aborigine by A. P. Elkin, edition 1945.18 I told him I was sure you would buy it for him & if he liked he could send you one of his books in exchange. I’ll ask him if he has typed copies of Le rythme dans les arts plastique, for I think you have all his books.19 If you can’t procure Elkin’s book the quotations of Basedow [in] The Australian Aboriginal seem equally interesting.20 I had no idea our darkies [sic] possessed a traditional art21. . . Goodnight my precious, my fondest love, your old Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 11 juin 1950 Smudge dearest, It is such a long long while since we had a long chat, & your birthday went by without me even writing a line although I thought of you all day long . . . 18 Chloe McMillan was the director of Melbourne’s Primrose Pottery shop, which sold contemporary pottery and reproductions of modern art. The correct title of the book by Elkin is Australian Aboriginals (1938). Adolphus Peter Elkin. See Personae. 19 Albert Gleizes, Le rythme dans les arts plastique, [Rhythm in the Arts], Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons, 1937. 20 Herbert Basedow (1881–1933) was an Australian anthropologist interested in Aboriginal culture. 21 AD uses the Australian slang epithet by which Aboriginal people were known at that time, a term that was not then thought to be discriminatory.


310

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 310


Did I tell you Dr Clapier made me go & get [my eyes] examined by a big oculist at Lyon? He feared there was une lésion au fond de l’œil but there wasn’t. This seemed a great relief to him, [but then] he said ‘Now I’m going to attack your lazy aorta as it should be treated. But you mustn’t work, you mustn’t carry heavy things during the twenty-five days of treatment.’22 This was quite impossible at Moly [as] the pump in the bathroom was ruined by the Geoffrays fifteen years ago [and] we have to use the garden pump & pump all our water up the terrace steps, etc. etc. So I went to the Gleizes! They were both perfect dears to me. I used to nearly explode over Mme G.’s motherly care of me. I didn’t think she possessed anything approaching concern for another, but really she was very very kind & sweet. Of course dear Monsieur Gleizes is always a saint. I was happy to find him so fresh & much plumper, but he has been ill since I returned home. . . . Goodnight my dear Dr Smudge. May this year be happy & full of lovely ideas & work & health my precious. I can’t say my eyes are much or any better, but my heart is for I often forget for days that I have one. Fondest love, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 7th August 1950 Smudge darling, It seems so long since I saw your handwriting or heard anything from you, that [I hope] you are doing beautiful work which occupies all your time & thoughts. I’ve been to Mirmande again [and] saw Lhote & stayed with Fifine, worked in the pottery at Cliousclat & saw lots of Marcelle Rivière & her work. She has been working with all her might & main this year. Her work is powerful & full of vitality. It is good, but I don’t know where it is going except ahead & that it is saying much. I wonder where it will lead her . . . I hear it rains & rains at Sydney, that Kempsey is completely destroyed, etc. etc. while here we have had a burning fiery furnace since the 10th June! The garden is a cement yard; we spent over 7000 fr. to 22 This comment was originally written in French by AD.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 311

1949–1951

311

have it properly dug & manured this spring & bought plants & seed for 2000 fr. & we have NOTHING! Last year it was the same! The world is all upside down . . . At Mirmande everyone has water laid on & the fruit & vegetables are superb. Fifine is as sweet as ever, but the poor old dear is losing her memory. It is very sad . . . Do you know Fifine has given me an idea. She was most terribly worried when I told her I could never have the old age pension because I am une étrangère. She tormented herself & me for three days asking what would I do when I was too old to work. Then she got an inspiration. ‘Every time you fire you should hide three or four of your best pieces of work [and] in a few years you will have a lovely collection. [And] if some day you can’t work your things will become very valuable & you could sell your collection for a big sum of money.’ Elle n’est pas bête—n’est ce pas? I’ll try to do this Smudge—I feel as if this idea has been sent & that I must obey. Perhaps my work will never be of value but a few pieces each firing is possible, whereas it is impossible for me to save money. All I can do is keep on buying my necessary materials to keep on working—everything is so dear—my glaze, fagots, clay, the wood & coal & electricity bills, etc. etc. But I can put perhaps 3000 fr. worth of bowls or pots in an attic & in ten years time I should have a fine collection—if le Bon Dieu lets my eyes & legs keep going ten years. My eyes are better but I can’t turn big pots or carry too many watering cans or I feel the strain of them, & they turn yellow & red & everything grows halos. So I let the garden die, & I get a turner for my big pieces. At present umbrella stands are the rage just because I can’t turn them . . . Blessings on you my Smudge, always your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 29th August 1950 My dearest, This wretched Anne of yours has now broken her left arm! She seems to do all she can in life to bother people! My bedroom was in a sorry state, the walls with deep cracks from top to bottom & under one window the plaster fell & with it two buckets of cement & stones! I had to get a mason to come & repair this hole & asked him to replaster the ceiling & mend the cracks everywhere. The only passage to my room is through


312

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 312


la grande salle which is our exhibition room. Well the mason & his son tramped through for two days! Their work was finished 8.00 Saturday evening, [and] Sunday morning we polished la grande salle for Sunday visitors but it was impossible to clean my room. I engaged a girl to come & help me do this Monday. Early in the morning I prepared by carefully spreading newspapers on the floor of the grande salle so as not to spoil the floor again. Alas! full of courage for a colossal day of cleaning & fixing up my room, I made my first voyage on the paper path—a paper skidded from under my foot & I fell with my arm under me! . . . But the weight of all the work & me falls on Lucie—it’s that [which] worries me—she hasn’t had a moment to weave since the accident [on] 14th August. I shall be let out of the plaster in three weeks time & strapped for two more weeks every day. I hope to see your handwriting, I do hope you are on top [and] not ill? My fondest love . . .

K Moly 17 septembre 1950 My precious, Your lovely long letter came to cheer me while I was imprisoned in that awful plaster case. Dr Clapier came yesterday morning to cut me out of it. For one and a half hours he battled with all sorts of glittering scissors & knives but found his father’s pruning secateurs the best of all. He’s a fine big strong man [and] he took off his coat & rolled up his shirt sleeves. His shirt was soon as wet as if he had plunged it in the Rhône, his face poured with rivulets of perspiration. You can’t imagine what this carcase was like when at last he cut me out of it. The poor little old withered arm really frightened one—all the skin was peeling & it was just skin & bone with a horrid empty pocket where I keep my stock of biceps!—but it was less weak & stiff than the doctor expected & by mid-day the flabby pocket had become like flesh! . . . I’m writing a long letter by ordinary mail. Fondest love my darling, your Anne.

K


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 313

1949–1951

313 Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 24 septembre 1950

My precious Smudgie, All your wonderful, beautifully packed, tied up & addressed packets arrived yesterday, & today—Sunday—I’ve been gloating over the beautiful books! You seemed to have evolved into a fairy godmother to all your friends, especially this wretched Anne who gobbles up & never offers. But oh Smudge, Monsieur Gleizes will be delighted!! Professor Elkin must read Gleizes. He is very near but doesn’t know he is. Maybe he will be as incredulous of Monsieur Gleizes’ revelations regarding rhythm, as the missionaries to the darkies [sic] are of their traditions & mythology. Tant pis! (we have no expression so adequate as tant pis). I’m going to send Professor Elkin La signification humaine du Cubisme, & if I can get ‘Spiritualité, rythme, forme’ in typed or leaflet form (for it only came out in Les problèmes de la peintures, un gros livre), I’ll send it or get M. Gleizes to send it.23 Tell me dear, please, if you have these two [as] I forget what you have of Gleizes & I want you to have all his works. ‘Spiritualité, rythme, forme’ caused a real earthquake among the historians & archaeologists of France & it was only because none of them had ever thought or learned that history was the witness of periodical forms [of] art, [which] has left [history reflecting the] materialism [of] imitative periods—spirituality by rhythmic periods of expression24. . . These works of Elkin show this; twenty years ago Australians wouldn’t have been ready to buy such books. Of course they don’t understand the works of art or the signification of them, [and] of course they are desecrating them by imitating them—seeing only the imitative side & proudly proclaiming their ignorance by stupid patronising tolerance or even sneers—but it’s a very great advance to have got as far as knowing that an Aboriginal art exists. It’s by awakening the few elite workers like Prof. Elkin to the fact that this art belongs to the spiritual period [and returns] at intervals in time.25 For once he realises this he won’t want Australian painters to form an 23 Gaston Diehl, Les problèmes de la peinture [The problems of painting]. See Bibliography. 24 Gleizes’ theory was that periods of figuration in art reflected a materialist approach and that periods of abstraction reflected a spiritual approach. For more on this see Chapter XIV in Albert Gleizes, Puissances du Cubisme, Editions Presence, Chambery, 1969. 25 Gleizes saw history as a cyclical movement.


314

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 314


art school for the Aboriginals. Oh Smudge darling your gift to Gleizes may be the means of protecting the traditions of the Aboriginals & even hammering shame into the ignorant white trespassers upon their territory . . . Hugs & kisses, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 14 octobre 1950 My darling, At last I hope to have time to write a long letter. With my arm in plaster I could do nothing in my pottery, but as soon as the plaster was cut off I began to decorate the pieces that have been waiting all those weeks for me. For three weeks I’ve not had a free moment. Last Saturday Paquaud & I did the firing together, Sunday Lucie & I unpacked the kiln, [and] Monday [the] retouching & sorting & arranging took all day. Tuesday I had to go to the pottery at Roussillon to work on two umbrella stands I had got Paco [Paquaud] to turn for me; one with the caducès docteurs, & one with initials [and] decorations in relief.26 I made one this form & now everyone wants the same; that is the terrible drawback of pottery. The sort of lotus cup which seems to hold the vase, but is really part of it, is very thick & heavy. All the week people have been pouring in to see the new collection of work and certainly tomorrow we’ll have a crowd . . . This morning it took me two hours to sort out all the weed grains from a kilo of wheat, & grind it in the coffee mill. Then I made a loaf of bread & set it by the fire to rise for three hours. I made a splendid fire after cutting & sawing oak & put my bread into this hot oven. Lucie was at St Rambert [and] visitors came & I forgot the bread; fortunately the fire died down without being fed, but the little loaf is as hard as rock & dark brown! . . . If I send them [pottery] now he’ll be in Paris, & Juliette Roche will get hold of them & one never knows what she might do—bury them beneath an avalanche of books she makes tumble & tell 26 The caduceus, symbol of medicine, has Herme’s wand with two snakes twining around it.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 315

1949–1951

315

Eugénie to leave the mountain where it is or any other impossible thing. I hear she is furious with me because I refused to let the two Liberts come & share my pottery!27 The Liberts simply wrote telling me they had made a great decision—to come & do pottery with me! I replied that I also had made a great decision—to allow nobody to come & play in my pottery unless I invited them. Juliette is wild that she can’t boss my pottery. I was wise enough to always refuse to let the Gleizes help me put a pottery at Moly. It took me seventeen years to rebuild the stable, build a kiln, & buy the necessary outfit, but I did it alone & she can’t force me to take these spoiled rich brats from Paris. Oh it’s only another whim—they come & go all the time—in three months time I’ll be everything that’s marvellous again, & she’ll be telling me I was right not to let those awful Liberts come to Moly! I’ve gone through so many of these waves [that] I’m used to them. I hope yours & Balson’s pictures received so much notice that the Sydney Ure Smith crowd are on their knees licking your boots . . . It is monstrous that Dobell should be looked upon as Australia’s painter! What could a type like Dobell understand when confronted with the Tympan de la Basilique de Vézelay, or the sacred Churinga of the Australian natives? Probably he would bewail the ignorance of their authors! . . . I suppose I ought to worry about myself but what can I do more than I do? I’ve always worked with all my might & simply haven’t made money because I loved my work instead of using it to gain. Perhaps it wasn’t honest of me to do that—perhaps only rich people should love art too much to cater for vulgar tastes. But I’ve had a happy interesting life & if I have to pay for it by misery in old age I’ll have riches in my memory which will sustain me perhaps. I hope you don’t blame me too much Smudge? . . . Yes, these rhythmic truths that our Australian darkies [sic] possess the secret of! I wonder if the books you sent will be the means of opening the eyes of those who wrote them to the signification of rhythmic periods as taught in Gleizes’ writings? Do you remember Monsieur Gleizes saying to you ‘la distance ne compte pas’ [the distance doesn’t matter]? Once again I feel between Australia & Gleizes [that] la distance ne compte pas. Goodnight my precious. I’m so happy that your work is appreciated. Oh you have been so wonderfully courageous to work high above the heads of those who hold all the ropes—you who could paint to please if you were weak enough to do so, for nobody can 27 The Liberts were both potters and friends of Mme Gleizes.


316

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 316


draw as you can. I want to put my arms around you & kiss you dear, your old Anne.

K

Moly 31 octobre 1950 Et alors! c’est la bombe atomique qui arrive! Oh my Smudge how could you? My knees are trembling as they write to you—I feel like a mass of sodden dough under your magic hands & will. What can I say dear? This huge heart that the dear, dainty, elegant little body of my friend manages to contain is one of those deep things life has revealed to me which are beyond possibility of fathoming. Darling I just accept because I feel I have no say in the matter—no right to any personal feelings—but love & gratitude & wonder flood me & my heart beats too apparently . . . Today your letter of the 24th arrived with its bombe atomique!! I hardly dared look at that draft for £50, I hid it even from myself for hours . . .

K

Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 27 November 1950 My darling, It is a joy to sit down to gossip with you on a big writing block instead of having to squeeze a few urgent remarks on the miserable scrap of paper the French war-mongers allow. Oh yesterday when I heard that the Americans were unable to hold their parliamentary debates owing to floods I had a wave of murdering desire that the whole box & dice of


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 317

1949–1951

317

them would be drowned in their floods.28 Perhaps that’s the reason that the Rhône has been rising steadily all day & is filling our cellars at this very moment, une punition. Lucie went to Serrières this afternoon to buy a good stock of fruit & vegetable, ready for the siege, & on the way back she had to rouler [wade] dans l’eau sur le quai. Already there is a huge wet patch on the earthen floor of my pottery, soakage from below. At first we got quite excited, for it came in the middle & highest part of the floor. Lucie declared it was une source that had miraculously arrived to give me de l’eau courante [running water] dans la poterie! When I heard this I remembered having received a letter from Dom Angelico two years ago when the père Abbé of their monastery died & the new one was appointed from among the monks. At the end of the letter [were the words] ‘Le nouveau père Abbé aime beaucoup vôtre poterie et veut vous envoyer pour vous, et votre poterie, sa benediction’ [The new Abbot loves your pottery and would like to send you, and your pottery, his benediction], written by the père Abbé himself. I put the letter in the table drawer in the pottery as a sort of blessing ever present, & I wondered whether really Lucie’s idea was true? I called in the neighbours and they said it was more probable that there had once been a well underneath which the Rhône had now so filled that it was almost gushing up. I’ll certainly ask a specialist to come & see if there is a well there, & some day I’ll find a bargain pump if there is. Today the damp had spread over more than half the floor, & I quite expect by tomorrow night the Rhône itself will come into the pottery by the door. But I knew I must be prepared for this every now & then when I made my pottery in this stable. The clay is safe, I had a specialised cement floor made for it, [and] the kiln is built fifty centimetres above the ground level on a brick & mortar foundation one metre deep so that it shouldn’t crack with the swelling & contracting of the earth. If I see that the pottery is going to be flooded I’ll bring all my colours & all my four hundred pieces ready to be decorated to the house so that I can continue my work while I’m a prisoner & certainly I won’t be interrupted! For I count on firing Saturday the 10th—it’s very necessary, if it is possible is another matter. Christmas is near [and] this is the Christmas firing [of] mostly small things suitable for presents—têtes à têtes bowls, jugs, ash-trays, sweet boxes (bonbonnières), candle sticks, etc. etc. etc. I wish you could see them dear. They aren’t made in series, each one 28 AD felt like this because she hated America for releasing the atom bomb.


