Letter from Oskar Kokoschka to J.P. Hodin

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[Translation/transcription]

Villeneuve

25 March 1973

My dearest Master Pepi,

Yesterday we returned from Israel where in a week I drew [illegible] Golda Meir, General Dagan, the Chief Justice, the Greek Patriarch and other people for a portfolio that's being sold in support of Israel in the USA. and elsewhere. Tomorrow I have to paint a Canadian who's flown over here especially. Hardly child's play at my age. I had no idea you were in Gibraltar, too far from Jerusalem. The photos show drawings from 1906 that were made in haste during an evening class at the School of Applied Arts; I was trying to show my students how you can capture a movement in seconds if only you open your eyes. This evening class at the School of Applied Arts, with about a hundred students, was later also done by schools in Europe, where for so long the academies had taught with a stationary nude, an old man in a loincloth who had to stand stock still for a week. I never talked to Bernal about atom bombs. I didn't understand a thing about physics even in middle school and would have failed my high school exams on that account. Instead Bernal spent weeks helping me with the English translation of my essays on Comenius for the Oxford University Press. I think I didn't draw him, unfortunately, because he was suddenly called away on a military mission. I wish your son and his bride every happiness. The cherry eating maiden in the dressing gown looks delectable.

I hope you and my beautyfull one will come again soon. We're travelling to Sicily for three weeks at the end of April. Despite the affirmations of love from friends all over the world I still feel lonely, but my two pictures, Leo Kestenberg in Jerusalem and Saul and David at the museum in Tel Aviv, are the best paintings in Israel, even if my dear Jews there still put more faith in their Picasso knick-knacks and the abstract nonsense.

An affectionate embrace for you both.

Yours,

OK

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