Acknowledgments

Klein, John

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Acknowledgments

John Klein

Matisse Portraits

Acknowledgments

Author

John Klein

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15685

Acknowledgments

Like Matisse’s portraiture, this book originated in family. First are my parents, John and Juliet Klein, who have supported my efforts over many years and in ways that cannot easily be put into words, but all born of faith and love. I dedicate the book to them. My wife, Elizabeth Childs, has been my closest reader and most thorough critic. She has made key intellectual contributions at every stage. She and my son, Willy Childs-Klein, have also sustained me in other ways during the writing and revision, sometimes through pleasurable distraction, sometimes by leaving me alone. I have been profoundly grateful for their presence, and their sacrifices. Other family members – Rick Klein and Carol Bishop, Orlo and Libby Childs, Brad and Barry Childs – have been most supportive, and I thank them.

I have incurred many debts in the community of scholars. Among the most important of these people were my advisors at Columbia University, Theodore Reff and Allen Staley, who guided the dissertation that has evolved into this book. Kirk Varnedoe also made important intellectual contributions at that time. I am grateful for their formative influence. Many others who contributed to my work on the dissertation are acknowledged there. Since then, those who have been helpful in so many ways include Roger Benjamin, Catherine Bock-Weiss, Yve-Alain Bois, Eric Carlson, Eric de Chassey, John Elderfield, Dominique Fourcade, Judi Freeman, the late Sir Lawrence Gowing, Lewis Kachur, Paul Kaplan, Rémi Labrusse, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, Kasper Monrad, John Neff, Marc Restellini, Sabine Rewald, Pierre Schneider, Gerald Silk, Hilary Spurling, and especially Jack Flam, who encouraged me when I first had the idea to work seriously on Matisse’s portraiture, and whose support has been unmatched since; and the late Edward Fry, who urged me to have a good idea in the first place. Kirsten Hoving at Middlebury College, Janet Bishop at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Caroline Turner at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, and Cornelia Homburg at the St. Louis Art Museum kindly extended invitations to lecture or publish on Matisse’s portraiture, and I profited greatly from these public tests of some of my arguments.

The help of several members of the Matisse family has been essential to the completion of this book. I thank Georges Matisse, Marie Matisse, the late Pierre Matisse, Jacqueline Matisse Monnier, and especially Claude and Barbara Duthuit for their generosity over the years. At the Archives Matisse in Paris, I have received crucial support from Wanda de Guébriant in matters large and small. Her intelligence and acumen about all matters relating to Matisse’s work have made significant contributions.

One of my greatest debts is to my friend Dominique Szymusiak, director of the Musée Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis. From our initial meeting on a stifling July day, when her first gesture upon welcoming me to her museum after my walk from the train station was to offer me a beer, she has given me unexpected and unstinting support, including invitations to collaborate with her on two wonderful exhibitions. She has repeatedly put the considerable research resources of the Musée Matisse at my disposal, and she and her family, Yves-Marie, Samuel, and Grégoire, have ensured that the Nord-Pas de Calais region is my favorite part of France. I am deeply grateful to them all. Elsewhere in France I have been helped by Xavier Girard, former director, and Marie-Thérèse Pulvenis de Séligny, current director, Musée Matisse, Nice, and their staffs; Jacqueline Besson, Paule Caen, Dina Vierny, and especially Lydia Delectorskaya, who was highly informative about Matisse’s work with models.

In the United States I should like to thank Janet Hicks at Artists Rights Society, New York; Sylvie Merian and the rest of the staff at the Reading Room, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Rona Roob and Michelle Elligott at the Museum of Modern Art Archives; and Olive Bragazzi at the Pierre Matisse Foundation, New York.

For their willingness to help me to obtain photographs and transparencies I thank Frédérique Barret, Fereshteh Daftari, Carol Eliel, Stephen Hahn, Beatrice Kernan, Albert Kostenevich, Nathalie Lavarenne, Jean-Pierre Manguin, Sandrine Polvent, Bertha Saunders, Richard Smooke, Robert Stoppenbach, and Daniel Wildenstein.

Some special friends deserve to be mentioned. I thank Bob Zuber for his generosity and companionship during concentrated research trips to New York, and Hope Hanafin for her help with my work at the CBS Archives there. In France I was often sustained by the hospitality of Caroline Boyle-Turner, Nana Gregory, Nancy Keeler, and John Smith. By Judy Meighan and Shirley Blum I have been reminded of what is really important.

At the University of Missouri-Columbia I have received help from many colleagues. I am especially grateful to my department chairs, Kathleen Slane, Howard Marshall, and Marcus Rautman, for their support. Daffany Hood provided timely logistical help. Joe and Françoise Bien, Haskell Hinnant, Ozzie Overby, and Anne and Stephen Stanton offered important encouragement. The members of my graduate seminar in modern portraiture, Debra Byrne, Alex Huff, and Lisa Moore, repeatedly challenged and augmented my thinking about my subject. Work on the book was aided by a grant from the Research Board of the University of Missouri System, and essential subvention of the costs of the illustration program was provided by the Research Council of my campus. I am thankful for this enlightened institutional help.

It has been a real pleasure to work with Yale University Press, London, on the book’s evolution. I thank Katharine Ridler for her careful and astute editing of my manuscript. The two anonymous readers helped me to tighten my arguments; the book is much better for their help. At the Press itself, I should like to thank Elizabeth McWilliams and especially Sandy Chapman and Gillian Malpass. Sandy Chapman was instrumental in obtaining much of the book’s illustrative material and keeping it in order, for which I am grateful. My editor and designer, Gillian Malpass, has been a dream collaborator. In having her commitment, I am a fortunate author.

John Klein
St. Louis, 2001

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