JULES OLITSKI
39
college professor was a laugh. Me? As a kid I was regarded as the
family dummy, the moron; my future, they told me, was the Bowery
or death in the electric chair. Sometimes both.
Even so, the idea of escaping my lot for two years by going to
school and getting the G.!. Bill money was attractive. Incredibly
enough, all that Hal DarefT had proposed became real: Master's
degree, new wife, reclaimed daughter, college professor.
It
was a
new life. I sat among the professors at faculty meetings that seemed
insane and endless and thought of suicide . I drank myself silly.
I became chairman of the art department at a liberal arts col–
lege out on Long Island called C. W. Post, and we, my wife, re–
claimed kid, and a new baby daughter, were living
in
a handsome
old stone house in Northport. I was pushing thirty-six.
I had but one experience with an art dealer during the time I
was taking courses at New York University. To save time and sub–
way fare, I had moved into an attic on Greene Street, a stone's throw
from the downtown N. Y. U. campus. I loved going to school. I
painted at night. Reginald Pollack, an artist I had met in Paris,
brought his brother Lou to my attic. Lou was the director of the
Peridot Gallery, a very good gallery. I liked Lou. A slow-speaking,
sensitive, meditative type, he definitely had the Kahnweiler stamp
about him. His gallery had New Talent shows from time to time. He
said something of mine would be featured in his next New Talent
show. After he left, I waltzed arbund
the
attic, but Lou never put on
another New Talent show. A few years later he died.
I grew a thick skin . Maybe it was a defense; a kind of protective
device. No one gave a damn-I wouldn't give a damn. It would not
matter to me if you did or didn't go for my work. I had nothing to
lose. Not that I gave up on my future; like a horse with blinders, I
would keep going. I imagined a dedicated handful of collectors,
types like the Cone sisters, Gertrude and Leo Stein, Shchukine and
Morosov, Barnes, Quinn, etcetera. I imagined Clement Greenberg
writing about me in
Partisan Review.
With a suddenness I had not foreseen, I had become respect–
able . More to the point, I had a studio and money for
art
materials.
I felt I was painting better than ever. Why not give Kahnweiler
another shot?
Back to 57th Street and the galleries on Madison Avenue.
Once again the same old thing. Nothing. One day I had an appoint-
