Library and Archive Reading Rooms
View by appointment- Created by
- Olda Kokoschka 1915–2004
- Recipient
- Dr J. P. Hodin
- Title
- Letter from Oskar Kokoschka to J.P. Hodin with a postscript by Olda Kokoschka
- Date
- 4 December 1966
- Format
- Document - correspondence
- Collection
- Tate Archive
- Acquisition
- Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate, 2006. Accrual presented by Annabel Hodin, 2020
- Reference
- TGA 20062/4/199/3/29
Description
[Translation/transcription]
Villeneuve
4 December 1966
My dear Master,
At last I have received your beautiful big book, which you've been working on for twenty three years! I imagine a hole will have opened up inside you and I wonder how you will fill it without me. You can't rest on your laurels for long. And I shall need quite some time to read it. So far I have only dipped in at random. It is touching to read all the things you noticed in my life that I didn't think at all important. I came across the name Ben Gurion (the president of Israel?), whom I don't know at all! You must have mistaken him for Ben Gabriel, an old friend from Ottakring who's a journalist and radio presenter. In order that Ben Gurion doesn't think I've been name-dropping without cause, it would be good if you could replace him with BEN GABRIEL in the German edition, which of course hasn't yet been printed.
Please don't make any plans for an exhibition in Paris. You know I'm not the least bit interested in it. Besides, the owners of the pictures really ought to be spared. There have been eight exhibitions this year and some of the pictures have been damaged. For the time being France will just have to make do with the outstanding French translations of my stories, which have just been published by Gallimard as 'Mirages du passé' [A Sea Ringed with Visions]. Your book is beautifully presented and, going by the table of contents, promises to be very interesting. I shall read it after Christmas. In the meantime I should like to hear how you and the beautyfull one are and when we will see each other again. I'm tired from New York.
All my love and sincerest thanks,
Yours,
OK
Dear Hodin,
It is very effecting to read in your book, I have had moments only and therefore could not concentrate on longer passages and could only dip here and there. There are so many reminiscences we both have not thought about for a long time. How things have changed since the war! It will be our Winter Reading.
Love to you all.
Yours, Olda
Page 22 - the rose is called MARÉCHAL NIEL
Page 54 - Fritzi Massary was not the model in Clarens, it was one Frau BAER. The sketch was bought by Hoffmann in Vienna.
I tell you these 2 things for correction in German edition.
Archive context
- Papers of Josef Paul Hodin TGA 20062 (407)
-
- Correspondence by sender TGA 20062/4 (275)
-
- Correspondence between Oskar Kokoschka and J.P. Hodin TGA 20062/4/199 (112)
-
- Correspondence from Oskar Kokoschka to J.P. Hodin, 1960-9 TGA 20062/4/199/3 (43)
-
- Letter from Oskar Kokoschka to J.P. Hodin with a postscript by Olda Kokoschka TGA 20062/4/199/3/29