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LEO'S LESSONS

Author(s): Robert V. Storr


Reviewed work(s):
Source: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 31/32, No. 4/1, SPECIAL ISSUE IN MEMORY
OF LEO STEINBERG (1920-2011) (Summer 2012/Fall 2012), pp. 61-69
Published by: Ars Brevis Foundation, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41552788 .
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LEO'S LESSONS

RobertV. Sten-

The portalsand cloistersof Moissac are them the TLS or the NYRB, and generally
betterthanwhatcan be said of them.To playing the role of informedmiddlemanin
be withthemis to be happyindeed.And theirpursuitof knowledge.My interlocutors
to studytheirdetails is to live in perpet- included Saul Bellow, Daniel Boorstin,
ual discoveryand pride. Lerone Bennett, Mircea Eliade, Roman
- Meyer Schapiro,in a letterto his Jakobson,Octavio Paz, and a hostof less fa-
wife,Dr. Lillian Milgram (1929) mous but equally impressive writersand
scholars.Such easy acquaintancewithgreat
Even thoughmy only advanced degree is a mindswas a bit like thatof a bartenderwith
Masterof Fine Artsin PaintingfromtheArt his "regulars."Since therewere few bars in
Instituteof Chicago, I considermyselffairly the neighborhoods in which I plied my
well educated.In today's world,however, I trade,my chance to listenwas increasedby
would no longerbe eligible formanyof the thelack of competition,while thequalityof
academic and museumjobs thatI was lucky thetalk was enhanced by greatersobriety.
enough to get before the tyrannyof the Precocious exposureto such literatecom-
Ph.D. became nearlyabsolute.In explaining pany emboldened me to seek it out laterin
how and where I learned whateverI have life. While an undergraduate,I attendeda
managed to learn, the third volume of lectureby a youngarthistorianthenteaching
Maxim Gorky's memoirs comes to mind. at the University of Pennsylvania- Leo
Gorkyironicallyentitledhis account of his Steinberg.His talk,directfromthepages of
early life My Universities.Following My a yet-to-be-published collection of his es-
Childhood and the equally ironic My Ap- says, Other Criteria: Confrontationswith
prenticeship,it tells of his trainingin the Twentieth-Century (1972), was on Pablo
Art
school of hardknocksin czaristRussia. My Picasso's reinterpretations of Eugne Dela-
upbringingwas not as harsh,but my intel- croix's paintingLes Femmes d'Alger. I at-
lectualcomingof age, in manyrespects,was tended because, even thoughI was young
comparablyhaphazard. Thus, "My univer- and ignorant,I was Picasso-mad. While still
sities" largely consisted of the bookstores in myteens,I had lived fora yearin France.
and libraries where I was employed, my For nightson end duringthatyear,I pored
minimal wages paying for the studio art over cheap littlepocketreproductionsof Pi-
classes that were my primaryobject. My casso's work- some in garishpostcardcol-
seminars and tutorialswere the extended ors, others in delicious photogravuregri-
conversationsI engaged in withpatronsin saille. I read everythingI could about him.
the course of doing routinebusiness with In a desperateattemptto make at least visual
them:locating and orderingbooks, selling contact with my hero, I hitchhikedto the