318

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 318


is the offspring of thought & I have loved each one in turn. They are only little every-day things, not great pictures, & yet even the smallest completely demanded all I have to give after a life of striving to perfect myself in form, colour & rhythm. Do you remember how you tried to persuade me not to want to learn pottery? I little dreamt that by doing so I should have to abandon painting . . . Many think pottery a little—a minor art. But no craft is minor, for whatever creative work we take up demands the whole of us—all our brains, strength time & even soul. For after all, by our work we are searching for perfection & it’s always so terribly behind our reach! That’s why I long for you to come over dear—I want to see your work & you to see mine—to see the result of twenty-one years’ effort. Tonight in my pottery when I finished my little bonbonnières I thought of you & wondered if you wouldn’t think I had wasted my life to be making these ridiculous things at the age of sixty-four? Smudge dear I’m not sufficiently gifted to be a painter. I’ve found my own level & am happy in being a humble potter. I can’t even be a great potter because I haven’t the physical strength. But my work is respected by the traditional peasant potters of Dauphine & loved by artists & architects. If I had continued to paint I would never have been able to get as far, for painting is too great for me. I was never so proud in my life as the day all we potters of the region went to Monsieur Henri’s funeral (Henri [Bert] was a fine tourneur de grosses biches). We decided to place un gros pot instead of a tombstone over this potter, [and] unanimously the potters agreed that Mademoiselle would design the pot & that Paquaud would make it after her design! Nearly all of them are from potting families of long long descent, & I—une femme, une étrangère—was chosen by them for this work! . . . & as for Juliette Roche she counts for nothing, the poor, fat, slovenly woman she has become. You couldn’t believe that such an elegant person could get so huge & [would] wilfully dress in moth-eaten coats & torn skirts that won’t button, wrinkled stockings & dirty white canvas shoes, etc. etc. She says the children run after her crying ‘carnaval, carnaval’ & she laughs about it.29 She is just as brilliant as far as conversation, etc., but her home, her servants & herself are wrecks of those you knew. Dear Monsieur Gleizes bravely insists on being clean & tastefully dressed, but he has nobody to mend or iron his clothes . . . Séraphine 29 The children followed her around shouting ‘carnival, carnival’ because Mme Gleizes looked like a figure from a circus.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 319

1949–1951

319

is a fool & I think she drinks, & as for Mme Juliette Roche she seems to do nothing but eat & play with her dogs. . . . Christmas will be over when you get this probably but I hope it reaches you in time to bring my wishes from the depths of my heart for the very best in 1951. Bless you my dear precious friend, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 14 janvier 1951 Oh my Smudge darling, Thirteen packets at the post office & me in bed! Yes, the molasses has come at the right moment, for I collapsed at an art exhibition of reproduction at Annonay on Wednesday & was unconscious for two hours. The doctors at the hospital where they carted me say it wasn’t a stroke, or I would be paralysed, but a congestion occasioned by the cold . . . 17th January. The stiffness of lips & tongue has almost disappeared & my arm has stopped carrying on. It is a week today since the congestion—I can’t believe a week has passed for I was doped for three days. I’m taking Doctor Clapier’s homeopathic remedies & the molasses & I’m sure I shall be much better in a few more days, for I am already better but still tottery. Everyone is most kind, & as the affair was in the local paper I have had numbers of letters & visitors. I shall keep this letter till the end of the week to give you further news, but you’ll receive air letters before this one. Mowgli is my constant companion— charmed to find a fire continually in my bedroom. Goodnight my precious. Yvette [Schaeffer] stayed all the afternoon & I talked too much. I feel my head [is] tired [but that] you are very near me darling. You have always been my help in my big illness, my precious blessing. 23rd January. Well, I’m feeling pretty normal; still a bit weak but that’s all . . . Monsieur Buard brought the milk this morning & I besought him to go & ask Marinette Pegeron to come & do some messages for us. I sent her with a letter to Mme Schaeffer to ask her to let us have Cassam, their Arab boy, every second day for two hours. He’ll chop & bring in wood, bring in coal, pump water, take my letters to the post, & bring us


320

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 320


fruit & vegetables from Serrières. I take molasses three times a day as well as the homoeopathic treatment. I advertised myself by my escapade in all the local papers & we’ve had an extraordinary number of visitors & clients. Lucie sold four scarves yesterday—she of course wept for joy as she hasn’t been able to weep for sorrow—& I think I was even more pleased about it than she was for she hasn’t sold all winter. Darling please don’t send me anything till next Christmas except molasses. I need nothing. If I do need anything I’ll tell you, but really I have no desires except to be strong & not a nuisance to anyone. As for orders, I never had so many in my life. When will they be executed? Three whole dinner services as well as quantities of other important things! All in good time DV.30 My fondest love my dearest one, kisses from your Anne.

K

Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 4 February 1951 Smudge darling my precious, How I upset you, I’m terribly sorry dear. I need nothing. Nothing but calm & probably a change, but not among sick people or uninteresting people. Please Smudge darling don’t even think about sending me more money. I’m bursting with pride over possessing such a wonderful friend & I promise dear that I’ll tell you if I need anything. You can rely on me, for I know you are the closest thing in all the world to me. I think if it was you in need & if I had the possibility of helping I should feel just as you do, & terribly hurt & exasperated if you refused to let me. But at present I need nothing except molasses. I’ve finished my tin in three weeks [of] regular doses before meals. I am a good deal better but still feel terribly nervy. If I read or write or draw, my eyes & left arm feel as if they are laced up tight as tight & that the laces are being pulled 30 Divina Veritas means Divine Truth.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 321

1949–1951

321

tighter & tighter & will soon break. Have you ever had your blood pressure taken? It’s the same sensation but behind the eyes is more alarming . . . My dear potters from all the surrounding districts came to see me. Those from Roussillon came & packed all the pots which had fired badly because of the humidity last firing, & took them to fire at Roussillon. This means that I shall have all these lovely things to fill the gap in our grande pièce & be able to continue to sell. They also cut a great heap of wood & brought it all into the house. For Lucie got the grippe four days after my congestion & was ill in bed for nine days, & the doctor forbad me to go out in the cold! For three days we were all alone & nobody came [and] the poor ducks & rabbits were starving. At last Papa Buard came with our milk! We asked him to let the Pegerons know our plight [and] Marinette (my pupil) came at once. I sent a letter by her to the Schaeffers to ask them to order coal. The coal merchant refused to bring it (for the bridge is not yet opened) & Yvette & Cassam (their little Arab) brought three sacks in a handcart from Serrières! Letters & presents have poured in this last week . . . I’m bathing in the warmth of your love my wonderful, wonderful friend & your love makes me the richest woman in the world, un gros baiser, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 18th February 1951 Dearest, . . . This dull Sunday afternoon alone in my bedroom I long to talk with you as if you were in the big cane armchair by the fire. My room is very agreeable although rather shabby. The walls are pale warm grey (ochre rouge, ochre jaune & blue mixed in the white) & en bas they are the same only in oil paint & a little darker. There is a wood border separating the Kalsomine & oil paint & it is sort of royal navy blue, so is the skirting board. The two big wardrobes are painted grey & picked out in the same blue, the over mantle also. The two big windows overlooking out on the Rhône have tiny panes. My divan [has] a blue & white striped handwoven Marocain cover with my grey rug, that we bought together in Paris, at the foot. On the walls there is a hauk (Berber woman’s cloak) in cream


31/5/02 11:44 AM

322

Page 322


wool with coloured woven bands, some Alinari prints,31 three pochoirs, a little Gleizes gouache, & four plates from Fez. [There is] a big rug on the floor which I bought at Meknes Morocco, but it was made in the Sahara. I’m very fond of it, but it was already shabby when I bought it for 200 francs! My trunk is covered with my cream silk shawl. There are two cane armchairs with blue cushions, two tables, a bookcase & a small chair. A toilet placard [cupboard] with a cream poetry fountain & cuvette. Also a stove which is economical & very heating [sic] but not beautiful. Voici—chez moi! It is spacious, light & very calm . . . This afternoon the potters are to bring me the pots they took to Roussillon to fire. I’ll send you photos of them, for one plate is for the Musée de St Etienne, & a jug & plate for the Musée de Céramique at Faienza, Italy, the biggest musée de céramique in the world. I wonder when Sydney will deign to give you & me orders? Perhaps in one hundred years they’ll pay fabulous prices for us darling & we’ll smile down upon them from above! The photos enclosed were taken last year [on] a day when I didn’t have any special work, but Monsieur Gleizes’ pictures have come out fairly well . . . Fondest love my darling. How I wish you would come over, Your Anne. PS. Monsieur Bert has just brought my pots—the big jar is a triumph. I’ve never had such a success. Also two soup tureens & two big coupes couldn’t be better, but the third (for St Etienne) has run. The jugs & big plates are all quite good. But I hate to have to sell my big jar— I’ll ask 10,000 fr. for it—Tant pis! You see dear, when I can work I can always keep my head above water, Anne.

K Moly-Sabata 18th March 1951 (21st anniversary of my arrival at Moly) My Smudge darling, What can I do or say to appease your anger & bring you back to me as before? Do try to realise that my illness was a crise nerveuse [nervous breakdown] . . . Spring is coming the apricot trees are all in flower. I want to enjoy them & get better, but how can I with this constant weight 31 Alinari was an Italian photographer of the nineteenth century.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 323

1949–1951

323

holding me down? I never showed one of your letters to anyone before. I never never will again. What more can I say? Sometimes I imagine you are not angry, that you are on the way over to me instead . . . And how can I get well with this constant worry gnawing me all the time? Oh Smudge please forgive your wicked Anne.32

K 21 mai 1951 My precious Smudgie, It was such a joy to hear about your work & Balson’s & that at last you are being appreciated. I’d love to see your work, even photos of it with your descriptions of colours. I can well imagine Balson’s work being a joy to you. When I came away to Europe in 1926 I just couldn’t leave his tiny picture behind . . . Darling, the huge tins of marmite & molasses have arrived [and] they are marvellous—do you realise I have enough molasses for five months treatment now! So please paint & don’t give your precious time to doing up parcels for me darling . . . Dieu vous bénit my wonderful friend, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 26 May 1951 Dearest, Your great gift of love & care has arrived safely. I took the bank draft to the Credit Lyonnais at Serrières on Friday [and] the manager told me to return in two weeks time to receive the money, as it would not arrive from Paris before the end of next week & the bank at Serrières only opens on Fridays. In the meantime I shall receive a paper to fill in stating that the money is a present sent for sustenance, etc. etc. Darling, I just 32 Presumably GC was angry that AD had shown one of her letters to a mutual acquaintance. Their letters often contained frank comments about people they knew and GC, who was a most proper person, would have been dismayed about AD’s supposed lack of discretion.


324

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 324


wonder & wonder that I am so blessed as to have had your friendship [for] nearly forty years of my life, & your love always just as pure & as loyal as when we were together. I trust that I shall be able to assure you that I do not need your huge generous gifts any more as you can understand how happy it would make me to be able to give instead of always receiving. But you know also that your care of me is more precious to me than the money, that I feel terribly proud of your love, & that it is my love for you which makes me humbly & gratefully accept from you. All the same I hope & hope to be able to prove to you that I don’t need the other 50. I’ve even prayed about it & have been given an idea which may see banale to you, but may be a solution to many problems which have worried me for years. You know I learned pottery because I thought that I could earn my living by pottery & be free to paint as I liked, instead of having to paint to earn my living & teach painting as pupils wanted to be taught. Well, to earn one’s living by pottery means one must give all one’s time, intellect, art & strength to the craft & never have a moment to paint. Again, if one wants to make pottery pay (in money), one must make what clients want & not what one loves. Clients command [sic] only what they have already seen. My twenty-one years’ experience as a potter has been a sort of mad fight against time to create the things I love. Now & then I have won & managed to create a few pieces—they have always been loved & succeeded in every sense of the word—but orders for repetitions killed their value & orders for more conventional things kept me from being able to create new pieces. I have dreams & drawings of dreams I long to execute but commands [sic] for six services de table! Two exactly like our own & four exactly like one I made for Dr Charpentier which unhappily was exhibited. Well, my new idea is to become une marchande de vaisselles, une patronne, ou quelque chose comme ça; c’est-à-dire [a seller of pottery, a boss, or something like that; in a manner of speaking]. I’m going to ask the potters of Roussillon & Cliousclat to make all the hundreds of plates & dishes & I’ll go & decorate them. Also I’ll ask them to make all the big uninteresting vases that people order, so that I can have time to do the work I long to do & [that I] can sell for higher prices than these things any potter can make. After all, most potteries only work for the sake of money so I won’t be preventing them from creating. Tell me what you think. It seems the only possible way of getting time to do what at last I am capable of doing [but] nobody allows me to do it. To give these orders to potters will mean spending a fairly big sum to begin with, but I’m


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 325

1949–1951

325

sure I’ll make much more money than I do when I wear myself out making things which bore me & take nearly as long as beautiful creations. A potter came to see me just as I wrote this—he is delighted to receive orders for three services immediately & will do them before July. Why bother if this venture relieves me of these long uninteresting orders [and] I get well & strong? I’ll make money also. The garden is paradise— Sue [Alexandre] comes next week, bless her! Oh my precious thank you with my whole whole heart, your Anne.

K Moly-Sabata Sablons Isère 17 June 1951 Smudge dearest, . . . My dear Sue Alexandre is here after thirteen years’ absence! And she is just the same sweet Sue, so refined & charming & sincere. She is only staying ten days . . . Yesterday Mme Steinbach took Sue, Lucie & me to Mirmande for the day. It was a perfect day & oh our beloved Mirmande was at her best. I saw the Neagoes who asked after you. Mme N. is a horrible sight in flowered trousers & her painting is horrible also. Dear Fifine welcomed us in our bedroom with the coffee service I gave her, for she lives in that house since she gave up the café & grocery. She is the sweetest faced woman I ever saw—her expression makes her really beautiful, her whole life of bonté illuminates it. Even Mme Steinbach who is not very sympathique for persons of low degree was struck by her & said, ‘Oh to have an expression like that in old age!’ Oh darling Mirmande always brings you right to my side; you trot beside me all the time. Blessings on you darling, your Anne.

K Moly Friday 7 juillet 1951 My precious, It has arrived—48,640 francs! The bank clerk’s eyes shone when I entered this morning, ‘J’ai des bonne nouvelle pour vous Mlle, je vais vous payer.’


326

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 326


[I have good news for you Miss, I am going to pay you.] I took the money immediately to the savings bank & feel as if a great protecting wall surrounds me. I’m going to have my mattress teased, washed, mended & my eiderdown cover ready for next winter. Oh my darling what can I do for you? I search & search but I have nothing that you want. If only I could give you a salad bowl full of raspberries & fraises du bois & a huge bunch of our lovely fresh flowers. It has rained incessantly since last November & the garden is quite mad but the flowers were never so lovely. I faithfully take my molasses darling, but it will last a very long time. I think I’ll have to return to see the Doctor for I am so forgetful & stupid & tired. I’d like to go for a change but where? Everyone I know talks too much. Monsieur Gleizes insists on me going to them but I’m afraid of too much talking. I’ll just stay at Moly & not work too hard, that will be best. I think perhaps Dr C. will have a suggestion to offer? But even chez Fifine the children & dogs play till midnight beneath my window. You see how impossible I am. My fondest love darling—your great gift makes it possible to take a rest & that is what I need most. I do hope you are well & happily working? I’m sending you photos of some pots. Bless you my angel, your grateful Anne.

c


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 327

Epilogue In May 1999 I made a second visit to France mainly to photograph Anne Dangar’s pottery for this publication. My photographer was Julia Topliss who had heard a great deal about the artist over the past seven years. While Julia was photographing the collections of pottery at the Fondation Albert Gleizes in Paris and later at Moly-Sabata in Serrières, I revisited a few of Anne Dangar’s friends who were still dedicated to her memory almost fifty years after her death. One of these was Monsieur Henri Giriat who had tilled the soil at Albert Gleizes’ farm at les Méjades while studying there during the war years. Monsieur Giriat informed me, with a twinkle in his eye, that at this time Gleizes had uprooted all the vines on his 45-hectare property to grow vegetables— much to the horror of local farmers. Monsieur Giriat’s first meeting with AD had been in October 1940 when she came on a three-week visit to the farm, and it was then that she had introduced him to Gleizes’ principles of ‘translation’ and ‘rotation’. Giriat insisted that he had never met a woman like AD before or since, and recollected an observation made by Juliette Gleizes about Anne that he thought accurately described her: ‘la femme forte de l’écriture’ [the strong woman from the Old Testament].1 At Serrières I went to see Louis Pegeron and his family, old friends who live on the quai du Rhône a few hundred metres from Moly. Louis’ parents had been good to AD and she had taught Louis and his sister Marinette to draw, paint and make pottery when they were schoolchildren. The Pegerons treated us to a wonderful meal of leek tart and 1 It could also have referred to AD’s well-known epistolatory prowess.


