Part: 12         Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536         Page 971972973974975976977978979980981982983984985986987988989990991992993994995996997998 of 1143

I'm hoping we can get him to do something for the Kennedy Center.

Is he interested?

Well, he sounds as if he is. He hasn't committed himself. You know, he did this great thing for the Opera in Paris. That seems to be a great success. And he did a Hammerskjold memorial window at the U.N., which is handsome, but not nearly as good as the ones he did for the medical center in Israel. Those were marvellous. Those were shown in a special pavilion in the Louvre about 3 or 4 years ago. They were also shown here.

Chagall is a man who is very simple, very warm, very full of love for his wife and who turns an affectionate eye on the world. He's very touching when he talks. My French isn't very good, so we aren't in terribly good rapport according to what I can say to him. But I can understand what he says, and I'm very moved by him, always, when I see him.

Well, Picasso was another matter. I used to buy blue Picassos when I was first in business, for about eight or nine hundred dollars on the Rue de la Boissy, and sell them in New York for two or three thousand dollars. Then I remember being deeply excited by the abstract Picassos that Rosenberg had in '25. But I never met him until 1950 or '51, when Albert and I were in Europe and so were the Blocks. I'm not sure they were.

At any rate, I went with Pierre Loeb, a dealer,