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62

south of France and found my way to the cause the speaker or writerand the public
master'svilla,La Californie,onlyto discover shared the experience of thatwork- or at
thathe had long since decamped to a remote least sharedtheexperienceof havinglooked
castle in Mougins. My infatuationwithPi- withthatappetiteand attentiveness to com-
casso was equivalent to the kind of crush parable works. This can no longer be as-
my contemporarieshad on rock stars,the sumed in an era whendirectobservationhas
cruxof thatfixationbeingtheartist'spersona been replaced by the "close" readingof re-
ratherthantheessence of his art. productionsand texts based on reproduc-
Leo Steinbergchangedthat- suddenly- tions, and when "strong misreadings" of
radically. It is no exaggerationto say that WalterBenjamin and a host of speculative
Leo opened myeyes to thepoeticsof picture thinkersruminating on thedisappearanceof
making- or, in the case of Les Femmes "aura" serve as an alibi fordisregardingthe
d'Alger, pictorial restructuring. His thesis nuances embedded in the originalimage or
was that Picasso had remade Delacroix's artifact.(Like Marx, Freud,and manyof the
composition in the course of the twenty- seminal theoristsof the twentiethcentury,
fourpaintingshe based upon it and that,in Benjamin shouldnotbe blamed forthemis-
theprocess,he had reconfigured theoriginal uses to whichhis essays have been put,much
syntax of Cubism thathe had invented with less the willfulmisunderstanding theyhave
Braque into an infinitelypliable, inherently given rise to.)
reversiblespatial mesh the likes of which That said, Leo did enjoy special access to
had neverbeforeexisted in Westernpaint- manyof thethingshe focused on, in partic-
ing. Leo's argumentdid not issue froma ularto Picasso's Les Femmesd'Alger.Even-
theoryabout the historical imperativesof tually,so did I. The seriesof fifteencanvases
themedium,nordid it engendersuch a the- was initiallyboughtas a block by New York
ory.Neitherwas it a commentaryon thees- collectorsVictorand Sally Ganz. Some were
tablishedliteratureof Picasso (althoughin sold offin shortorder,othersmoregradually.
Leo's studies of Michelangelo, debater's A core group of fourpaintingsin the series
points scored against careless scholarship remainedin theirhands untiltheirdeathsin
was a chief source of pleasure for him). 1987 and 1997, respectively.For decades,
Rather,Leo's largerconclusionsand smaller these paintingshung in a small red-walled
digressions derived fromintense, scrupu- sittingroom on the second floor of their
lous, prolonged, and repeated scrutinyof apartmenton Gracie Square. Guests could
theworksof artunderdiscussion. Sustained lingerforhours and in total comfort,reaf-
looking was the predicateforthought - its firmingMatisse's conceptthata good paint-
driving force and itsfuelrather than a means ing should be like thearmchairintowhicha
of perfunctory ratification
of receivedideas tiredman of the world happily sinks at the
about thingsothershad seen and reported end of theday.
on. In Matisse's conceit,such a businessman
Once upon a time,one could expect such would thenturnhis attentionfromtherealm
sustainedlooking to be the verifiablebasis of moneymakingto higher aesthetic con-
for any art historian'sthinkingor writing cerns and apply the same measure of con-
about topics thatmatteredto him or herbe- centrationto the subtletiesof art thathad,

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63

duringbankinghours,been devoted to bal- world was perhaps culturallycloser to the


ance sheetsand productionschedules.In the one rememberedby Vladimir Nabokov in
past, collectorsof this kind created signifi- Speak Memory.Sufficeitto say thatnothing
cant force fields in the wider art world by muchescaped his notice.If he chose to focus
virtueof theirgenuinecommitment and con- on what picturesmean, it was because pic-
noisseurship. To that extent, Matisse's tureswere,in his understanding of them,es-
ideal- like Baudelaire's fantasyof Edenic sentiallyorderly and intentional.This was
"luxe calme et volupt" upon which it was in contrastto the chaos and senselessness
based- emitsa faintflickerof truthas long outside of them,a chaos over which he had
as those who have witnessedsuch commu- no control,whiletheformand contentfound
nionbetweenproudpossessors and magnif- withintheframingedge of a paintingoffered
icentpossessions are around. an irresistible
challengeto his synthetic
mind
Certainly,Victor Ganz, a wholesaler of thatpromiseda kindof intellectualsalvation.
costume jewelry, and Sally Ganz, who In this, Leo perhaps shared something
startedout as a salesclerkat Macy's, looked withClementGreenberg.But,unlikeGreen-
with such ardor and discrimination.That's berg,he did not see art as a path to power
whytheyboughtart.And certainlyLeo, their overothersor rewardsoutsideof experience.
frequentvisitor,claimed his seat in thatred He was certainlyworldly enough to have
room and staredat the amazing arrayof Pi- chosen the alternativeroutethatGreenberg
cassos beforehimwiththesame ardor.This chose and become a brokerand a guru.But
was fittingsince Les Femmesd'Alger were Greenberg wanted what he did not have,
painted shortlyafterMatisse's death, the whereas Leo wanted more of what was al-
artists'long-standingrivalryand the prece- ready within his grasp: the sophisticated,
dentof Matisse's Moroccan and otherOri- sometimesdialogic but more oftensolitary,
entalistpaintingsbeing very much on Pi- pleasuresof activecontemplation. To theex-
casso's mind. tentthathis endeavor was dialogic (in the
One will not findmuch about the social sense thatMikhail Bakhtinused theterm-
and politicaldimensionsof artin Leo's writ- Bakhtin is anotherRussian source helpful
ings,exceptforthesexual politicsof Christ's when thinkingabout Leo), his interlocutors
image. In conversation,though, Leo was consistedof a handfulof studentsand former
alertto therealitiesof power and thepotent students (Prudence Crowther and Sheila
illusionsof ideology in which artwas inex- Schwartzfirstand foremost),othermore or
tricablybound. How could a studentof the less freelancescholars (among themDavid
Renaissance notbe? Or, forthatmatter,how Levi Straussand myself),and variousmem-
could anyone born close to the turmoilof bers of the academy who established and
thetwentieth centuryavoid such awareness? maintainedstrongties withhim.
Knowing that Leo's fatherwas a leading It must be said in the latterconnection
lawyer in Socialist circles and, briefly,min- thatfora man of his public reputation,Leo
isterofjustice aftertheRussian Revolution had a remarkablyambivalent, frequently
locates his heritage in the secular Jewish rockyrelationshipto those at the top of the
communityof the world Gorky described, academic heap. The Universityof Pennsyl-
althoughLeo's tangentialrelationshipto that vania was a fineplace forhim to settlein.