328

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 328


a selection of local cheeses, and a dessert of strawberry tart served in bowls from the Pegerons’ collection of AD’s pottery. Always handled lovingly by its custodians, each piece of her pottery is admired as much for the stories it evokes about Anne as for its craftsmanship. A couple of doors down the quai du Rhône, fifty metres or so in the direction of Moly, is Madame Buard’s house. Her mother had been a good friend of AD’s, and Madame Buard’s son François still has a christening mug and plate decorated by Anne with his name and the date of his birth. This was just one of the many pots in the Buard collection, all of which are well worn with constant use except for a large platter that is brought out only at the time of the harvest festival. Decorated with a harvest scene and painted in a folkloric style with a rich honey brown glaze, the picture represents Monsieur Joseph Buard and his son André (Mme Buard’s late husband) binding bales of hay. Madame Buard explained that this platter is used every thanksgiving for the special plaited harvest bread. In Lyon Julia and I visited the Musée des Beaux Arts to view the collection of AD’s pottery that Jean Chevalier had bequeathed to the museum. Monsieur Chevalier, a Lyonnais painter and disciple of Albert Gleizes, wanted to ensure that his city had examples of his friend’s work on display. After seeing the bowls that he had given to the museum we arranged to meet Monsieur Chevalier, now a man in his eighties. He was delighted to see us and thrilled to talk about AD to whose memory he was devoted. On parting Monsieur Chevalier insisted that I take with me some documents relating to AD; his well-annotated copy of Gleizes’ book Homocentrisme, and much to my dismay—and delight—a jug bearing a strong Moroccan influence made by Anne after her return from Morocco. On our return trip to Paris we went to see Dom Angelico Surchamp at his new abbey Notre Dame de Venière in the Bourgogne. I had spoken to Dom Angelico at great length on my previous visit to France and this time I merely wanted to catch up with him and let him know of the book’s progress. Dom Angelico showed us into his studio where he was working on some studies for wall paintings based on Gleizes’ pochoirs designs. Next to his easel was a table with two large jugs that AD had made for him and which Dom Angelico took with him whenever he moved abbeys. He apologised for the fact that one of the jugs was used as a container for his brushes and quickly removed them so that Julia could photograph the pots. I realised once more what an


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 329

Epilogue

329

integral part of people’s lives AD had been and how, through her pottery, she remained a continuous presence. While in Paris I also met up with Monsieur Maurice Grimaud and his wife. Monsieur Grimaud, who has had a most distinguished diplomatic career in the United States and elsewhere, had been responsible for bringing AD to Morocco in 1939 when there on his first posting as the governor’s secretary in Fez. He is, however, best known in France for having averted bloodshed during the student revolution of 1968 when he was the Préfet de [Commissioner of] Police in Paris.2 Maurice Grimaud told us that his mother had been very close to AD and had tried to help Anne whenever she could. The Grimauds were aware of the difficulties she experienced at Moly-Sabata and had often been angered by the Gleizes’ total neglect of practical matters at the house. Monsieur Grimaud told me that while he considered Albert Gleizes to have been a good man, it was true that he had no interest in the more mundane aspects of a community such as Moly. With typical French subtlety, Monsieur Grimaud intimated that Juliette Gleizes had been spoilt by a privileged up-bringing in which she had lived among elegant surroundings in Paris and the provinces, so that AD’s daily struggles and poverty were completely lost on her. Monsieur Grimaud also observed that what had helped AD in her seemingly impossible quest was that first, she had been able to master a craft that she held very dear; second, that a number of intimate friends such as the Grimauds, Dom Angelico Surchamp and others provided her with both moral and practical support over the years; and finally, that she had led an intensely spiritual life, with her values recognised and shared by the people she respected most of all. He concluded his perceptive account with the following: ‘C’est pour cela que le passage sur terre d’Anne Dangar ne nous laisse pas seulement quelques merveilleuses poteries mais un rayonnement unique qui repand aujourd’hui encore sa lumière sur tous ceux qui l’ont approchée.’ [It is because of this that Anne Dangar’s passage on earth has not only left us some marvellous examples of pottery but also an enlightening influence which bathes everyone who knew her with its rays of light.] Grace Crowley was another important link in AD’s story, but although she did her best to promote Anne’s pottery in Sydney the art 2 Maurice Grimaud wrote an account of this period in a book entitled: En mai fait ce qu’il te plaît: le Préfet de Police de mai 1968 parle [In May do as you will: the Police Commissioner of Paris of May 1968 speaks], Editions Stock, Paris, 1977.


330

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 330


world there showed no interest in it. In the archives of the State Library of New South Wales there is a letter written shortly after AD’s death from the then Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Hal Missingham, in response to GC’s request that the gallery purchase posthumously some of AD’s pottery. As her request was declined, GC ensured that something of AD’s hand remained in our public collections by bequeathing her own pieces of Anne’s work to the gallery. Confident that posterity would take an interest in her friend’s art, even if their contemporaries had not, GC also maintained AD’s correspondence and left it with the State Library for a future historian to discover. It was thanks to GC’s far-sightedness that I was able to stumble onto these documents that describe so vividly AD’s life in France and from these letters take up my own quest. As can be seen both from the correspondence and the testimonials of her friends in France, AD influenced so many of those with whom she came into contact. And yet popular acclaim for her work eluded her throughout her lifetime. Just prior to her death, in one of the many letters to ‘Smudge’, Anne Dangar penned what could be considered her own epitaph when she declared: ‘Perhaps in one hundred years they’ll pay fabulous prices for us darling & we’ll smile down upon them from above!’3

c

3 Letter from AD to GC, 18 February 1951.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 331

Personae L’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire A Dominican monastery founded in the midnineteenth century near the village of St Leger Vauban in the Morvan, Bourgogne, it was built in the Romanesque idiom. A centre for learning, the monastery has a press that issues journals and books on art and religion, including Témoignages. Dom Angelico Surchamp, a follower of Albert Gleizes and an important figure in AD’s life, is a leading member of this monastery and responsible for founding the press. Abstraction–Création A group of abstract artists established by Auguste Herbin in 1931 devoted to the spiritual in art. The society also put out a journal called Abstraction & Création. Ruth Ainsworth An Australian graphic artist and a student of Thea Proctor, she stayed at Moly-Sabata for several weeks during which time she gave Lucie Deveyle lessons in weaving. Susanne (Sue) Alexandre A French potter who became close friends with AD in 1926 after the two women studied pottery with Henri Bernier at Viroflay. In 1939 Alexandre travelled with AD to Morocco. She later married Pierre Nounez and went to live in Biarritz. L’Arche A journal edited by Theodore Clement in the 1930s, it included articles that advocated the rural transformation of France to decrease unemployment. Jean Arp (1887–1966) A cubist painter, sculptor and poet, and one of the founders of Dada. He was a member of various artistic groups that included Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst and the Surrealists. He developed a form of abstract sculpture called Creative Abstraction. Julian Ashton Art School Founded by Julian Rossi Ashton in 1896, it was originally known as the Sydney Art School. Many Sydney artists learnt their craft at the Ashton school including George Lambert, Sydney Long and John Passmore. Julian Rossi Ashton (1851–1942) Sydney painter, teacher and head of the Julian Ashton Art School where both AD and GC studied and taught.


332

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 332


Will Ashton (1881–1963) An Adelaide artist who studied at St Ives, Cornwall, he returned to South Australia in 1905. Ashton was a severe critic of modernism and painted in an impressionist style. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting. Jeanne Bach-Sisley A poet and cousin of the painter Alfred Sisley, the French neoimpressionist painter, she was a good friend to AD. Ralph Balson (1890–1964) A painter and teacher, he joined GC in her studio in 1934 and together conducted life classes at 227 George Street, Sydney. Henri Bert A local potter who owned la Poterie des Chals at Roussillon where AD sometimes used to fire her pots. Bert was assisted by Jean-Marie Paquaud who took over the pottery in 1955. AD was asked to design a large pot for Bert’s tombstone. Dorrit Black (1891–1951) A contemporary of AD’s, Black studied at the Julian Ashton Art School and London’s Grosvenor School of Modern Art. She briefly attended André Lhote’s Summer School at Mirmande in 1928 with AD and GC before returning to Sydney. In 1931 Black taught with GC at the Modern Art Centre, which she had founded. Crowley left following a disagreement with Black. In 1932 GC formed her own art studio in George Street with Rah Fizelle. Florence Turner Blake (1873–1959) A Sydney artist, Blake was a student at the Julian Ashton Art School. She went on to study at London’s Slade School from 1925–29, after which she returned to Sydney. Georges Braque (1881–1963) Picasso’s partner in the cubist movement, Braque invented the papier collés technique by introducing pieces of imitation fabrics onto paintings. Joseph Buard (1878–1951) A neighbour and friend of AD’s who lived on the quai du Rhône next to Moly-Sabata. Also known as le père Buard, he often took AD in his horse and cart to neighbouring villages. His wife Eugénie (1887–1964) was also a good friend of AD’s, as was the family of his son André. Basil Burdett (1897–1942) An influential art critic with the Melbourne Herald, 1931–40, and a tireless advocate of modern art. René-Marie Burlet A mural painter living in Lyon who decorated a number of chapels in Isère and Savoie. He was director of L’Atelier de la Rose and founder of the Académie du Minotaure, an atelier in Lyon. Mathilde Camli A good friend of AD’s, this Jewish woman had studied with André Lhote at the same time as AD and GC, and lived at Mirmande. Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) A member of the impressionist group in the 1860s–70s, he is often referred to as the father of modern art. Cézanne developed a radical analytical style of painting that was to revolutionise art at the beginning of the century. Marc Chagall (1887–1985) A Jewish artist born in Russia who worked in Paris for most of his life. Chagall painted in a symbolist manner recalling his early Russian/ Jewish experience in small towns (stetls). Serge Charchoune A Russian artist who worked with Albert Gleizes, Charchoune was an associate of the Dadaists and later joined the group founded by the painter Robert Delaunay.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 333

Personae

333

Jean Chevalier A painter from Lyon and follower of Albert Gleizes who also exhibited regularly with him. A good friend of AD’s, he recently bequeathed his collection of her pottery to Lyon’s Musée des Beaux Arts. Cliousclat AD loved the village of Cliousclat and stayed there often. She first went to the village in 1927 when she was studying with André Lhote at Mirmande, four kilometres away. The potters at Cliousclat have made their pots in the traditional style of the region since the nineteenth century, and AD would go there to make her large platters. The chief potter in the village was Anjelaras, who was better known as the ‘bear of Cliousclat’. Myra Cocks (1893–1940) A friend of GC’s, Cocks was a student at the Julian Ashton Art School from 1920–24. She and GC went to Melbourne for a short time to sample Bernard Hall’s art class at the National Gallery School. In 1925 Cocks went to study at the Slade School, London, from where she wrote two articles for Julian Ashton’s students’ magazine: ‘Letter to Julian Ashton from England, 5 Sept. 1925’ (Undergrowth, Jan.–Feb. 1926), and ‘Letter from London, 11 November 1925 (Undergrowth Mar.–Apr. 1926). Cocks returned to Sydney in 1931. Professor Ananda Coomeraswamy A curator of Indian art at Fine Arts, Coomeraswamy wrote books on Christian and art. He was born in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) of English/Tamil to England as a child where he later became a geologist interest in comparative religion.

the Boston Museum of Oriental philosophy of parents and was taken and also developed an

Estelle Creed A wealthy student of AD’s whom the latter had met while leading a sketching trip to Wamberal, two kilometres from Terrigal, New South Wales, in January 1929. Creed came to stay at Moly-Sabata in November 1930 after the departure of the Pouyauds. She was very demanding, especially of AD, and expected special treatment. Mrs Henry Crowley Grace Crowley’s mother, of whom AD was very fond, was known as ‘The Bird’ or ‘Mother Bird’ and is often mentioned in the correspondence. She lived at ‘Glen Riddle’, the family property at Barraba, New South Wales. Cubism Picasso and Braque were the initial exponents of cubism, taking their cue from Cézanne’s breaking up of traditional representations of space inherited from the Renaissance period. Other cubists included Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Roger de la Fresnaye, Robert Delaunay, Jacques Villon, Marcel Duchamp and Raymond Duchamp Villon. The real subject of painting for them was not observed reality but a new language based on a fragmented and simultaneous view of simple objects. Their paintings opposed figuration, colour and decorative elements. There were two major phases in cubism—the first was called analytical cubism which combined different views of the same object simultaneously. The second phase was called synthetic cubism, which included collages made up imitation fabrics that related to everyday objects. Geoff Dangar A nephew of AD’s, Dangar was a Flight Lieutenant with the RAF stationed in the Mediterranean during World War II. He and some friends visited AD at Moly-Sabata after the liberation of France. Hastings Dangar AD’s brother and father to Geoff Dangar, he was a lawyer in Sydney.


334

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 334


Edgar Degas (1834–1917) A member of the French impressionist group, Degas was a brilliant draftsman and had a thematic approach to his paintings in his desire to represent modern times. Robert Delaunay (1855–1941) Both Robert and his wife Sonia were cubist painters. Robert experimented with colour and developed a theory on the simultaneity of contrasting colours. Sonia Delaunay, née Terk (1885–1979) Working with her husband Robert Delaunay on colour theory painting, which they called orphism, Sonia also made designs for textiles and the decorative arts as well as the theatre. Maurice Denis (1870–1943) The Nabis painter and writer involved with symbolism as a reaction to the realism of impressionism. The Nabis was a group formed in 1892 whose members were influenced by Gauguin’s expressive and symbolist painting. The title Nabis is a Hebrew word meaning ‘prophets’. Lucie Deveyle (1908–1956) A peasant from Bresse who had worked in factories, she was brought to Moly-Sabata by César Geoffray and his family. A weaver by trade, Deveyle began taking painting lessons from AD in exchange for cleaning the bathroom. She soon became AD’s faithful companion and helped her immensely with the gardening and other domestic chores. Following AD’s death she became the custodian of Moly-Sabata. Sir William Dobell (1899–1970) Famous Australian expressionist painter whose work AD and GC criticised. Raoul Dufy (1877–1953) French painter and textile designer, he joined the Fauves in 1905 and painted popular scenes such as landscape paintings of the holiday resorts around the French Riviera. Adolphus Peter Elkin (1891–1979) Professor of Anthropology at Sydney University, ordained Church of England minister and President of the Association for the Protection of Native Races, Elkin published a book entitled Australian Aboriginals in 1938 and travelled all over Australia gathering information on Aboriginal culture and conditions. His research contributed to the 1944 paper ‘Citizenship for Aborigines’ in which he argued for equal status for Aboriginal people. However, Elkin advocated protection and assimilation of Aboriginal people, policies that have since proved disastrous. (Mary) Alice Evatt (1898–1973) A student of Grace Crowley’s at the Crowley/Fizelle school in Sydney and later a student of André Lhote’s, she and her husband Justice Herbert Vere Evatt were supporters and patrons of modern art. The Fauves A group of painters at the beginning of the twentieth century who painted in bright colours and in a primitive manner, hence the name Fauves meaning wild beasts. Henri Matisse was the dominant member of the group, which included Georges Rouault, Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain and Kees Van Dongen. Rah Fizelle (1891–1964) Known as ‘Fiz’, he ran an art school with GC at 215a George Street, Sydney from 1934 to 1937. Roger de la Fresnaye (1885–1925) A painter who studied at the Académie Julian, and exhibited with the cubists between 1910–13 at the Salon d’Automne.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 335

