JULES OLITSKI
3S
I was in my early thirties when I began looking in earnest for
my Kahnweiler. I told myself I wasn't necessarily aiming for a one–
man show; one or two paintings in a group show now and then
would be enough for the time being. I just wanted a foot inside a
door. That's what I told myself, between dreams.
I had tome back to New York after two years in Paris, on the
OJ.
Bill (and had had my first one-man show in a tiny gallery on the
rue St . Julien Ie Pauvre, called Galerie Huit) . I was divorced. I had
brought my infant daughter to my parents in Brooklyn to be taken
care of until, euphemistically, as they put it, "You could get back on
your feet. " I was close to broke and living in a cold-water flat in
Hell's Kitchen. I don't imagine that anyone I knew believed I had
much of a future; I sure as hell didh't.
Somewhere I'd read that
peanut~
'could provide most, if not all
of the nutrients anyone needed to stay reasonably healthy. I lived on
peanuts and coffee . As I said, I was close ' to broke. I had an army
disability pension, btit most of it went to my parents for the care of
my daughter. Much as I liked peanuts and coffee, sooner or later I
would get hankerings after meat, drink , and cigarettes . I stole. I
stole art supplies . I filled the deep pockets of my army overcoat with
tubes of oil paint. I stole canvas. I stole books. I fancied myself a sort
of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor: me. I
was scared all the time , even when fllching a five-cent Baby Ruth.
While I planned bank robberies down to the most exquisite details,
in my mind's eye, I always saw myself, right in the middle of every–
thing, pistol in hand , fainting away from terror on a cold marble
floor .
. None of this was fun . Why didn't I climb out of the hole I was
in?
I don't know why .
~
was numb . There was a cafeteria on 42nd
Street where I would sit at a table all night nursing a coffee; I
couldn't sleep in the
cold~water
flat. At night rats took over; my mat–
tress was on the floor. I'd find book bindings chewed and wet when
fd come home at daybreak.
.
I ·did make a stab at honest work. I got a job as a "barker"
standing outside the Victoria movie theater in Times Square , in a
uniform a Libyan general might envy, chanting, "Feature begins in
five
minutes . . . going in now . . . immediate seating . . -; fe'ature
begins in . . .. " I was so good at this that the manager 'set me to
work inside answering the phone ; when callers asked wlfM movie
was on and what it was about, I made up fake plots: usually about a
,