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But, withregardto professionalstanding,it town,withLucien Goldschmidtbeing at the


wasn'tHarvard,Princeton,orYale. Nor,with top of the pyramidand Pageant and other
a New York compass in hand, was it Co- East Village outletson Book Row forming
lumbia or the Instituteof Fine Arts,where thebase. Leo lived withthe arthe could af-
he earnedhis Ph.D. in 1960. The veryqual- fordand huntedforit withoutcompunction.
ities that attracted him to independent How many of the generationsschooled to
thinkerscaused him to be theobject of sus- scold "object fetishists"and contentto live
picion and even scornin fieldswhereschol- in austeresurroundings, uncontaminated by
arly"ownership"of topics and deferenceto thelustforvisual or tactiledelightsor unable
reigningauthoritiesare sacrosanct.No less to confess theircravingforthem,can even
a mandarinthan E. H. Gombrich sounded begin to understandthe differencebetween
the alarm when he damned Leo's brilliance theirarthistoryand Leo's frankly hedonistic
in analyzingMichelangelo withthefollow- intellectualpursuits.That rigorousinquiry
ing praise: "He has produced a book to be intoaestheticthingsdemandedantiaesthetic
reckonedwithbuta dangerousmodel to fol- posturingto prove its seriousness- or was
low." Withinuniversityguilds,thisis tanta- even withinthescope of thosecursedwitha
mountto blackballinga member. "tin eye"- was, fromLeo's vantage point,
The ban playeditselfoutwithLeo seeking simplyabsurd.
out or being soughtout by unlikelyvenues. That he savored words just as avidly is
Thus it was thatalong withRobertRosen- obvious fromhis elegant,epicurean prose.
blum,anotherpariahin doctrinally pureneo- Roland Barthes famously wrote in The
formalist circles, Leo became a regular Pleasures of theText:
speakeron EighthStreetat the traditionally If I read thissentence,thisstory,or this
modernistNew York Studio School, where
word withpleasure,itis becausetheywere
he was paid virtuallynothing,or on theroad
written in pleasure.. . . The textyou write
inAmerica,wherehe commandedhandsome
mustproveto me thatit desiresme. . . .
fees fromthose unaware of the degree to
Writing is thescienceofthevariousblisses
which he had become a problematic- in-
oflanguage;itsKama Sutra.
deed, unwelcomed- figure in many aca-
demicenclaves closer to home. Justhow un- This perfectlydescribes the pleasures of
welcomed can be measuredby the factthat Leo's writing,the natural- indeed, legiti-
it was not until2006- promptedby my in- mate- offspring of his promiscuousreading
tercessionwiththethen-directorMarietWest- coupled with his fidelityto all the nuances
ermann- thatLeo was invitedback to speak of his second language, English, and his
at the Instituteof Fine Arts in New York. abiding sensitivityto the several othersin
Meanwhile,theUniversity ofTexas atAustin whichhe was literate,if notfluent.
became therepositoryof his large,idiosyn- It was listeningto Leo lectureon Picasso
craticcollectionofprintsand drawings.Cov- and thendiggingup essays whereverI could
eringeverything fromItalian old mastersto findthem- inArtinAmericaand October-
JasperJohns, collectionwas a reminder
the thatprovidedme witha model forhow in-
ofwhatwas once readilyavailableto bargain tricatelyunfoldingthoughtscan be clearly
huntersin the portfoliosof dealers around articulated,and withproofof how important