Personae

335

Roger Fry (1866–1934) Founder of the Omega Workshop in 1913, he wrote a number of books on art, including Reflections on British Art (1934) and Last Lectures (1939). He discovered the art of Cézanne in 1906 and spread his influence in England. Fry was also a painter and a champion of the art of the French impressionists. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) An Indian political and spiritual leader who was named ‘Mahatma’ or the ‘Great Soul’, his early work was carried out in South Africa as a lawyer and campaigner for equal rights for ‘coloureds’. On his return to India Gandhi practiced a non-violent means of resistance to the British colonial rulers, which he called satyagraha or ‘holding onto the truth’. Identifying with the impoverished and working for the disadvantaged, he believed that social and political change had to begin with the individual. Gandhi converted from Christianity to Theosophy and then back to the Hindu religion. Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French painter who went to Panama in 1887 and the following year spent time with the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh in Arles. He lived and worked in Tahiti from 1891–93, and again from 1895–1900, and did paintings of the local population. In 1900 he left for the Iles Marquises where he died. He initially became fascinated by painting after meeting Pissarro the French impressionist (and post-impressionist) painter. César Geoffray A musician who lived at Moly-Sabata with his wife Mido and children Gilka and Luke until they moved to Lyon in 1940. He was a pianist and student of Savand and Florent Schmidt, composer and teacher at the Lyon Conservatorium of Music, whom Albert Gleizes admired greatly. Geoffray is known for his instigation of à coeur joie [with a joyful heart] chorales in Lyon. Henry Gibbons (1884–1972) Known as ‘Gibby’, he taught with AD at the Julian Ashton Art School. It was Gibbons’ objections to AD’s modernist ideas that decided her to return to France in 1930. André Gide (1869–1951) Author of more than fifty volumes of fiction, poetry, plays, criticism and biography, including Les Nourritures Terrestres [Fruits of the earth], 1897 and Les Faux Monnayeurs [The counterfeiters], 1928. Henri Giriat (1920– ) A writer and lecturer in psychology and education, Giriat was a follower of Albert Gleizes. During the war he lived, worked and studied with Gleizes on his farm at les Méjades. Léon Gischia (1903–??) A painter/designer influenced by cubism who executed a number of designs for Le Théatre Nationale Populaire in Paris. He was a pupil of Fernand Léger and Otton Friesz. Albert Gleizes (1881–1953) Initially part of the cubist group with Picasso, Gris and Braque, he began his artistic career as a communist before turning to more spiritual beliefs. His first book, Du Cubisme, was co-written with the artist Jean Metzinger in 1912, followed by Du cubisme et les moyens de le comprendre in 1920. Three years later he published La peinture et ses lois, ce qui devait sortir du cubisme. In 1927 Gleizes and his wife Juliette founded Moly-Sabata, an art co-operative at Sablons on the banks of the Rhône in central France. After leasing the property for many years they eventually bought it in 1938. He became increasingly involved with spiritualist theories of art and was a founder-member of Abstraction–Création


336

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 336

Earth, Fire, Water, Air in 1931. That same year he wrote La forme et l’histoire, followed in 1937 with Homocentrisme ou le retour de l’homme Chrétien. Towards the end of his life in 1941 he converted to Catholicism, a move that no doubt influenced AD to do the same.

Juliette Gleizes, née Roche (1884–1980) A talented painter and writer, she had been a student of Maurice Denis, a member of the Nabis (a group of artists including Edouard Vuillard, Paul Sérusier and Pierre Bonnard). Brought up solely by her father, Jules Roche, her mother was said to have been a family maid who was released from their employ after Juliette was born. People in the region attributed her eccentricities to the illegitimacy of her birth, and her strong will to being brought up by her father, a bachelor. Juliette had an excellent education and accompanied her father to all his official functions before her marriage to Albert Gleizes in 1915. Her paintings are held at the Fondation Albert Gleizes, Paris. El Greco (1541–1614) A famous Greek-born painter of religious subjects who was regarded as a Spanish painter because he lived and worked in Toledo, Spain André Grelin A follower of Dr Carton and his alternative medicine techniques, Grelin didn’t have any particular profession. He arrived at Moly-Sabata with his wife and two small children at the beginning of 1931 and made himself unpopular by getting everyone else to work for him. He fought with Lucie Deveyle and AD and became aggressive when they complained. César Geoffray finally wrote Gleizes a letter about Grelin’s misdemeanours and he was asked to leave in October 1931. Antoine Grimaud Father of Gaston Grimaud and mayor of Annonay, where he lived on a large estate called ‘Champs-Gurin’. Gaston Grimaud (1884–1983) A close friend of AD’s, he was an amateur painter and trustee of Moly-Sabata. He lived at Annonay and conducted a lengthy correspondence with AD. Forced to take up commerce by his father, Grimaud became a reluctant businessman with a wholesale paper and hide company. Passionate about literature and art, Grimaud organised concerts and theatrical performances at Annonay. Madeleine Grimaud (1883–1974) Wife of Gaston Grimaud and a close friend and confidante to AD, she acted as AD’s Godmother when she converted to Catholicism. The Grimauds’ seven children looked upon AD as an adopted aunt. One of their sons, Pierre, partnered AD in building a kiln during the early years of the war. Maurice Grimaud Son of Gaston and Madeleine Grimaud, Maurice went to Morocco in 1937 as secretary to the governor Général Noguès, and was responsible for arranging AD’s trip there in 1939. In Morocco he met his future wife, personal secretary to Mme Noguès, whom he married in 1941. During the post-war period Grimaud was in charge of repatriating displaced people for the UN Refugee Association. In 1968, he was the Préfet de Police of Paris and is considered responsible for avoiding bloodshed during the now-infamous student riots. Juan Gris (1887–1927) One of the original cubists, this Spanish artist turned to painting portraits after the analytic period of cubism. He also produced collages that were extremely rich and strongly designed. After the war he left abstraction and developed a classicism with concrete forms.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 337

Personae

337

Marcel Gromaire (1892–1971) Outside the known movements he painted in an expressionist style and his subject matter included peasants and workers. Along with Jean Lurçat and Dubreuil, Gromaire contributed to the renewal of the Aubusson tapestry workshops. Elioth Grüner (1882–1939) Australian landscape painter influenced by Arthur Streeton who worked in a popular form of impressionism with an emphasis on tonal gradations. He was a conservative artist opposed to modernism. René Guénon A French theorist and writer on comparative religion who wrote La Métaphysique Orientale (1925) and Autorité spirituelle et pouvoir temporel (1930). (See Bibliography for more details on his books.) (Lindsay) Bernard Hall (1859–1935) Director of Melbourne’s National Gallery School, he lectured and wrote articles against modernism. Nancy Hall (1900– ) A Sydney painter who trained with Julian Ashton and AD, Hall co-edited Undergrowth, the student magazine of the Julian Ashton Art School. She became a Christian Scientist and established two Christian Science schools at Vaucluse, Sydney. Auguste Herbin (1882–1960) An artist influenced by Picasso, he joined the cubists and exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where the criteria for exhibition was payment of a fee rather than selection by a committee. He was also one of the founders of Abstraction-Création and the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. Evie Hone (1894–1955) An Irish painter who was one of Gleizes’ disciples and a friend of AD’s. Hone was a religious artist who in the 1940s established a stainedglass workshop at Marlay, Rathfarnham in Ireland. Both she and Mainie Jellett worked with Gleizes during the summer months. Louis Hoyack Dutch philosopher and associate of Gleizes’ who wrote Return to the Ancients’ Universe in 1936. Margaret Jaye The owner of a pottery shop in Darlinghurst, Sydney. In 1932 she ordered some pottery from AD but a great part of the consignment broke due to inexperienced packaging. She sold ‘art moderne’ or Deco furnishings in her store from the 1930s onwards. Mainie Jellett (1897–1944) An Irish painter who was one of Gleizes’ disciples and a friend of AD’s. With Evie Hone she was instrumental in developing modern art in Dublin. She founded the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943, the annual exhibition on modern art. She was the most influential modernist in Ireland during the inter-war period. George Washington Lambert (1873–1930) The most successful of Julian Ashton’s students, Lambert worked as a portrait painter in London from 1920–21 after which he returned triumphantly to Sydney. AD and GC shared a dislike of Lambert’s realist style and were affronted by his immense popularity when he painted in such a conventional manner. Marie Laurencin (1895–1956) French painter who specialised in very delicate portraits and designs for the ballet such as Les Biches, 1924. She was one of the most successful female artists of the first half of the century.


338

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 338


Jacque Philippe Leclerc (1902–1947) A French marshall who joined Charles de Gaulle and the Free French Army in London after the fall of France. In 1944 he led a column from Lake Chad across the Sahara to Tripoli winning all of French Equatorial Africa for the Free French. Leclerc then landed in Normandy in June 1944 and was in the first Allied force to enter Paris on 24 August 1944. Fernand Léger (1881–1955) Originally one of the orphist group with Delaunay, Gleizes and Metzinger, this cubist artist became fascinated by the machine aesthetic. After World War I, Léger developed a form of cubism labelled ‘Tubism’, a reference to his tubular, robotic figures. André Lhote (1885–1962) French painter and theorist who attracted many foreign students including AD and GC. The work of Nicolas Poussin was one of the cornerstones of Lhote’s teaching, as well as the classical foundations of Cézanne’s art. Norman Lloyd (1897–1985) An Australian painter and student of Julian Ashton’s who went to live in France. AD was dismissive about his art since it was a generalised version of popular cubism. Jean Lurçat (1892–1965) A French painter and tapestry designer who began his work in an Art Nouveau style. Settling in Paris in 1912, he was inspired by the fourteenthcentury work of the Paris Tapestry Factories. He was also influenced by Pre-Columbian art, and led a movement back to the first principles in tapestry weaving using coarse materials and reducing the colour range. Roy de Maistre (1894–1968) A modernist painter, originally named Roy de Mestre, who came to Sydney in 1913 to follow his interest in art. He worked with Roland Wakelin (1887–1971), a New Zealand artist who had settled in Sydney in 1912. De Maistre experimented with colour and music and pioneered post-impressionism and cubism in Australia. He changed his name to the French variant, de Maistre, when he went to live in London. François Manevy A writer who established the ‘Section Lyonnaise de Fêtes du Peuple’, the Lyon section of the People’s Festival, in 1920. He also had the gallery Le Salon de Printemps in Nice where Gleizes occasionally exhibited. After the gallery failed, Gleizes invited Manevy to come to Moly-Sabata and he arrived there in October 1929 with his wife. However, he did not get on with either Robert Pouyaud or AD and left after a short stay. Henri Matisse (1869–1954) Painter and sculptor who, along with Picasso, was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. Matisse began his career as a symbolist and then developed a purified art that utilised brilliant colour to achieve emotive effects. With fellow painters he formed the Fauves. Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) A painter who joined the cubists in 1908 and exhibited with them at the Salon des Indépendants. He was also a member of the Section d’Or, a group of artists established by Jacques Villon that was an off-shoot of orphism. Marcel Michaud Owner of the Folklore Gallery, 23 rue Thomassin, Lyon and the Galerie Mai in Paris, he was also publisher of the journal Sud-Est. Michaud supported contemporary painters and was a good friend of AD’s. Fairy Mills Anne Dangar’s second cousin.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 339

Personae

339

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Spanish Surrealist painter who came to Paris and was associated with Picasso. In 1937 he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The Modern Art Centre Established by Dorrit Black in 1932, it was an art school and exhibition space in a converted warehouse in Margaret Street, Sydney. The centre— with three rooms upstairs for artists’ studios, a front room used as an exhibition space, and a studio in which evening sketch classes were held—had about eleven exhibitions, the last in October 1933. Captain Montantême A follower of Gleizes’ teaching and a good friend of AD’s, he was also an admirer of Gandhi. He came to Moly-Sabata to learn weaving and commissioned many works from AD. Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones (1886–1922) A painter and draftsman who studied in Sydney and London, he and his wife conducted joint art classes in Sydney until c.1906. Général & Madame Noguès Général Noguès was the Résident Général for the French Government in Morocco. His wife was interested in Moroccan craft and wanted to preserve its character and make it economically productive. orphism Originated by Robert Delaunay in 1912–13, orphism was a movement that included the artists Picabia, Duchamp and Léger. Its aim was to achieve ‘pure painting’ through simultaneous contrasts of colour. Delaunay based his theory on Eugène Chevreul’s nineteenth-century publication De la loi des contrastes simultanés des couleurs, which demonstrated how colours could change when they were juxtaposed with other colours. Jean-Marie Paquaud (??–1989) A local potter who initially worked with Henri Bert at la Poterie des Chals and who took over as owner after Bert’s death in 1955. AD sometimes used to fire her pots at his pottery and also commissioned him to throw large pots for her, which he did over a period of twenty years. The pottery is still in operation today, with AD’s designs for pots attached to the wall next to the potter’s wheel. Monsieur & Madame Pascal A potter, Pascal was a follower of Albert Gleizes. He exhibited with the Abstraction–Création group and spent some time at Moly with his wife, a weaver. Louis Pegeron A farmer and AD’s friend. AD taught his son Louis and daughter Marinette, who still live on the quai du Rhône at Sablons. Henri-Philippe Pétain (1856–1951) French Prime Minister in 1940, he signed a treaty with Nazi Germany that removed the seat of government to Vichy in the south of France. There he led a repressive pro-Fascist regime and at the end of the war was sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter and sculptor who has become arguably the most famous artist of the twentieth century. Picasso came to Paris as a young man in the early 1900s, where he met Braque. Together they founded and developed the cubist movement between 1910–16. Edouard Pignon (1905–??) A popular painter who worked in Paris from 1926 onwards, he was influenced by Fernand Léger and by Picasso’s expressionist mode


340

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 340

Earth, Fire, Water, Air and his work full of colour. He also executed murals and monumental sculpture, and in 1966 wrote a book called La quête de la réalité [The search for reality].

Jules Pignoud A famous Belgian potter, and associate of the artists Gischia, Fougeron, Singier and Bazaine. In 1951 Picasso asked Pignoud to work with him at the Vallauris pottery. AD was scathing about Picasso’s pottery decorations. John Piper (1903–??) A British artist who wrote reviews for the Listener and Nation from 1928 onwards. He became part of the abstract movement initiated by Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, and travelled to Paris in 1933 where he was influenced by Braque, Léger, Brancusi and Helion. Jacques & Bilou (née Lecaisne) Plasse Weavers who came to Moly-Sabata in 1934 but were not interested in Gleizes’ theories nor in teaching Lucie their craft. They returned to Paris in April 1935. Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) A French classical painter important to early modernist theorists, such as André Lhote, who were influenced by the architectonic construction in his heroic paintings. Robert Pouyaud (1901–1970) A painter and Gleizes’ major disciple, he came with his wife Cécile and their family to Moly-Sabata in 1927. He illustrated Gleizes’ theoretical books and instructed AD in the design of pochoirs for Gleizes. AD used to refer to him as St François. After he and his family left Moly-Sabata he went to live at Asnières-sous-Bois in the Yonne valley, near Vézelay Cathedral. Jacques Povolozky Gleizes’ art dealer in Paris, he had a gallery in rue de la Böetie and also published a number of Gleizes’ books. Margaret Preston (1875–1963) Famous Australian painter and printmaker who used native flora and Aboriginal motifs in her work. AD disliked her work because it wasn’t sufficiently abstract and because she thought it too decorative. Thea Proctor (1879–1966) Sydney artist and designer who was very influential in the field of printmaking and design. She designed covers for stylish magazines such as Home and was noted for her own aesthetic appearance. Although Proctor was an advocate of modernism, AD disliked her work and referred to it as ‘fashion plate’. John B. Pye A friend of AD’s and fellow student at the Julian Ashton Art School, he visited AD in France during 1935. Jules Roche (1841–1923) Father of Juliette Gleizes, Roche was a wealthy French politician said to have interests in the Panama Canal. He was a Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance during the Third Republic, Mayor of Serrières, and from 1871 Député of Serrières. Roche mixed in artistic circles and was godfather to Jean Cocteau. Juliette inherited his properties, including the large house in Serrières. Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French novelist, dramatist, musicologist and biographer, he attempted to combine art with social commentary. A champion of Wagner’s music, in 1903 he became Professor of Musical History at the Sorbonne. He published many books including Théatre de la revolution and Vie de Beethoven (1903), Vie de Michel-Ange (1905), Haendel (1910), Vie de Tolstoy (1911), Tragedies de la foir (1913), and Mahatma Gandhi (1923). During World War I he denounced national and economic corruption, which he claimed had caused the war, but abandoned his pacifist stance.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 341

