Letter to Hans Hofmann

Delavan, 19 March 1958

Dear Mr and Mrs Hofmann,

First, I would like to congratulate you, dear Mr. Hofmann, on your successes, which you have so rightly deserved.

Then, I would like to write about myself that at that time in Provincetown I was very ill with “manic depression” and have never quite fully recovered. There is no cure for it yet, but people are trying to find how to provide the brain with the proper nourishment. This seems to be a matter of chemistry. I am under the care of doctors all the time. Now there are drugs like Thorazine, which brings the patient down from an “elation” in a week (the biggest was in Provincetown!), but it can’t be maintained in a normal condition without turning into a depression, where I just sit in a corner reading or brooding or absent. In addition, I suffer from stupid, very abnormal self-criticism. That goes on roughly for almost a year of depression, then a sudden improvement, perhaps about two weeks of normality, and then it goes too high; Thorazine pills; and then back to depression. Stupid, isn’t it? But one has no control over these conditions. At present I’m right in the middle and experimenting with hot baths, with hot baths [sic], sweating, pausing in the middle, so please excuse my illness in Provincetown!

And now my actual reason for writing! Alice¹ is retiring and going to India for ever this summer, to Didi², whose husband, an architect and engineer, is very successful (as well as very wealthy from an inheritance). He plans to build a large modern house in a Bombay suburb, with a special atelier! (Which also attracts me, but it’s so incredibly hot in Bombay.) Dear Frau Hofmann gave us three collotypes with heads from Munich, and I’m wondering if she has any more like them. And then she has a package of corrected family drawings/photos and a whole book of notes, which she mentioned at the school in the countryside, at St. Tropez and especially on Capri. I’m convinced she would lend or give them to you. The prints also belonged in part? to me but I gave them all to Alice during the divorce! I think I have all my pictures, books and antiques (still!) stored in Texas. Also, a package of photos. Alice’s address (is) Box 1505 Taos, New Mexico, Delia’s address. She would be happy to get a line from you, whom she deeply respects! She has three children (photo enclosed), last time in Poona (fifty miles from Bombay), where her husband also has things to do! Address: Didi Contractor, Vishna Goti, 573/2 Amigali Maharaj Rd., Poona, India.

Delia still paints. She has four servants and a chauffeur, which sounds like a lot but is normal in India. Who is clapping their hands there? That must be quite lovely again, I could also afford a servant in Germany!! But now I’m as poor as a church mouse! – Mr. Hofmann, your career is so interesting, as a teacher of philosophy, and your criticism so important for personal reasons, artistically significant and personal, that it should be recorded in a book with many illustrations for all time. [Illeg.] still has a number of still-life sketches, which are curiously Braque-like in style ([Illeg.] didn’t explain that to me), which you may not know about.

As for me, if I were a writer I would have lot to say about Munich, beginning with the Impressionism Workshops, and then my observations about their students from 1920 to 1934 and also about Alice, who taught many things! (Do you have a copy of your lectures in St. Tropez? I have them in both German and English.) That means everything (especially because of your success in America now, as teacher and artist!) Milestones of art history, and in my eyes, you have a cultural obligation to overview them. During my time in Paris, 1933-34, I saw how that can all be distorted later. Survage told me a lot of things, for example about Modigliani [… illegible words …] who then wrote the big biography – he never knew Modigliani in person. – And then also The Glistening Bridge by the American Putnam, a biography of Survage but at the same time an explanation (mainly) of the new art. Survage is very intelligent, and Putnam (you must read his book, library?), Putnam took up his time for half a year. Back then in Provincetown you accused me of coming to visit with an agenda. That wasn’t the case, of course, I was just in a mood of great elation! So be careful!

I am very pleased that so many German Expressionists are now acknowledged here, such as Jawlensky from the Blaue Reiter, and Baumeister and Schlemmer from my Üecht Group. I myself have still not made an attempt! No money in Texas, nor in Taos (sold for $20,000 in 1956); I only put in $9,000 and now nothing at all. I’m sitting here in Delavan (4,000 inhabitants) and now, last summer my son built a prefabricated house two miles from the little town and I rarely get to do any painting. After your wife gave me the prints, I gave her a picture, “Young Girl” in Picasso style; does it still exist?

Write soon, and warm greetings,

Your

Edmund Kinzinger

My son Siegfried often goes to New York; he came back just yesterday; should he visit you?

Notes

^1. Alice Fish Kinzinger (1899-1968) married E. D. Kinzinger in 1927. She was an American artist, educator, sculptor and craftsperson active during the early to mid twentieth century. Noted for her life and work in Texas, Michigan, and New Mexico.

^2. Delia Kinzinger (1929-2021), Edmund and Alice's daughter