Details
CRANE, Hart (1899-1932). Typed letter signed ("Hart") to his close friend (and literary executor) Sam Loveman, Mixcoac, Mexico, 17 November [1931]. 2 pages, 4to, single-spaced, mostly marginal fold tears in both sheets, a small hole olong fold on second sheet affecting a few letters.
ON MEXICO, DAVID SIQUIEROS, HIS FINANCIAL STRAITS, AND CRITICS
A fine letter mainly telling of his stay in Mexico: "... I'm on the water wagon for awhile ... Meanwhile my house is in considerable tumult. David Siquieros (who is certainly the greatest painter in Mexico) arrived Sunday night from his house in Taxco, with his wife and doctors -- so deathly ill from malaria that he had to be carried into the house ... I bought two fine paintings from S.[iquieros] ... I guess I wrote you that he painted a portrait of me ... which is causing much favorable comment [illustrated in John Unterecker's Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane, New York, 1969, following p. 722]. Besides which I have a splendid watercolor of an Indian boy's head. You have never seen anything better by Gauguin ... Of course the Siquieros works cost me considerably, so much, in fact, that I've been worried about making ends meet until my next quarterly from the Guggenheims [his Guggenheim award money] falls due, Jan. 1st ... in consequence I'm stranded excepting for a few dollars remaining in my personal N.Y. account ... it probably means that I can't continue to stay in Mexico for awhile longer, as I had hoped to do ...This letter is becoming ungodly long ... I'm not upset about the [Max] Eastman and Menchen [sic] notices. There was quite a servicable editorial in the New Republic on the former a couple of weeks back. And if it provides something for [Kenneth] Burke and [Malcolm] Cowley to write about -- then so much the better. They're bound to be fairly loyal to my style, even if not to my 'personality.' It is even more consoling that a few people like yourself maintain a constancy to both." Crane did run out of money and was forced to return to America in April 1932; he committed suicide on the ship voyage back. This letter is partially quoted in Unterecker, pp. 683 and 706.
ON MEXICO, DAVID SIQUIEROS, HIS FINANCIAL STRAITS, AND CRITICS
A fine letter mainly telling of his stay in Mexico: "... I'm on the water wagon for awhile ... Meanwhile my house is in considerable tumult. David Siquieros (who is certainly the greatest painter in Mexico) arrived Sunday night from his house in Taxco, with his wife and doctors -- so deathly ill from malaria that he had to be carried into the house ... I bought two fine paintings from S.[iquieros] ... I guess I wrote you that he painted a portrait of me ... which is causing much favorable comment [illustrated in John Unterecker's Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane, New York, 1969, following p. 722]. Besides which I have a splendid watercolor of an Indian boy's head. You have never seen anything better by Gauguin ... Of course the Siquieros works cost me considerably, so much, in fact, that I've been worried about making ends meet until my next quarterly from the Guggenheims [his Guggenheim award money] falls due, Jan. 1st ... in consequence I'm stranded excepting for a few dollars remaining in my personal N.Y. account ... it probably means that I can't continue to stay in Mexico for awhile longer, as I had hoped to do ...This letter is becoming ungodly long ... I'm not upset about the [Max] Eastman and Menchen [sic] notices. There was quite a servicable editorial in the New Republic on the former a couple of weeks back. And if it provides something for [Kenneth] Burke and [Malcolm] Cowley to write about -- then so much the better. They're bound to be fairly loyal to my style, even if not to my 'personality.' It is even more consoling that a few people like yourself maintain a constancy to both." Crane did run out of money and was forced to return to America in April 1932; he committed suicide on the ship voyage back. This letter is partially quoted in Unterecker, pp. 683 and 706.