Personae

341

Paul Rosenberg The Parisian art dealer of the cubist artists, and director of la Galérie Paul Rosenberg at 21 rue de la Böetie, Paris. He exhibited the work of Matisse, Braque, Picasso and Marie Laurencin. The first exhibition of cubist work was held at the Salon des Indépendants in 1910 when Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger and Henri le Fauconnier exhibited together. Rosenberg was dedicated to cubism and supported cubist artists during the difficult years of World War I. Georges Rouault (1871–1958) A pupil of the painter Gustave Moreau, he painted religious themes in an expressionist manner. Between 1906 and 1914 he concentrated on ceramics but changed to printmaking from then onwards. ‘Fifine’ Rouveyre She and her husband Gustave kept the inn at Mirmande where AD and GC stayed in 1926 when they were students. AD continued to stay with her whenever she visited Mirmande. Frank Rutter (1866–1934) A British critic for the Sunday Times. Salon des Réalités Nouvelles A centre for Geometric Abstraction founded in 1947 with Fredo Sides as president, which included in its membership Albert Gleizes, Jean Arp, Sonia Delaunay, Jean Chevalier, Auguste Herbin, Frantisek Kupka and L. Moholy-Nagy. Madame & Monsieur Schaeffer The managers of a hotel and cinema at Serrières on the opposite bank to Moly-Sabata. The Schaeffers were close friends of AD’s who supported her pottery and gave her the commission to decorate the walls of their hotel. The hoteliers’ daughter Yvette, a student of AD’s, helped her paint the murals of the large dining hall of her parents’ hotel. Marc Séguin (1786–??) Séguin and his brother Camille, inventors of the suspension bridge, were born in Annonay. AD decorated some commemorative plates with images of their bridge that spans the Rhône at Sablons/Serrières. They were also involved with the invention of the train. Michel Seuphor (1901–1954) Painter and author who published L’art abstrait: ses origines ses premiers maitres (1949), Piet Mondrian (1957), La sculpture de ce siècle (1959), and Le style et le cri (1965). A prominent art historian and a member of many artistic groups, he also wrote novels, poetry, plays, history and essays. He was active in the formation of the Abstraction–Création group. Fredo Sides An antique dealer who originated les Réalités Nouvelles, initially a constructivist exhibition that he organised in 1939 with Mme Van Doesburg at the Galerie Charpentier, Paris. In 1946 Sides opened the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, a centre for geometric abstraction where the artists Jean Arp, Sonia Delaunay, Albert Gleizes and Anton Pevsner exhibited. John Singleton The brother-in-law of AD. Ruby Singleton, née Dangar (1878–??) AD’s sister who lived on the family farm at Mondrook, New South Wales with her children and husband John. Capitaine & Madame Steinbach Patrons of AD’s, during the war years they drove her secretly to Roussillon so that she could continue her pottery, as aliens were not allowed to leave their place of residence in Occupied France. AD also stayed with the Steinbachs at Roussillon, and was Godmother to their son Daniel.


342

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 342


Florence Sulman (1876–1965) An author and promoter of the arts and crafts in Australia, she was president of the Society of Arts & Crafts from 1920. Her well-known Popular Guide to the Wildflowers of New South Wales was published in 1914 (2 volumes, illustrated by Eirene Mort). She was also a pioneer in the kindergarten movement. Dom Angelico Surchamp (1924– ) Born at Troyes, Surchamp is a Dominican monk, painter and mural artist who still lives at the Benedictine Monastery of l’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire, St Léger Vauban. He entered the Dominican order in the early 1940s after having worked with the sculptor Henri Charlier. He later worked with Albert Gleizes and Jean Chevalier at les Méjades. He began painting frescoes and studied with René Burlet at Aix-les-Bains and Chambéry in 1950. After his ordination he founded the Atelier Cœur-Meurtry at Vézelay. He was a follower of Albert Gleizes and a close friend of AD’s, with whom he corresponded regularly and commissioned to make ritual pottery for the monastery. In the years prior to AD’s death Dom Angelico became her father confessor. He published an edited version of his correspondence from AD, Anne Dangar: Lettres à la Pierre-qui-Vire, in 1972. Graham Sutherland (1903–1980) A British artist who was originally an etcher, he began painting in c.1932 and developed a very personal surreal style. He was a war artist during World War II and from 1947 onwards visited the south of France every year before finally settling there in 1956. Florence Mary Taylor (1879–1969) Printmaker, etcher, editor, journalist, architect, engineer and patron of the arts. She designed about fifty houses in the Sydney suburbs of Mosman, Neutral Bay and Darling Point. Témoignages This anti-Surrealist group, which included Albert Gleizes, César Geoffray and Jean Chevalier, formed in 1936 and exhibited at the Folklore Gallery, Lyon. Témoignages (1942– ) A journal translated as Witness and published by the Dominican order at l’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire, Saint-Leger Vauban. It is edited by AD’s friend Dom Angelico Surchamp.

Sydney Ure Smith (1887–1949) Sydney publisher and artist who in 1916 co-founded the major art periodical Art in Australia followed in 1920 by Home, a stylish magazine espousing modernist values. Georges Valmier (1885–1937) A theorist who contributed to the evolution of cubism. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants from 1911 onwards, designed the cover for the Bulletin de l’Effort Moderne published by Léonce Rosenberg, and made masks for Marinetti’s Futurist Theatre. A follower of Cézanne, his work later became abstract and he contributed to Abstraction–Création exhibitions. He was also a fine musician and sang in religious choirs. Moës Verrot A neighbour of AD’s who used to transport her pots to be fired at Roussillon. His daughter Jeanne Verrot still lives in Sablons and is known as Nenette. Jacques Villon [aka Gaston Duchamp] (1875–1963) A brother of Raymond Duchamp Villon and Marcel Duchamp, he often worked in the studio of his friend Albert Gleizes. He also founded the Section d’Or, which was a group of orphist painters.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 343

Personae

343

Raymond Duchamp Villon (1876–1918) A sculptor and one of the original cubists, his career was cut short by his death in World War I. Belle Walker A student at the Julian Ashton Art School with AD and GC, she also shared houses with them and Dorrit Black at Potts Point and Neutral Bay. ‘Pat’ Weitzel (1902–1932) ‘Pat’ is most likely Frank Weitzel, a sculptor and printmaker who lived in London and died at a young age. Reginald Howard Wilenski (1887–1975) A British painter, critic and historian.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 344

Glossary A à la Primitif like the Primitive artists (prior to the Renaissance) à table to come to the table abat-jour lamp-shade abbaye abbey abbé abbot académique academic affollées crazy alliance connection les alliés the Allies allumettes matches alors then/so aménagement management amie friend ammeublements furniture an year Anglais English anthropologue anthropologist aôut August apprentissage apprenticeship d’après after/in imitation of arbre tree l’arc-en-ciel rainbow armé de la resistance the resistance army arriver to arrive/come l’art murale mural painting l’art sacré religious art artiste artist les arts plastique the arts atelier studio au at/to the

au debut at the beginning au fond at the bottom/back au revoir goodbye aujourd’hui today auto stop hitch-hiking autorité authority d’autre fois earlier times avec with avion aeroplane avril April

B bab Arabic gate Les Baigneuses The Bathers (title of a painting) baiser kiss banal/banale banal barbuches Moroccan slippers beaucoup a lot les Beaux Arts the fine arts bec mouthpiece beignets French cakes made of choux pastry beignoir bath tub belle beautiful belle saison festive season bénitier baptismal font benzine petrol Berbére native population of Morocco bête stupid, animal bêtes animals


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 345

Glossary bibliothèque library biches large milk jugs/pitchers bien good blanc white blanchiseuse launderess les blasons coat of arms bleu, blanc et rouge blue, white and red (the colours of the French flag) les Boches the Germans (slang term used during WWII) bocks tumblers boire drink bois forest bombardements bombing bombe atomique atom bomb bon/bonne good bon courage good luck le bon Dieu the good Lord bon points vouchers bonbonnières chocolate/sweet boxes bonne santé good health bonté goodness bottes boots boulangerie bakery bouton d’or daisies brioche bun/cake brodeuse embroiderer burnous Moroccan cape buvette drinking fountain

C cadeau gift café au lait white coffee cafetières coffee pots cahiers exercise book Caid district administrator calculs sums/additions camion truck canons mitrailleuse machine guns capitaine captain caractère personality cardon Swiss chard carnaval carnival carreaux squares carte blanche a free hand carte d’identitée identity card causeries talks cave cellar centimètres centimetres

345

centre artisanal artists’ colony/craft centre centre de table centrepiece céramique ceramics cerises cherries c’est it is/that is chansons songs charbon du bois wood coal charmant pleasing/charming château castle chef chief/director chef d’oeuvre masterpiece chemin path/road chérie dear/darling chevaux horses chez lui/elle/eux at his/her/their place un chinae China tea chomage unemployment Choulh, Chleuh southern Berber from the high Anti-Atlas or plains chrétien Christian ciment cement classe class clients clients cloisonnées bronze inlaid with enamel clos enclosure/yard coeur heart coffres chests col glue colis postale parcel post combinaison underwear comme like comme ça like this compagnons friends/companions congrès conference connaisseuse authority contre-bandiers smugglers convoqués called together coup d’œil a glance coupes cup (European cup more like a bowl) courage courage courbe arc cours course/lectures couvent convent création creation crèche nativity scene creuse pitcher croisée convert croix cross Croix-Rouge Red Cross


346

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 346


cuisine kitchen cuisinier cook/stove cuisson firing curé priest cuvette handbasin cypres cypress

D dabba sbah good morning dabba masha good evening dames et messieurs ladies and gentlemen dans le temps in time de/des of décembre December décorateurs decorative painters défendu forbidden défense defence déférence politeness déjà already demain tomorrow demi sec leather hard demodés old-fashioned/superannuated dentelle en laine woollen lace derrière behind dessinateur draftsman dessous de plat plate rests devenu become Dieu God difficile difficult dix ten doctrinale doctrinal douane customs douce sweet

E l’eau water école school écuelle bowl église church elle she éloge eulogy embrasser to kiss/greet l’empreinte print/impression en bas below en ce moment at this time en terre in terracotta enfant child

engobe a slip made of liquid clay placed on pots before they are decorated ensemble together époque period/era équilibre balance équippages horses and carriages essence petrol est-ce is it et and l’état the state état d’esprit state of mind étoffes appliquées appliqué fabrics étrangère stranger évènement event exposition exhibition

F facile easy fagots bundles of firewood fas spade Fassi inhabitant of Fez félicitations congratulations femme woman femme de ménage housekeeper ferme farm fête feast/festival feu fire février February fezs Moroccan hats fichu shawl fidèle faithful fin end fleuve river fluvial fluvial fondouk inn, storehouse formidable formidable, wonderful four kiln fraises du bois wild strawberries frère brother fresques frescoes fricassé fried meat fromage cheese fromage blanc soft white creamy cheese

G galanterie gallantry gamme des couleurs range of colours garance pigment from the madder root gare railway station


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 347

Glossary gâteries indulgences gauche left gens people gentil good/kind gomme arabique gum arabic (ingredient for gouaches) grande grille big iron gate grand/grande great/large grande pièce living room/reception room grange barn grenier loft grès stoneware grippe influenza/a cold gros big/large grottes grottos

H haik Moroccan cloak haricots beans hauteur high hélas alas heure hour hommage homage/respect homme man horlogier watch-maker humaine human

I ici here il he iles islands illuminures illuminations Indes India indispensable indispensable intéréssé interested itinéraires guidebooks inutile useless

J jaloux jealous jardinière flower pot jaune yellow janvier January jellabya (djellaba) wool or cotton hooded cloak jeune young jour day journée day

347

juillet July juin June jusqu’au as far as juste tight

K kasbah palace centre and/or fortress of an Arab town

L lait milk lésion lesion/injury lessiveuse copper, boiler lettre letter libre free livre book loi law lotterie nationale national lottery lumière light

M machimyziame bad, ugly mairie town hall mai May mairie town hall mais but maison house maison de campagne country house majestueux majestic mandat order manouvres schemes maquette model/study Maquis French Resistance Marabout holy man, holy man’s tomb marchands dealers marché market marché noir black market maréchal field-marshal le Maroc Morocco les Marocains Moroccans marrons chestnuts mars March martyrizé made a martyr matière grasse fatty foods mauvaises herbes weeds méchants wicked


31/5/02 11:44 AM


348

medersa student residence, teaching annexe for old mosque university medina city (now used for original Arab part of any Moroccan town) méfiant distrusting mémoire memory menusier carpenter merci thank you Meridionaux Southerners merveille miracle métier profession mètres metres mida biscuit box midi noon/south milieu context mission mission mode fashion moi me monde world mort death mouiller wet mouton sheep moyen age middle ages muletiers mule drivers Mullah, Moulay Moroccan sultan, descendent of the Prophet Muhammad musée museum myzianne byzaff very lovely

N nappe serviette naturellement naturally naturisme alternative medicine n’est pas is not n’est-ce pas isn’t it/he/she non no nos our notaire solicitor novembre November nouveaux riche recently wealthy/having bad taste nouvelle new nuit night

O l’occident œil eye

Page 348

the West

l’office du Maroc the Moroccan office otages hostages octobre October ou or oued little river/stream oui yes ouvert open ouvriers workmen

P Pâcques Easter pain bread paix sur la terre peace on earth paniers baskets papa father papier paper papier decoupé collage paquerettes buttercups par avion by air parcours course pas de lettre no letters passée past/in the past passe partout master key patois slang patron chief pays occupé occupied territory peintre painter peinture painting peinture au chevalet easel painting pensées thoughts/philosophy père father petit/petite small petit bois kindling petit chasseur light cavalryman petit dejeuner breakfast Petite Vitesse slow train petits pois peas peut-être maybe pharmacien chemist pièce item une pièta Virgin and Christ (a subject of religious art) pins pine trees placard cupboard place square plage beach plateau tray pleine de bonté full of goodness plié pleated pochettes handkerchiefs


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 349

Glossary pochoirs pocket-sized drawings or gouaches poil hair pois chiches chick peas pommes de terre potatoes porcelaine porcelain/chinaware porte door/gate porte-brosse brush container postière woman at the post office poterie pottery potier potter poudre powder pourboire tips pouvoir power, to be able to préfet commissioner première first présence presence principes principles printemps spring problème problem produits de la guerre results of the war professeur teacher promenade walk propriété property punition punishment pur pure

Q quadrille du pays quadrille (dance) of the region quai quay quartier district

R la raison d’être the reason for being rapide fast/fast train réchaud hot plate/portable stove réclames advertisements récolte harvest règle rule remplacement a substitute rencontre meeting renouveau renovate/renewal réparations repairs repas meal responsable responsible resumés resume/curriculum vitae le retour à la terre a return to the land revue journal

349

roche rock roi king rose pink rossignols nightingales rouge red rouler to roll, to drive route plan/road route nationale national highway rythme rhythm

S sabots clogs sac bag sac-à-main handbag sacs à provisions shopping bags saint-homme saintly man saison season salaam wa-a-licomb Arab greeting salle room salle d’exposition exhibition space salle de fête function room sans without sans fin without end sans initiative a free hand santé health saponaire soapwort savante expert (female) schéma plan/scheme sel salt semaine week septembre September service de thé tea set seulement only sévère severe/harsh sidi, si respectful Arab title for ‘man’, ‘sir’, ‘mister’ signification meaning s’il vous plaît please soir evening soldat soldier sou coin worth five centimes at the time souci worry souk Moroccan marketplace, market quarter source spring/fountain sous-préfet deputy-commissioner spirituelle spiritual sujet à l’index abstract art superbe superb sympathique sympathetic


