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David -
-Thought you would need the enclosed FAX bill & receipt for your records - then, Harry Henderson letter & slip about reproduction of the Pippin piece. When you ok it, I can sign & send back indicate "Private collection" for how we want it identified. Let me know as soon as possible.
-Also enclosed are a copy of Camille's TV remarks which you coached her on, as well as my latest info from Sid Deutch Gallery, primarily for information. I have starred the most interesting items.
- I called and the kinkos (?) FAX machine is now fixed. It did break down & the circuit board connecting it to phone had to be replaced. So you can now use my FAX number as [redacted] Always include my phone number & request that they call when it arrives
- things you are to send me: 1) Philippe (?) Briet Gallery (NYC) Beauford Delaney (?) (eventually) 2) copy of your Black Wharton forum remarks 3) 1 or 2 Spellman College Xmas '88 cards (William H Johnson) 4) copies of newspaper review of your Colby show & Old Werthing show if any done.
- Tell your mother I do think of her now & then, even though she thinks I dont and one day I'll pop up on her doorstep. Easy, Steven
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Dear Joe, It was so good to visit with you and speak about your art. I do plan to write again and want to include more than I wrote in TWO CENTURIES OF BLACK AMERICAN ART and HIDDEN HERITAGE. It was good to write of you in both books. Thanks so much for the gift of the Beauford Delaney work. It will fit in well with my collection. Take care of yourself. Sincerely, David Driskell
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2. Enclosed - Crannoy (?) article I promised on "African" architecture in Ireland between 1600 BC - 1600 AD. Tidewater Towns Preservation Proj. info - I wrote her quite a while ago but have received no response. I don't know her. Some Afro Museum bits - some real questions about quality of this exhibit coming up. I've heard about & met some of new staff. Their art curator Deryl Machie (?) is very nice but stuctly (?) white bread. Basically an artist who needed a job, he draws figures that look white (with that bland use of color) & was surprised when I related how much in the Black Art world has gone on at Howard. He runs a hard race but I think the distance is too far for him. They have a new historian who put Black face stereotype figures (the "Randolp Simpson Loan (?)") on display as if they were fine art! Thoroughly offensive & disgusting - do you understand it? So they're still as pretentious & shallow as ever. But they have a new controller who's an efficient
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evil (?) Black bitch, & when Jennigs came in late by 20 min to a meeting she had called she read him & said "we're not children, & we must act responsible & when I say 3 pm I mean 3 pm sharp"! -I'm also going through a bibliograph phase - I assume you've seen Oakley Holmes ' "Complete" annotated Guide to Black Art - especially since he patronizes you so obviously in his effusive praise for the "2 Centuries..." Catalog. Plus his scholarship is just so lacking. Shows what you have to turn to in a vacuum. The Dans (?)/Suns bibliog. is better in terms of details but lightweight & obviously done by someone outside the field who didn't know the sources well. Their organization (?) is stranger & represents their assembly line approach to the dozens of bel(?) they've worked on. There oughta be a law ... I'm sending a complete zerox of the 1941 Chi Pub hef(?) biblog because I didn't know if you had it & there are a few interesting things in it.
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4. Just for the record, since we've talked about it, there were 6 Harmon catalog but only 3 were substantial, the other 3 were small. And I love the journalism of the period - who can forget an article title like "Negress wins the first prize at Newport"! many of the sources are not even in the Holmes Bibliog. Finally, next time we talk, we need to nap (?) a second about Thurlow Tibbs. Some of my efforts have back fired, but can't give you the true flavor in a letter, so ...
See ya' whenever,
Steven