LETTERS
In Response to
Harold Rosenberg
EDITORS:
In Melvin Tumin's inter–
view with the late Harold Rosen–
berg in your Number Four of
1978, the latter is reported as
saymg:
.. . The practical problem is when a
collector comes up
to
me and says,
"Should I buy this for $lO,OOO?"
That's a practical problem. I never
answer such questions. I say, "Go
and see Clem Greenberg. He gives
advice
to
collectors. I just write
about 'art.' I don' t know anything
about the market. I don 't know how
much you should pay for any–
thing."
Were Mr. Rosenberg still alive
I'd be able to ask him to name
collectors I've advised about
prices, and also
to
say which of
them had been sent by him. Not
that I think there's anything
reprehensible about advising art
collectors about prices, but Mr.
Rosenberg obviously thought
there was, and meant to throw
his purity into relief against my
319
supposed lack of purity. I'm
ready to grant him his purity,
but not at the cost of facts. And
I'm ready to accept my lack of
purity, but again not at the cost
of facts. Some facts happen to be
there in Mr. Rosenberg's case,
and some aren't there in my case.
A while ago, in this same
magazine in a piece called
"From the Notebook" (I've for–
gotten the date), Mr. Rosenberg
wrote to the effect that Ameri–
cans were more or less alone in
their prejudice against
ad homi–
nem
remarks. But he said noth–
ing about the necessity of such
remarks being true.
De mortuis nihil nisi bo–
num,
etc. Yes. And it's a little
ghoulish to take issue with an
utterance published posthu–
mously. But I could not let Mr.
Rosenberg's remark about me
stand unquestioned. Its sub–
stance was too far from the truth,
and its intention too far from
good faith, to allow for the ob–
servance of every propriety.
Clement Greenberg