350

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 350


T

V

tabac tobacco tableau objet abstract painting tant pis never mind tante aunt temporel temporal/earthly temps time tendrement warmly terre land/earth terre de durance earthenware terre rouge ochre tête head têtes à têtes bowls for two thé à la menthe mint tea tissage weaving toilette dressing room tonneau barrel tour tower/wheel tour d’ivoire ivory tower tourneur pottery thrower transformateur electric power transport transport trés very triomphe triumph trois three troisième third trop too much TSF (télégraphie sans fils) wireless tympan de Vézelay portals of Vezelay cathedral

vases de nuits chamber pots vendables saleable venez ici come here vente libre on the open market vernissées glazed terracotta verre glass verseuses coffee pots vert emeraude emerald green la vie est bonne life is good vierge virgin vieux old vignes grape vines ville town/city Ville Sainte Holy City villes ouvertes free cities vin wine vinaigrier vinegar jug violons violins vive long live volontier volunteer voici here is/see here/behold votre your voyageuse traveller (female) vrai really/true

U usines factories

W wagons bestiaux cattle trucks

Y yeux eyes


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 351

Illustrations and Plates Illustrations Anne Dangar in her studio, Moly-Sabata, c.1930s (photographer unknown, private collection, South Australia) Letter to Grace Crowley from Anne Dangar, page 3 (State Library of New South Wales) Letter to Grace Crowley from Anne Dangar, page 5 (State Library of New South Wales) Anne Dangar’s kiln, Moly-Sabata (photograph Julia Topliss) Albert Gleizes’ principles of ‘rotation’ and ‘translation’ Anne Dangar with her class of children at Moly-Sabata (photographer unknown) Anne Dangar teaching at Moly-Sabata, c.1940 (photographer unknown) The balcony, Moly-Sabata (photograph Julia Topliss) The Roche-Gleizes tomb at Serrières cemetery which houses the graves of Anne Dangar and Lucie Deveyle (photograph Julia Topliss) The view of the Rhône from the cemetery at Serrières (photograph Julia Topliss)

ii 7 8 11 13 18 19 23 30 31

Colour plates 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Moly-Sabata seen from the quai du Rhône (photograph Julia Topliss) Moly-Sabata from the garden (photograph Julia Topliss) Nativity Tile, Anne Dangar, from a design by Albert Gleizes, signed l.r. ‘MSGD’, 41 x 34 cm (Fondation Albert Gleizes, Paris) Pochoir Design, Anne Dangar, gouache, 33 x 27 cm, signed l.r. ‘Anne G. Dangar’, 1936, design based on Gleizes’ pochoirs compositions (Fondation Albert Gleizes, Paris) Anne Dangar, a. Plate, signed reverse ‘MSD’, 20.5 cm diam. b. Plate, 20.5 cm diam., unsigned (Fondation Albert Gleizes, Paris; photograph Julia Topliss) Interior of Anne Dangar’s pottery, Moly-Sabata (photograph Julia Topliss) Storage Jar, Anne Dangar, 40.5 h x 84.5 circ., unsigned (Fondation Albert Gleizes, Paris; photograph Julia Topliss) Storage Jar, Anne Dangar, 56 h x 83.5 cm circ., signed ‘MSD’ on base (MolySabata; photograph Julia Topliss)


352

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 352


9. Milk Jug, Anne Dangar, 36.5 h x 19 cm circ. (Fondation Albert Gleizes, Paris; photograph Julia Topliss) 10. Wine Jug, Anne Dangar, 30.5 h x 61 cm circ., signed inside neck ‘MSD’ (MolySabata; photograph Julia Topliss) 11. Adoration Platter, Anne Dangar, design based on a painting by Albert Gleizes, 114 cm diam., signed ‘MSD’ on back (Moly-Sabata; photograph Julia Topliss) 12. Plate with Cubist Design, Anne Dangar, 38 cm diam., signed ‘MSD’ on front (Moly-Sabata; photograph Julia Topliss) 13. Soup Tureen, Anne Dangar, 31.5 h x 68.5 cm diam., signed ‘MSD’ on base (Moly-Sabata; photograph Julia Topliss) 14. Moly-Sabata Honey Pot, Anne Dangar, 28. 5 h x 64.5 cm circ., unsigned (MolySabata; photograph Julia Topliss) 15. View of Serrières from Moly-Sabata (photograph Julia Topliss) 16. The river Rhône (photograph Julia Topliss) 17. The balcony at Moly-Sabata overlooking the Rhône (photograph Julia Topliss) 18. Sunrise on the Rhône, Sablons (photograph Julia Topliss) 19. Harvest Platter, Anne Dangar (Mme Buard, Sablons; photograph Julia Topliss) 20. Jean Chevalier’s Coffee Pot, Anne Dangar (on loan Art Gallery of South Australia; photograph Julia Topliss) 21. Dom Angelico’s Jugs (decorated with liturgical symbols), Anne Dangar (Dom Angelico Surchamp, Ste Marie-de-Venière, Boyer; photograph Julia Topliss)


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 353

Bibliography Ambrus, Caroline 1984 The Ladies’ Picture Show Hale & Iremonger, Sydney. Appleton, Richard 1986 Collins Milestones in Australian History 1788 to the Present Collins, Sydney. Basedow, Herbert 1925 The Australian Aboriginal F. W. Preece & Sons, Adelaide. Berthon, Laurence 1998 ‘Ceramiques d’Anne Dangar au Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon’ Bulletin des Musées et Monuments Lyonnais Lyon, pp. 24–35. Bordas, Pierre 1985 Grand Guide des Régions de France Bordas, Paris. Brook, Peter 1996 Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century, unpub. ms. Cabanne, Pierre 1979 Dictionnaire Internationale des Arts 2 vols, Bordas, Paris. Chambenat, Gérard 1996 L’aménagement fluvial et la mémoire: parcours d’un anthropologue sur le fleuve Rhône L’Harmattan Inc., Paris. Cliousclat 1993 Poteries et potiers Cliousclat, Drôme. Coomeraswamy, Ananda 1909 ‘Why Exhibit Works of Art?’ in The Indian Craftsman ed. A. Coomeroswamy, Probathain & Co., London. ——1941 Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art Dover Publications, New York. ——1946 Figures of Speech & Figures of Thought Luzac & Co., London. Crestou, Nicole 1992 ‘La poterie des Chals: rencontre avec Jean-Jacques Dubernard’ la Revue de la Céramique et du Verre no. 64, May–June 1992, pp. 13–19. Diehl, Gaston (ed.) 1945 Les problèmes de la peinture Editions Confluences, Lyon. Dubois, André 1971 Anne Dangar et Moly Sabata: les sources chez Albert Gleizes, unpub. ms. Elkin, Adolphus P. 1938 Australian Aborigines: How to Understand Them Angus & Robertson, Sydney. Ellingham, M., Grisbrook, D. & McVeigh, S. 1998 Morocco: The Rough Guide The Rough Guides, London. Flammarion 1985 l’ABCdaire du Maroc, Flammarion, Paris. Fleming, John 1979 The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts Penguin, Middlesex. Gautier, M. 1938 ‘Moly-Sabata’ Art et Decoration no. 67, pp. 293–300. Gee, Malcolm 1981 Dealers Critics and Collectors of Modern Painting Garland Publishing, New York. Geoffray, César 1972 ‘Dix ans de présence à Moly-Sabata’ Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences, Belles Lettres et Arts de Lyon Imprimerie Rey, Lyon, pp. 3–20. ——1983 ‘Dix ans de présence à Moly Sabata’ Chant Choral no. 39. Germaine, Max 1991 A Dictionary of Women Artists of Australia Craftsman House, Sydney.


354

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 354


Gilson, Etienne 1957 Painting and Reality: The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts for 1955 Bollingen Series XXXV 4, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Giriat, H. [n.d.] Memoir of Anne Dangar, unpub. ms., Paris. ——1990 Albert Gleizes à St Rémy, Musée des Alpilles, Ville de Saint-Rémy de Provence. Gleizes, Albert 1921 La vie et la mort de l’occident Chrétien Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons. ——1923 La peinture et ses lois, ce qui devait sortir du cubisme Editions la Vie des Lettres et des Arts, Paris. ——1932 La forme et l’histoire Jacques Povolozky, Paris. ——1933 Art et science Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons. ——1937a Homocentrisme ou le retour de l’homme Chrétien Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons. ——1937b Le rythme dans les arts plastique Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons. ——1938 La signification humaine du Cubisme Editions Moly-Sabata, Sablons. ——1945 ‘Spiritualité, rythme, forme’ in Gaston Diehl (ed.), Les problèmes de la peinture Editions Confluences, Lyon. ——1998 L’homme devenu peintre Somogy Editions d’Art, Paris. Gleizes, Albert & Metzinger, Jean 1912 Du cubisme Editions Figuière, Geneva. Gowing, Lawrence (ed.) 1983 A Biographical Dictionary of Artists 2 vols, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Guénon, René 1927 Le roi du monde Ch. Bosse, Paris. ——1930 Autorité spirituelle et pouvoir temporel Didier & Richard, Paris. ——1957 Le symbol de la croix (3rd edn) Vega, Paris. Hachette 1976 Guide Bleu France Hachette, Paris. Hambidge, Jay 1920 Dynamic Symmetry: The Greek Vase Yale University Press, New Haven. Hamlyn, Paul 1978 Notable Australians: The Pictorial Who’s Who Prestige Publishing Division, Paul Hamlyn, Sydney. Herald & Weekly Times 1944 Who’s Who in Australia Herald & Weekly Times, Melbourne. Heseltine, J. E. 1959 The Oxford Companion to French Literature Clarendon Press, Oxford. Lahaussois, Christine & Pannequin, Béatrice [n.d.] Terres vernissées: sources et traditions Editions Massin, Paris. Lindsay, Lionel 1945 Addled Art Angus & Robertson, Sydney. Massenet, Michel 1998 Albert Gleizes Somogy Editions d’Art, Paris. Montmollin, Daniel de 1965 La poterie Atelier Melottée, Haute Provence. ——[n.d.] Par l’eau et le feu Edition de la Revue de la Céramique et du Verre, Vendein le Vieil. ——et al. 1993 Eloge de l’empreinte Edition de la Revue de la Céramique et du Verre, Vendein le Vieil. Musée de Digne & Musée Départemental de Gap 1995 Terre de durance, céramique de l’antiquité aux temps modernes Ministère de la Culture, Gap. Osborne, Harold 1981 The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art Oxford University Press, Oxford. Phaidon 1973 Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth Century Art Phaidon, London. Rubin, William 1989 Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism Museum of Modern Art, New York. Serle, Geoffrey 1966–90 Australian Dictionary of Biography Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Serle, Percival 1949 Dictionary of Australian Biography 2 vols, Angus & Robertson, Sydney. Surchamp, Dom Angelico ‘Spiritualité du potier’ Témoignages St Leger Vauban, no. XVII, April 1948, pp. 277–84. ——(ed.) 1972 Anne Dangar: Lettres à la Pierre-qui-Vire Visages et Documents 1, Zodiaque, St Leger Vauban.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 355

Bibliography

355

——et al. 1951 ‘Presence d’Albert Gleizes’, Zodiaque: Cahiers de l’atelier du coeurmeurtry, St Leger Vauban, no. 6–7. ——et al. 1952 ‘Le renouveau de la poterie: Anne Dangar Potière’, Zodiaque: Cahiers de l’atelier du coeur-meurtry no. 8, St Léger Vauban. ——et al. 1955 ‘La Belle Journée est passée dernier hommage à Anne G. Dangar et Albert Gleizes’ Zodiaque: Cahiers de l’atelier du cœur-meurtry no. 25, St Léger Vauban. ——et al. 1974 ‘Albert Gleizes’ Zodiaque: Cahiers de l’atelier du cœur-meurtry no. 100, St Léger Vauban. ——et al. 1991 Zodiaque: Cahiers de l’atelier du coeur-meurtry no. 91 (Anne Dangar issue), janvier, St Léger Vauban. (See articles by Marius Cochard, M. Raibaud, Geneviève Dalban.) Topliss, Helen 1996 Modernism and Feminism: Australian Women Artists 1900–1940 Craftsman House, Sydney. White, Richard 1981 Inventing Australia George Allen & Unwin, Sydney.


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 356

Index References to photographs and notes are shown in italics l’Abbaye de la Pierre-qui-Vire, Saint-Léger Vauban, 173 n.15, 317, 331 Aboriginal art, 168, 309, 313–14, 315, 317, 331 Abstraction and Creation (journal), 106, 107, 331 Abstraction-Création Society, 106 n.66, 118, 331 l’Action Française (Catholic newspaper), 64 Ainsworth, Ruth, 122, 138, 139, 144, 158, 331 Alexandre, Susanne, 14 n.41, 55–6, 64, 83–5, 88, 145–6, 155, 168, 171, 175, 176, 254–7, 258, 261, 262, 325, 331 alternative medicine, 58–9, 120–1, 233, 265–6, 285–6, 290, 308, 320 Angelico, Fra, 263, 272 Anjaleras (potter), 299 Annonay fête, 106–9, 111 Annonay Musée, 19–20, 22 n.59, 91, 94, 95 anti-semitism, 64; Morocco, 175, 191–2, 200; World War II, 166, 212, 243, 254, 254 n.6, 279

Apollinaire, Guillaume, 34 n.2 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 5, 103 l’Arche (journal), 132–3, 331 Archibald Prize, 48 Art (journal), 276–7 art critics, 59, 134, 206 Art Gallery of New South Wales, 7, 48 n.32, 109 n.76, 330 Art in Australia (journal), 45 Art Society of New South Wales, 101 n.61 Arts et décoration (journal), 123–4 Ashton, Julian Rossi, 2, 4, 47, 62, 101, 157, 331–2 Ashton, Will, 131, 134, 332 Augustine, Saint, 26, 72, 89, 165–6, 191, 193, 219, 226, 229, 249, 298, 303 Australia, 25, 52, 68–9, 112, 116, 122, 141, 142–3, 151, 156, 168, 218, 224, 237–9 passim, 259, 261, 313 Australian art, 3, 4, 6–8 passim, 15 n.42, 22, 24, 37, 62, 76 n.19, 101–2, 114–15, 131, 134, 206, 249, 252, 265, 278, 315, 322, 329–30; see also Aboriginal art Azrou, Morocco, 195–6


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 357

Index Bach-Sisley, Jeanne, 159, 196, 332 Les Baigneuses (painting), 136 Balson, Ralph, 6, 7, 25, 34, 166, 233, 257, 269–73 passim, 279, 304, 315, 323, 332 Basedow, Herbert, 309 Bayeux Tapestry, 291 Bêchetoille family, 94 n.51, 108–9, 111, 116, 140 bee-keeping, 2, 27, 30, 34, 46, 61, 66, 74, 75, 89, 96, 279 Bellini, Jacopo, 119–20 Bernier, Henri, 14 n.41 Bert, Henri, 16–17, 80 n.28, 126, 137, 139, 173–4, 278, 295, 297, 318, 322, 332 Black, Dorrit, 3, 4, 6, 37, 47, 55, 65, 66, 67 n.7, 71, 82, 101 n.61, 116 n.4, 118, 122, 138, 146, 158, 257, 332 Blake, Florence Turner, 40, 41, 47, 54, 332 Blanchard, Maria, 155 Blanche, Mr (British Consul in Fez), 177, 181, 183, 187, 201, 206, 207–8, 210 Boissonnet, M., 147, 158, 159 Bols, M., 178–9 book illustrations, 79, 80 n.29, 132, 306 n.14 Boujouloud Gardens, Morocco, 187 n.27, 210 Braque, Georges, 34, 135, 136, 154–5, 158, 198–9, 244, 265, 266, 271, 306, 332 ‘The Breastplate of St Patrick’ (poem), 48–9, 50 bricks, 159, 163, 188, 204 Buard family, 143, 264, 266, 319, 321, 328, 332 Buisson, Dr, 128, 133 Bullock, Mr (British Consul in Lyon), 116, 140–1