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itis to conveytheperceptualcomponentsof But let us returnto the Ganz apartment,


conceptual formulaswith verbal precision where Leo and I separatelyspent so much
and all pertinentphenomenological detail, timesurroundedby astonishingworksof art.
which is farmore thanmost criticsdare or This was the crucial site not only of many
deign to include. Actually meetingLeo re- of his meditationson Picasso, buta source-
sultedfromhavinglearnedto strikeup con- or,at theveryleast,theincontrovertible con-
versations with my bookstore customers. firmation - of the thesis that he argued in
Following several missed opportunitiesat his "ContemporaryArtand the Plightof Its
art parties,where we crossed paths afterI Public." Based on lecturesgiven at theMu-
entered"society"in mycapacityas a curator seum of Modern Artin 1960 and firstpub-
at MoMA, I was asked to presentan award lished in Harper's Magazine in 1962, this
to him at a dinner.I took the opportunity to essay was thepredicateforhis groundbreak-
discuss Philip Guston,about whom he had ing texts on the then-emergingNeo-Dada
writtenearly and eloquently.Later, I sent vanguard. Of these, the most notable are
him a copy of a monographon Guston that "JasperJohns:The FirstSeven Years of His
I had writtenwith a dedication that T. S. Art"(1962), which initiallyappeared in the
Eliot had inscribed to Ezra Pound: "II journal Metro and was then reissued in a
miglior fabbro." Was it flattery?Yes, but deluxe edition by George Wittenborn,and
withoutpretenseor shame.Was he flattered? Leo's descriptive analysis of the "flatbed
Yes, again: Leo had a healthyvanitybutone pictureplane" foundin theworkof Rausch-
robustenough to relish sincere admiration enbergand Warholthatwas featuredin an-
and able to resist insincere praise. Many otherMoMA lectureof 1968 and appeared
years later,when Leo wrote in my copy of in printas "Reflectionson the State of Crit-
Other Criteria thathe felt"honored to in- icism" in Artforumin March 1972 and in
scribe thisfora dear friend,"I was embar- Other Criteria the same year.Whereas the
rassed butimmenselyproud. lattertwo essays are about art's production,
Afterourcontactat thatawardsceremony, the formerone concerns its receptionand,
we metperiodicallyfordinnerat his apart- more importantly, the origins of resistance
ment.The location was dictatedby his un- to the "new" that he heralded with signal
relenting consumption of cigarettes- no insightin theessays on Neo-Dada.
restaurantwould have him- that he sus- Althoughan arthistorianbelongingto one
tained until the last couple of years of his of thelast generationsforwhom thealways
life. By then,infirmity confinedhim to his debatabledistinction betweenthingsthathad
small,art-crammed, book-lined,smoke-fra- "stood the testof time" and those thathad
grant rooms. So pungentwere theythathe yetto do so determinedthe propersubjects
didn't really need a lit cigaretteto fill his of studywithinthediscipline,Steinbergsaw
lungs with nicotine. In case of an emer- theprimarystumblingblock to open-minded
gency- which would have amounted to a recognitionof previously unseen and un-
suicidal urge- he had storedseveralcartons sanctionedartas one between the moderns
in the icebox, along with the remnantsof and the more moderns,the old new and the
the take-outChinese and Indian meals on new or newer new. In supportof this con-
whichhe subsisted. tention,Leo tracesthechain of rejectionsof

