40
PARTISAN REVIEW
ment with Betty Parsons. She wasn't in. Her secretary looked at a
pad . "Gee , I'm sorry . Miss Parson must have forgotten . She's gone
for the day."
Not the end of the world , I said to myself as I waited at the
elevator.
At that time the Parsons Gallery was on the same floor as
Sidney Janis's. The elevator door opened and Sidney Janis stepped
out. Maybe I would get lucky. I told him how I happened to be there
and said,
"If
you have a minute , Mr. Janis , would you look at my
paintings?"
"I haven't looked at my mail yet," he said and kept going.
On the elevator down, I thought he could have said : "Why
don't you make an appointment?"
On the sidewalk I swore I would never put myself in that posi–
tion again . Never again would I ask an art dealer to look at my
work. Terrific! I felt lifted up. Free. I drove home to Northport . In
my studio that night, looking around , I said to myself: so what do
you do now?
I thought about that a lot. How come I'm always turned down,
even when they say I'm good? Is it something in my art? In me?
What would convince them? So many years of trying and nothing
had worked.
I figured it had to be me. Somehow I was in my own way. Yes,
that was it. It wasn't the dealers: they lacked conviction , they
couldn't necessarily tell good from bad . They operated on some
other level; it would take more than art to convince them. None of
this would apply to my Kahnweiler- but where was the elusive son
of a bitch? Unconventional measures were called for- but what?
Was there something I could have done - something I could
not do? That was it! I could not put my work before an art dealer
and say: "Hey! Look at these paintings. This is great art . You have
to show my work." No , I could not say such things. I'd rather boil a
goat. But if I wasn't talking about myself-if I was talking about
someone else .. . ? I had my answer.
What I had arrived at was a crazy answer , bizarre - though it
seemed profoundly reasonable at the time. I had tried the straight
and usual , the conventional ways. I had a stomach full of sour
"No's ." I would fight the dealers in my own way and I would win . I
hardly thought of anything else. I had to have my one man show: at
least one shot at it was all I asked.
I would invent an artist ; the more dramatic his history, the bet-