357

Burdett, Basil, 38, 332 Burlet, René-Marie, 298, 304, 306, 332 Byzantine art, 34, 78, 79 n.26 calligraphy, 78, 103 Camli, Mathilde, 64, 164, 246, 262, 288, 299, 332 Carton, Dr, 59, 290 Catholicism, 13, 23 n.61, 34, 64, 109, 122, 132, 136, 212, 301 Celtic culture, 5, 12, 34, 42–3, 48–9, 50, 70, 77–9, 140, 149, 168, 169, 291, 296 Celtic poetry, 48–9, 50, 59–60, 303 Central School of Art, London, 138 Centre of Instruction, le Péage de Roussilon, 255 Cézanne, Paul, 3, 12, 69, 76, 82 n.32, 115, 131, 291, 332 Chagall, Marc, 243, 332 Charchoune, Serge, 87, 332 Charpentier, Dr, 324, 326 Chartres Cathedral, 223 Chevalier, Jean, 270, 304, 306, 328, 333 children’s classes, 2, 18, 19, 26 n.65, 27–8, 66, 82, 91–2, 96, 97, 98, 101, 110, 148–50, 161, 163, 215–16, 231, 240, 242, 256, 269–70, 297, 298, 301 children’s exhibitions, 97, 108, 152, 162, 218, 256, 257, 288 Christian art, early, 34, 69, 70, 78, 132, 280 Christianity, 19, 34–5, 36, 43, 44, 49, 57, 72, 78, 79, 132, 140, 145, 149–50, 191, 280; see also Augustine, Saint Church of England, 110 Cimabue, 77, 303 de Cissey, Geneviève, 298 Clapier, Dr, 310, 312, 319


358

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 358


clays, see pottery materials Cliousclat, 126, 152, 164–5, 169, 175, 206, 230, 232, 247, 299, 310, 324, 333 Cluny Museum, Paris, 258, 261 colour theory, 27, 37–8, 40–2, 47–8, 53, 57, 72–3, 75–6, 98, 245–6, 276, 294; rainbow, 36 n.6, 132–3, 150, 205 colours, natural earth, 15–16, 132, 192, 234 Columba, Saint, 49, 78 commercial artists, 155 communism, 11, 13, 94, 153, 166, 212, 275 n.36, 290–1 constructive movement, 7, 13, 199, 269 n.28 Coomeraswamy, Ananda, 34, 264 n.21, 272, 288–9, 291, 298, 303, 309, 333 Cooper, Miss, 185, 191, 202, 209, 210 Cornet, Mme, 97–8 Coste family, 66 n.6, 213 Craig, Mrs, 138 ‘Craigielea’, Neutral Bay, NSW, 116 n.4 Creed, Estelle, 46, 47, 51, 52, 54–5, 57, 58, 59, 63, 64, 87, 97, 139, 333 Crouzet, Mlle, 303, 304 Crowley, Grace (‘Smudge’), ix, 2–7 passim, 14, 16, 20, 23–6 passim, 28–9, 40–1, 63, 65 n.5, 67 n.7, 73–4, 86 n.42, 97, 101 n.61, 109 n.76, 112–13, 115, 116 n.4, 125 n.22, 146 n.59, 154, 164, 169 n.6, 174, 182 n.25, 221–2, 226 n.18, 252, 291 n.47, 329–30 Crowley family, 3, 37 n.8, 46 n.24, 282, 333 Crowley/Fizelle School, Sydney, 6–7, 65 n.5 Crucifixion (painting), 100 n.59

cubism see Braque, Georges; Cézanne, Paul; Delaunay, Robert; Gleizes, Albert; Lhote, André; Picasso, Pablo

Dalban (née de Cissey), Geneviève, 298 Dangar, Anne: abandons painting for pottery, 14, 19, 97, 110, 129, 153, 205, 232, 242, 249–50, 300, 318, 32; appearance, ii, 18, 19, 27, 115, 247–8, 329; appointed artistic consultant to Moroccan government, 167–8, 170–1, 237 n.23, 329, 336; concentration camp experience, 213–14; considers return to Australia, 9, 48, 73, 80, 86, 96, 97, 105–6, 112, 114, 134, 137, 156, 160–1, 171, 197, 205, 207, 214, 220, 232–3, 237, 239–42 passim, 244, 245, 247, 249, 251–2, 262, 263, 268, 275 n.35, 278, 282; converts to Catholicism, 23 n.61, 301; death and funeral, 6 n.4, 28–9, 30, 300–2; finances, 3, 20, 26, 38, 45–6, 56, 59–61 passim, 63, 72, 80, 97, 98, 106–7, 111, 139, 141, 150, 156–7, 159–62 passim, 160–1, 166, 174–5, 217–18, 237, 241–2, 245, 247, 249, 251–2, 299, 311, 323–6 passim; health, 28 n.72, 80, 133, 154, 173, 183, 195, 204, 214, 222, 249, 259, 275, 277, 285–6, 300, 310–12 passim, 314, 319–22 passim, 326; life and work, 1–32, 33–5, 63–5, 114–16, 167–9, 211–14, 251–3, 300–1, 327–30; photographs of works, Plates 3–5, 7–14, 19–21 Dangar, Geoff, 238, 239, 282, 333 Dangar, Hastings, 259, 333 Dangar, Ruby, see Singleton, Ruby


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 359

Index Dangar family, 2, 48, 78 n.25, 106, 173 n.16, 199 Degas, Edgar, 97 Delacroix, Eugène, 256 Delarozières, architects, 178–9 Delaunay, Robert, 13, 107, 117, 135, 136, 158, 199, 298, 334 Delaunay, Sonia, 13, 158, 334 Delhomme, M., 16 Denis, Maurice, 54 n.42, 277, 302 n.3, 334 Denison, Miss, 185, 191 Déroudille, René, 28 Deveyle, Lucie, 20–1, 25, 30, 79, 92, 114, 118, 139, 157, 160–1, 195–8 passim, 206, 219, 222, 229, 230, 238, 244, 248, 253, 275, 288, 290, 317, 321, 334; mentioned, 58 n.50, 106, 108, 109, 120, 133, 205, 231, 255, 268, 282, 301, 314; textile art, 63, 97, 127–8, 147, 152, 157, 241, 263, 283, 312, 320, 325 Dobell, William, 257, 274, 278, 315, 334 Dobo, Georges, 12 Dorel, M., 28 Doret family, 238 Dubernard, Jean-Jaques, 16 n.46 Dufy, Raoul, 158, 271, 334 Duivon, Mrs, 128 Duncan, Raymond, 262 dyeing, 68, 155 dynamic symmetry, 12–14; pochoirs, 12, 14, 34, 35, 51–2, 53, 71, 75; rhythmic theories, 5–6, 12–14, 55, 69–70, 72–3, 123, 313; translation and rotation, 12–14 passim, 13, 15, 34, 40–2, 76, 205, 210, 218–19, 265, 266, 267, 268, 276, 293, 297–8, 303, 327; see also spirituality Edwards, Edward R., 14 El Greco, 89, 336

359

Elkin, Adolphus Peter, 309, 313, 334 embroidery, 127, 128; Moroccan, 184, 189, 195, 201, 203, 209 enamels, 76, 148, 258 Etienne, Ririe, 161, 253 Euclid’s Golden Mean, 14 Evatt, Alice (Mary), 7, 142, 334 exhibitions, 7, 79, 126, 127–9, 135–6, 151–2, 154–5, 158, 178, 198–9, 206, 243, 247, 261–2, 270, 274, 283, 299, 303, 304; Art Murale (Avignon, 1949), 298–9, 304; International Exhibition (Paris, 1937), 116, 141, 143, 148, 156, 218, 261; see also children’s exhibitions; pottery exhibitions Fauves, 64 Fez, Morocco, 167 n.2, 176–210 passim Fibonacci, Leonardo Pisano, 14 Fizelle, Rah (‘Fiz’), 6–7, 25, 65 n.5, 66, 67 n.7, 85, 97, 110, 112, 146, 154, 157, 163, 165, 334 folk art, 12, 34, 109, 269, Plates 19–20 folk culture: Annonay fête, 108–9, 269; harvest festival, 328; Moroccan, 181–2, 184, 185, 189, 194, 195, 203, 209; see also Hotel Schaeffer folk dance decorations, 28, 255, 264, 266, 269 folklore and mythology, 34, 42–4 passim, 49, 57, 125, 191, 217, 313, 314 n.26 Folklore Gallery, Lyon, 28, 141 n.50, 249, 251, 262, 275 Fondation Albert Gleizes, 29, 327 food; chemical additives, 221, 223; Moroccan, 183, 185–6, 188, 189, 208; vegetarianism, 52, 58–9, 120–1, 205, 290


360

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 360


Forichon, F., 47, 98 Forot, Charles, 107 n.69 Fournier-Terrassier, Blanche, 159, 246, 299 France-Grande Bretagne Association, Vienna, 273 de la Fresnaye, Roger, 135, 334 Fresques de St Savin (book), 173, 247 Fry, Roger, 102, 334 funerary pot, 16–17, 174, 318 furniture, 147–8, 242, 261, 273 Gabo, Naum, 269 n.28 Galerie Lafayette, 190 Galerie Mai, Paris, 268, 269 Gandhi, Mahatma, 34, 49, 50, 51, 111, 335 gardens and gardening: Moly-Sabata, 2, 10, 18, 27, 34, 37, 47, 66, 74–5, 81, 89, 92–3, 96, 104, 137, 172–3, 196, 218, 219, 221, 225, 231–3 passim, 250, 259, 280–3 passim, 288, 305, 310–11, 326; Morocco, 176–8 passim, 186–7, 210 Gauguin, Paul, 78 n.24, 109, 335 de Gaulle, Charles, 213, 235, 253 Geoffray, César, 20, 60–1, 69, 72, 75, 79, 90, 100, 128, 206, 335 Geoffray family, 19, 20, 45, 50, 59, 63, 66–7, 68, 74–5, 79, 87–90 passim, 92, 95–6, 100, 114, 118, 128, 129, 196–7, 206, 310 George V, 50, 116, 140–1, 181–2 Gibbons, Henry, 62, 160, 274, 335 Gibson, Mrs, 45, 46, 55, 56, 83 Gide, André, 212, 335 Gilson, –, 298, 303 Giriat, Henri, 327, 335 Gischia, Léon, 271, 335 glazes, see pottery materials Gleizes, Albert, 335–6; character, 56, 64, 90, 91, 100, 105, 117, 119, 120,

169, 212, 234–5, 241–2, 291, 305–6, 329; paintings, 3–4, 38, 100 n.59, 118, 127, 135–6, 154–5, 229, 231, 243, 271, 273–4, 299, 302, 306, Plates 3, 4, 11; see also dynamic symmetry; Moly-Sabata; le retour à la terre; spirituality Gleizes, Albert, writings and lectures, 71, 122, 165–6, 216, 232, 243, 293–4; Art et Science (1933), 106, 117; ‘Art of the Medieval and Renaissance Periods’ (lecture, 1938), 159; La forme et l’histoire (1932), 5–6, 12 n.36, 80–1, 98, 114, 117, 119, 140, 150, 210, 216; Homocentrisme ou le retour de l’homme Chrétien (1937), 15 n.43, 165, 224, 266, 267, 328; La peinture et ses lois (1923), 12 n.38, 62, 133, 267, 293; Le rythme dans les arts plastique (1937), 309; ‘Le secret de l’art religieux’ (lecture, 1936), 150; La signification humaine du Cubisme (1938), 313; ‘Spiritualité, rythme, forme’ (1945), 313; La vie et la mort de l’occident Chrétien (1923), 199, 227, 265, 267 Gleizes, Juliette, 4, 336; as artist, 25 n.63, 53, 54 n.42, 141; character, 25–6, 45, 65, 81, 85–6, 103, 150–1, 153, 163, 243, 292–3, 310, 318–19, 327, 329; relations with AD, 17–18, 20, 25, 46, 62, 67, 73–4, 88–90 passim, 95, 99–100, 104–5, 112–13, 114, 118–19, 146–8, 157, 160–3 passim, 215–16, 226, 273, 314–15 ‘Glen Riddle’, Barraba, NSW, 2, 133 n.36, 188, 216, 218, 282 Glennie School, Toowoomba, Qld, 46, 48, 51–2 Gobelin, Jean, 261 Gray, Ellen, 86, 97


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 361

Index Greenwood, Professor, 122 Gregorian chants, 70, 78, 79 Grelin, André, 47, 52–3, 61, 336 grey line, 119, 132, 276, 306 n.12 Grimaud, Gaston, 108, 116, 140, 144, 170, 234, 241, 336 Grimaud, Maurice, 167, 170, 171, 176, 177, 190, 228, 329, 336 Grimaud family, 144, 170, 220, 234, 241, 246, 301, 329, 336 Gris, Juan, 135, 136, 155, 199, 262, 336 Gromaire, Marcel, 261, 337 Grüner, Elioth, 156, 337 Guénon, René, 34, 43, 50, 60, 70, 72, 200–1, 201, 296, 337 Guillaume, Paul, 228 Hall, Nancy, 55, 71, 158, 337 Hambidge, Jay, 14 Hay, Dr, 290 Herbin, Auguste, 107, 135, 337 Hindu Art, 34 Hinduism, 3, 34, 43, 44, 264, 266 Hitler, Adolf, 117, 166, 212 Home (magazine), 131 homoeopathy, see alternative medicine Hone, Evie, 39 n.13, 41 n.15, 46, 48–50 passim, 53, 56, 58, 59, 61, 63, 70–3 passim, 76, 77–9 passim, 109, 112, 118, 122, 138, 143, 150, 168, 216, 229, 234, 243, 262, 269, 270, 284, 289, 303, 304, 337 Hotel Schaeffer, 4, 277, 304; café and restaurant, 158–9, 161–2, 163; salle de fêtes and cinema, 27–8, 252, 255, 263, 264, 266, 269, 271, 275, 280, 281 Hoyack, Louis, 119, 337 India, 34, 43, 44, 49, 50, 51, 111, 335 industrial art, 155

361

industrialism, 11, 57, 103, 121, 133, 168–9, 193–4, 199, 211–12, 217, 219–23 passim, 246, 280 n.40 interior design, 261–1; Moly-Sabata, 39, 87, 273–4, 278, 321–2; see also Hotel Schaeffer International Exhibition (Paris, 1937), 116, 141, 143, 148, 156, 218, 261 Ireland, 59, 78–9, 122, 168; see also Celtic culture Ironside, Mr (Tate Gallery director), 273, 274 Israels, Madeleine, 63, 85–8 passim, 95, 100 Italian Primitives, 154, 155 Jellett, Mainie, 41 n.15, 46, 47, 49–50, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 70–3 passim, 76, 78–9, 96, 102–3, 118, 122, 138, 150, 168, 216, 229, 243, 269, 270, 294, 303, 337 jewellery, 247 Jews, see anti-semitism Johnson, Robert, 37 Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney, 2, 4, 101, 331 kilns, 9–10, 11, 16, 67, 77, 157, 188, 196, 206, 217, 234, 252, 275, 278, 281, 284–7 passim, 297, 304, 322 La Borne, 248–9 La Pouldu, Brittany, 78 n.24 Lambert, George Washington, 109 n.76, 249, 273, 337 Lange, Eleonore, 7 language, 21, 179, 181, 184–5, 204, 217–18, 222, 226, 236, 237, 307 Latour, M., 246 Laurencin, Marie, 139, 155, 198, 199, 337 Lawsons, Sydney, 45