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risingavant-gardes bypreviousavant-gardes, on JoanMir- a Surrealist,ifevertherewas


fromtheImpressionists'discomfortwiththe one- Greenberg reclassifies the Spanish
Post-Impressionists to thePost-Impression- artistas a late Cubist.This insuresgenealog-
ists' resistanceto theFauves, to theFauves' ical and liturgicalconsistencyalong theway
push againsttheCubists,to theCubists' dis- toward Abstract Expressionism and Post-
missal of the Surrealists. PainterlyAbstraction,Greenberg'struepas-
To be truthful, I have added thelast linkin sions. But while Greenberg'srationalewas
thatchain. But it follows fromLeo's logic essentiallya matterof maintainingformalist
and identifiesanotherpointof agreementbe- pieties and buttressing theirinstitutional
de-
tween us: our impatience with Clement fenses- and while similar preoccupations
Greenberg'sideologicallydrivendistortions with purity and power haunt every pro-
ofthedocumentedhistoryof modernart.Al- nouncementmade by his formeracolytes
fred Barr and his collaboratorsfounded a among Neo-Formalist scholars and critics
Museum of ModernArtand not a Museum of today,startingwithRosalind Krauss and
of Modernism for very good reasons, al- her coterie, whose house organ published
thoughGreenbergconstantlycomplainedof Leo even as theyignoredhis implicitcritical
the institution'spluralistic practices, and and scholarlydissentfromtheirpartyline-
William Rubin, Greenberg'sde facto agent the dilemma thatLeo himselffaced when
of influenceat the helm of the all-powerful crawling the galleries or sitting in the
Departmentof Paintingand Sculpturefrom Ganzes' apartmentwas of a different, more
the late 1960s throughthe 1980s, triedto libidinousorder.
streamlinetheintrinsically angularand con- Ratherbeingtheproductof scholasticdis-
tentiousaccountof modernartthatBarrcre- putes about the Will of Historyor the ulti-
atedthroughexhibitionsand collections,and mate,incommensurablespecificitiesof var-
to hide muchof theevidence of Barr's con- ious media,thestrugglesamongavant-gardes
tradictory and unfashionableenthusiasms.In for the attentionand, subsequently,the fi-
short, I am referringto Barr's exceptional delityof the public hinged on (1) the con-
for
capacity entertaining divergentand com- victionof artiststhattheprinciplesand prac-
petingpropositions about what modernart tices to whichtheydevotedthemselvesheld
shouldbe, on theunderstanding thatmodern the key to inexhaustible possibilities of
art was by definitionthe aggregate of all experience and understanding,and (2) the
thosepropositionsand all thosemutuallyex- public's desireformoreof whatit had come
clusiveclaims- all thoseadversarialbutcon- to love in one kind of art and its anxiety
tiguous,if not overlapping,"modernisms." whenfacedwiththeprospectoflovingsome-
The precise reasons forGreenberg'scon- thingelse. For Leo, thatanxietywas crystal-
temptfor Surrealism matterless than the lized bytheenigmatic,seeminglyantigestural
factthathe treatedit as fundamentallyun- grisaille surfaces of Jasper Johns's early
worthyof considerationexcept for its in- paintings.Everythingabout themcalled for
convenientyet undeniable contributionsto a basic revisionof Leo's tasteand his think-
the kinds of abstractionhe championed as ing to the extentthat they appeared to be
thehistoricallymandatednextstepafterCu- theantithesisof thekindof passionate,full-
bism,suchthatin a monographthathe wrote tilt painterlinessassociated with Abstract

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Expressionism and its School of Paris Kooning) and theirattractionto Johns,they