362

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 362


lectures, 71, 82, 102, 122, 150, 159, 165–6, 256–7, 273, 274, 304 Léger, Fernand, 13, 135, 136, 198, 199, 299, 338 Leppik, Lydia, 255, 260–1, 263, 265–6 Lhote, André, 3, 7, 13–14, 41, 42, 55, 62, 69, 117, 123–4, 125 n.22, 126, 128, 130–1, 135, 136, 152, 155, 164, 174, 175, 231, 243–4, 262, 271, 288, 294, 298, 299, 310, 338 Libert family, 315 Lindsay, Lionel, 64 Lloyd, Edith, 141 Lloyd, Norman, 182, 184, 338 London University, 122 Lornet, Mme, 225 La lumiére du moyen age, 295 Lurçat, Jean, 261, 338 McMillan, Chloe, 309 Magasins de Printemps, French department stores, 172 La Maison Drouet, 123 de Maistre, Roy, 118, 138, 338 Manevy, François, 12, 20, 35, 37, 38, 44, 338 Maquis (French Resistance), 213, 252, 253–5, 278–9 de Maratray, M., 81 de Marquette, Dr, 120–1 Marrakesh, Morocco, 192–4 Marthouret, Mlle, 278 Martin, Jacques, 253 Martin, M. (decorator), 159, 161, 163, 231 Matisse, Henri, 34, 155, 265, 266, 271, 338 medieval art, 119–20, 129, 132–3, 136, 145, 159, 180, 265, 267, 276–7, 280, 298, 306 n.12 metaphysics: matter, 117, 119; space and time, 119, 166, 293–4;

time, 35–6, 116–17, 119, 134, 142–3, 166, 276, 280, 293–4 Metzinger, Jean, 124, 135, 244, 338 Meyer, Abbé André, 58 Michaud, Marcel, 28, 141, 262, 268, 269, 275, 277, 338 Mills, Fairy, 106, 112, 154 n.67, 155, 156–7, 160, 218, 219, 241, 259, 263, 270, 277, 338 Mills, John Burne, 199 Mirmande, 3, 125 n.22, 126, 152, 164, 174, 175, 230–1, 232, 236, 244, 246, 288, 292, 295, 299, 307–8, 310, 311, 325 Miró, Joan, 269, 275, 298, 339 Missingham, Hal, 330 La mission des Indes (Saint Yves), 42–3 Modern Art Centre, Sydney, 6, 65 n.5, 80, 101 n.61, 339 Moly-Sabata, ii, 1, 19, 23, 46–7, 153, 196–7, 198, 216, 254, 273–4, 304, Plates 15–18; Gleizes’ vision, 1, 10–12, 46–7, 133, 204, 220; house, 9–10, 17, 22, 23, 29, 33, 39, 87, 156–7, 220, 225, 236, 238–9, 248, 273–4, 282–3, 311–12, 321–2; name, 10, 95; revisited, 8–10, 21–2, 25, 29–32; see also gardens and gardening Moly-Sabata pottery, 9–10, 11, 16, 67, 157, 160, 196, 217, 226, 234, 245, 252–3, 263, 275, 277–8, 281, 283, 284–7 passim, 297, 304, 305, 314–15, 317 Moly-Sabata residents see Deveyle, Lucie; Geoffray family; Manevy, François; Plasse family; Pouyaud, Robert Mondrian, Piet, 13, 275–6, 309 Mongolfier family, 94 n.51, 108 Montantême, Capitaine, 296, 339


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 363

Index de Montmollin, Daniel, 1 n.1, 26–7 Moore-Jones, Horace Millichamp, 53, 339 Moroccan architecture, 168–9, 176–8 passim, 182, 200, 207–8, 215 Moroccan culture: costume, 181–2, 184, 185, 189, 194, 195; rituals and ceremonies, 180–1, 184, 185–6, 190, 201–2, 207–10 Moroccan gardens, 176–8 passim, 187 n.27, 210 Moroccan pottery, 167–8, 178–80 passim, 188–9, 197, 205, 209 Moroccan textiles, 180, 195, 201, 203–4, 209 Moroccan women, 180, 182–5 passim, 187, 189–90, 201–2, 208–9, 231 Moulay Idriss, Morocco, 168, 177 n.19, 203–4, 214–15 Moulay Idriss Mosque, 200, 202–3, 223 Moutonet, Mlle Garnier, 128 murals, 141, 218, 243, 256; Art Murale exhibition (Avignon, 1949), 298–9, 304; St Savin, 132, 173, 247, 258, 261, 291; see also Hotel Schaeffer Musée de Beaux Arts, Lyon, 328 Musée de Céramique, Faienza, Italy, 322 Musée de St Etienne, 322 music, 70, 78, 79, 102, 116; Moroccan, 179, 209, 210 My First 2000 Years (book), 60 naturisme, see alternative medicine Naugard, Best, 27 Neagoe family, 288, 299, 325 Nicholas, M., 59, 60, 61, 76, 77 Noah’s ark, ii, 29, 127, 128, 132–3, 134 Noguès, Madame, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 194, 196, 203, 339

363

non-representative art, 56, 69, 78, 103, 138, 169, 197, 269, 290, 293, 305 Nounez, Pierre, 254 n.5, 258, 262 Nounez, Susanne, see Alexandre, Susanne Observer (newspaper), 143 O’Connor, Ailsa, 138 n.46 Omar Kayyam, 252, 305, Plate 6 orphism, 13, 339 Oxford Movement, 109, 121–2 panels and plaques, 141, 146–8, 158, 218, 242, 247, 272; Noah’s ark plaque, 127, 128, 132–3; Virgin panel, 123, 127, 128 Le Pape et l’Empereur, Autorité spirituel et pouvoir temporel (painting), 302 Paquaud, Jean-Marie, 16–17, 283 n.43, 313, 314, 318, 339 Pascal, Blaise, 306 n.14 Pascal family, 263, 270, 272, 339 Pasley family, 85 n.40 Patrick, Saint, 48–9, 50 Pegeron family, 143, 266, 319, 321, 327–8, 339 Les pensées de Pascal, 306 Pétain, Henri-Philippe, 211, 212, 227, 228, 339 pets, 20, 54, 80, 83, 93, 96, 97, 98, 157, 172, 198, 205, 218, 224, 230, 234, 241, 244, 248, 281, 290, 319 Picasso, Pablo, 34, 117, 124, 135, 136, 155, 158, 198–9, 243, 244, 257, 265, 266, 271, 274, 291, 306, 339 pictorial space, 12–13, 115, 124, 131, 131 n.28, 294, 306 n.12 Pignault, M., 15, 19, 130 Pignon, Edouard, 271, 339–40 Pignoud, Jules, 15, 340


364

31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 364


Piper, John, 274, 340 Pissarro, Camile, 54 Plasse family, 104–5, 111, 127, 128, 129, 340 Plato, 72, 219 pochoirs, 12, 14, 34, 35, 51–2, 53, 55, 61, 71, 75, Plate 4 potteries, 55–6, 83–4, 246–7, 248–9; see also Cliousclat; Moly-Sabata pottery; Moroccan pottery; Roussillon; St Désirat pottery, Plates 3, 7–14, 19–21; French traditional, 1, 14–17, 19–20, 22, 26–7, 44, 61, 64, 83–4, 91, 130, 173, 245, 248–9, 300, 318; Moroccan, 167–8, 178–80 passim, 179, 188–9, 197, 205, 209; tiles, 127, 242, 247; see also kilns; panels and plaques; potteries; pottery design and decoration; pottery materials pottery design and decoration, 7, 8, 17, 19–20, 24, 64–5, 104–5, 245, 299, 324; Celtic, 296; cubist, 15, 28, 64–5, 75–6, 93, 128, 151, 171, 172, 291, Plates 3, 12; folk (harvest platter, 328, Plate 19); funerary pot, 16–17, 174, 318; Moroccan, 168–9, 186, 205, 219, 303; Zodiac sundial, 242, 247, 248–9 pottery exhibitions, 72, 91, 94, 96, 97, 98, 103–4, 106–9, 111–12, 126–9, 130, 151–2, 163, 206, 231, 232, 242, 247, 249, 251, 261–2, 268, 269, 292, 297, 322 pottery materials: clays, 16, 68, 84, 94, 141, 171, 188, 317, 321; glazes, 15–16, 19, 90, 247, 248, 272, 317–18; salt glaze, 247, 248 pottery sales and orders, 59–60, 94, 96, 98, 106–7, 109, 111, 126, 128, 139–40, 152, 163, 174–5, 206, 231,

232, 236, 239, 242, 244, 245, 247, 259, 280, 314, 320–2 passim, 324–5 Poulain, M., 87–9 passim Poussin, Nicolas, 55, 256, 340 Pouyaud family, 20, 35 n.4, 39, 44–5, 288, 289 Pouyaud, Robert (‘St François’), 5, 12, 14–15, 35–8, 40–1, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 56, 64, 71, 95, 98, 102, 113, 118, 138, 141, 200–1, 227, 270, 271, 289, 296, 298, 303, 304, 306, 340 Povolozky, Jacques, 76, 77, 340 Preston, Margaret, 156, 340 Les problèmes de la peinture, 313 Proctor, Thea, 109, 118, 340 Pye, John, 109, 125–6, 145–6, 239, 340 Rabat, Morocco, 167 n.3, 176–7, 214–15 Raibaud, M., 274, 280 rainbow, 36 n.6, 132–3, 150, 205 Red Cross, 213, 227, 230, 237 Régénération (magazine), 49 regional potteries, see potteries religious art, 144, 243, 245, 276–7; see also Celtic culture; Christian art, early; medieval art; spirituality Renaissance art, 116, 123, 133, 169, 199, 222, 223 le retour à la terre, 11–12, 22, 47, 81, 133, 201, 205, 210, 221–2, 227, 230, 235; see also industrialism Rhône, river, 30–1, 31, 33, Plates 15–18; floods, 10, 58, 214, 236, 238–9, 241, 282, 317 Richter, Irma, 14 Rivière, Marcelle, 288, 299, 310 Roche, Jules, 17, 99–100, 121, 228, 340 Roche, Juliette, see Gleizes, Juliette Roche-Gleizes tomb, 28, 30


31/5/02 11:44 AM

Page 365

Index Le roi du monde (Guénon), 43, 50, 60, 201, 296 Rolland, Romain, 49, 212, 340 Romanesque art, 5, 12, 69–70, 115, 119, 132 n.31, 169, 173 n.14, 280 n.40 Rosenberg, Paul, 76, 135–6, 341 Rouault, Georges, 271, 341 Roussillon, 8 n.29, 9, 16, 28, 80, 88 n.46, 91, 115, 166, 286, 314, 321, 324 Rouveyre, ‘Fifine’, 169–70, 175, 206–7, 230, 232, 244, 246, 288, 292, 295, 299, 307, 308, 310, 311, 325, 341 Rudé, Fernand, 11 n.35, 28 Rutter, Frank, 102, 341 Sablons annual fair, 95 Safi, Morocco, 191–2 St Désirat, 1, 15, 19, 44, 59 n.54, 64, 76 n.17, 77, 80, 97, 130 ‘St François’, see Pouyaud, Robert St Savin, 132, 173, 247, 258, 261, 291 Saint Yves, Pierre, 34, 42–3 Salon d’Automne, 64, 131, 158, 206, 303, 304, 306 Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, 267, 269, 270, 280, 303–6 passim, 341 Savanarola, Fra Domenico, 199 Schaeffer, Yvette, 27–8, 148, 159, 161, 255, 263, 264, 266, 269, 271, 319, 321, 341 Schaeffer family, 4, 27, 54, 159, 161, 162, 255–6, 263, 266, 268, 269, 271, 275, 277, 319, 321, 341; see also Hotel Schaeffer Séguin, Marc, 22, 108, 341 Seuphor, Michel, 86–7, 89–96 passim, 100, 101, 102, 104, 276, 341 Shakespeare, William, 186, 189 Simeon, Mme, 164, 174, 232, 246, 295

365

Singleton, Ruby (née Dangar), 2 n.6, 38, 46, 48, 60, 68, 86, 112, 146, 167, 218, 239, 241, 247, 267, 284, 301, 341 Slade School, London, 122 ‘Smudge’ see Crowley, Grace Société des Amis de l’Art, 256–7 Society of Artists, Sydney, 101 n.61, 156 Souchon, Mr, 186–7 South Kensington School of Art, London, 138 n.47 South West Rocks, NSW, 48, 67–8, 156, 160, 251 spirituality, 5–6, 12–14, 19, 34–6, 42–3, 57, 69–70, 72–3, 109, 119–20, 123, 131–3, 149–50, 169, 193–4, 219, 280, 290–1, 313, 313 n.24 State Library of New South Wales, 6, 330 Steinbach family, 99, 253, 279 n.39, 289, 325, 341 Stewart, Harold, 67, 156 Sud (journal), 106, 107 sujet à l’index, 302–3 Sulman, Florence, 82, 342 Surchamp, Dom Angelico, ix, 10, 24, 25 n.63, 29, 173, 265 n.22, 266–71 passim, 289, 290, 291, 301, 304, 306, 309, 317, 328–9, 342 Surzac, René, 128 Sutherland, Graham, 274, 342 tableau objet, 12–13, 34, 40 Targe, M., 279 Tate Gallery, 273–4 Taylor, Florence Mary, 158, 342 teaching, 2, 4, 6–7, 40–1, 47, 167–8, 197, 217, 226, 234, 255–6, 324; see also children’s classes teaching methods, 4, 157, 163; colour exercises, 27, 40–1, 47–8, 53, 72–3,


31/5/02 11:44 AM

366

Page 366


75–6, 98, 245–6, 294; cours de Cubisme, 297–8, 303–4; Gleizes, 24, 72–3, 75–6, 112, 129–30, 148–50, 294; pochoirs, 12, 14, 34, 35, 51–2, 53, 71, 75, 98; translation and rotation exercises, 218–19, 266–7, 297–8 Témoignages (journal), 173, 271–2, 289, 342 textile arts, 66, 68, 76, 82, 145, 155, 204, 266 n.24; see also embroidery; weaving Thorrenc, 90–1, 124–5, 128 Tibet, 35, 42–3, 60 time, 35–6, 90–1, 116–17, 119, 134, 142–3, 166, 202, 249, 276, 280, 293–4 Tomassini, M. (mason), 283–6 passim Topliss, Julia, 327 translation and rotation, 12–14 passim, 13, 15, 34, 40–2, 76, 205, 210, 218–19, 265, 266, 267, 268, 276, 293, 297–8, 303, 327 Turner, Joseph M.W., 131, 274 Ure Smith, Sydney, 131 n.28, 265, 315, 342 Valmier, Georges, 135, 136, 342 vegetarianism, 52, 58–9, 120–1, 205, 290 Verrot, Moës, 143, 225, 342 Vézelay Cathedral, 132 n.31, 200, 217 Villon, Raymond Duchamp, 158, 343 Voss family, 156

walking, 235–6; to work at potteries, 16, 19, 27, 80, 83, 88 n.46, 143, 166, 230, 236, 249; walking trips, 83–5, 124–5, 144, 145–6 weaving, 63, 97, 127–8, 141, 144, 147, 152, 155, 157, 241, 261, 263, 291, 312, 320; Moroccan, 180, 195, 203, 204, 209 Webb, Mary, 29 White Australia Policy, 110 Wilenski, Reginald Howard, 102, 343 women, 7, 18, 51, 101, 115, 123, 296; Moroccan, 180, 182–5 passim, 187, 189–90, 201–2, 208–9, 231 wool, 76, 156, 204, 241, 283 World War II, 70–1, 117, 144, 202, 205, 216, 227, 249, 253, 285, 308; anti-semitism, 166, 212, 243, 254 n.6, 279; concentration camp, 213–14; declaration, 169, 192, 196; French collaboration, 211–12, 278–9, 339; French Resistance (Maquis), 213, 252, 253–5, 278–9; German occupation, 210–12 passim, 224–7, 228, 240; industrialism and materialism, 169, 169 n.6, 193–4, 198, 199, 211–12, 217, 223; Liberation, 235–7 passim, 239, 240, 246, 253–4, 264 n.20, 282; shortages, rationing and inflation, 211–12, 226, 230, 236–7, 253–4, 257, 259–60, 267–8, 277, 284; war damage, 224–5, 227, 235, 237, 239, 279 Zagophos, Professor, 262–3

Wakelin, Roland, 257 Walker, Belle, 166, 343

Index by Geraldine Suter

Earth, Fire, Water, Air: Anne Dangar's Letters to Grace Crowley, 1930-1951

Earth, Fire, Water, Air: Anne Dangar's Letters to Grace Crowley, 1930-1951

Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Earth Air Fire and Water

Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Earth, Air, Water, Light

Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Humanistic Studies of the Environment

Tom Holt - Earth, Air, Fire & Custard

Grace Under Fire

Grace Under Fire

Letters from the Earth

In Letters of Fire

Letters of Fire

Earth, Air, Fire and Water (AD&D 2nd Ed Fantasy Roleplaying, Dark Sun Setting)

The Elements of Ritual: Air, Fire, Water & Earth in the Wiccan Circle

Fire on Dark Water

Fire & Water

Fire on Dark Water

Fire And Water

Fire on Dark Water

Clean Air and Water Act

Witch of Air and Fire

Witch of Air and Fire

Witch of Air and Fire

Witch of Air and Fire

Aleister Crowley

Witch of Air and Fire

Fire to Fire

Return to Grace (good)

Earth, Fire, Water, Air: Anne Dangar's Letters to Grace Crowley, 1930-1951