antecedents. understood that their world had been ex-
The Ganzes never pursued AbstractEx- panded by the painfuldoublingof theirde-
pressionism,stickingwith Picasso instead. sire and thattemporarybutunavoidable be-
However,theywere prescientcollectors of trayal of one passion for another was a
Johnsand Rauschenberg - generallydeemed naturalfunctionof desire's unfettered oper-
the principalAmerican heirs of Duchamp, ation. Sittingin thatroom,it was sufficient
who was widely regarded as the anti-Pi- to turnone's gaze 10 to 20 degrees in any
casso - as well as Frank Stella and Eva directionto find oneself surrenderingto a
Hesse, who firstmetJohnsat a partyat the new infatuation in theinstantthatone started
Ganz apartment.Thus, catty-cornerto Pi- to regretthe previous one. The infidelities
casso's greatWomanin an Armchair(1913) to which one was inspiredin thatharemof
hungJohns'sLiar (1961) and Diver (1962), pictures- especially in the red room that
while on the wall opposite it was Johns's housed Picasso's reinterpretations of Dela-
Souvenir 2 (1964) just across the doorway croix's renditionof an Algerian seraglio-
fromPicasso's The Dream (1932). There were deliciously delirium-inducing. And-
were otherPicassos in the room and other prompting his great critical duel with
Johnsworks,too, and in therooms beyond, William Rubinby openingdiscussionof the
still more of each as well as paintingsby paintingup to an examinationof how the
the otherartistscited above and artistsso viewer's awareness of themultiplegazes of
far unmentioned,like Richard Tuttle and Picasso's alternately savage and alluringsub-
Melissa Miller. jects- had Leo not called Les Demoiselles
In its high concentrationof radicallydif- d'Avignon "philosophicalbrothel"?
a
ferentart by exigentlydifferentartiststhe Confrontedby such choices, normative
Ganz Collectionexemplifiedtheproblem- theoriesof taste(Greenbergianmodernism)
or plight,as Leo called it- of the public and deterministic theories of cultural
with regard to modern and contemporary progress(its postmodernist spin-offs)fallby
art,and respondedto it withan affirmative the wayside. Although Leo never referred
embrace of potentiallyincompatibleexam- to himin thecase forserialaestheticadultery
ples. Not out of a failureon the partof the thathe makes in "ContemporaryArtand the
Ganzes to noticethedistinctionsamong the Plightof Its Public," an amicus briefcan be
workson display and certainlynot out of a found in Barthes's previously cited The
lazy eclecticism or worse- the need to Pleasures of the Textand in his A Lover's
hedge bets against thejudgmentof history Discourse: Fragments.Leo's pleasureswere
(theywere in everyway exactingconnois- artand literature - in thatconnection,I have
seurs)- but instead out of the realization leftout his lifelongaffairwithJamesJoyce,
thatmakinga choice againstthebest of one to myknowledgehis only homotextualliai-
first-rank artistwho had opened theirmind son, althoughthereis muchto be said about
and eyes forthe sake of thebest of another the breadthand depth of his reading- and
who had done the same was self-defeating. his discourse trulythatof a man unwilling
Torn,like Leo, betweentheirdevotionto to renounceor disguise his eruditelust in a
Picasso (and, in his case, Guston and de period when in intellectuallyrespectable

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company the love of art dare not speak its gender-bending mysticalbait-fisherman and
name. seasonal painterForrestBess?
Among arthistorians,Leo had his admir- By contrast,a live, mutuallyinvigorating
ers. But he, in turn,admired relative few. currentpassed between Leo and Meyer,as
Feuds are endemic to the field,and, gifted it does when polar opposite come together.
withboth a sharp pen and a sharp tongue, Meyer's turnof minddirectedLeo to many
he had a knackformakingthemostof them, aspects of critical discourse that Leo es-
as Rubin learned. One senior colleague he chewed- chiefly,Marx and semiotics.But,
deeply respectedwas Meyer Schapiro,who like Leo, Meyer was groundedin the con-
late in life also found an audience for his tentmenthe foundin looking and the reve-
morphingideas among paintersand sculp- lationsthataccumulatedfromsustainingthe
torsat the Studio School at a timewhen art effort.Winningintramural argumentscomes
historiansof modernarthonoredhimmostly in a poor thirdto these enduringrewards.
by ignoring him, except when "second- To stressthatpoint,I began thistestimonial
guessing"or "correcting"his earlywritings. withan epigraphfromMeyer,who was also
How manywho quoted Schapiro in articles amongtheextramural professorsof "myuni-
about artof the 1930s to the 1950s have ex- versities."But it is fromLeo thatI learned
pressedanysympathy forhis supportof Bob themostand to whom I will always be most
Thompson and GandyBrodie or anycurios- indebted.
ity about his long correspondencewiththe

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PrudenceCrowther,
(Photo:courtesy 2010)

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