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I never new Soutine or Modigliani in my early days of being an art dealer because they had both died before the late twenties, when I got to know Zubrowski. He was a charming Pole with brown eyes, brown hair, and a brown beard, who was passionately interested and devoted to both Modigliani and Soutine. When I first went on the Rue de Seine, where the dealers in the then young painters were, I felt that he was singularly moved by these men. He was very anxious to sell them and would urge me to buy Modiglianis and Soutines for three and four hundred dollars. Which I did.

I used to own a very good Modigliani and a very good Soutine. I didn't buy them to resell, because I thought they were totally unsalable in New York. I owned them, and it was only after the crash in 1929 that I sold them. I think one of them is now in the Tate Gallery, a Modigliani head of a woman, sort of reddish and black.

But Zubrowski was a touching figure who must have been something like Theo, the brother of Van Gogh, who wanted so much to justify the life of these men and who believed so much in them. Modigliani painted him, and you can see his portrait in almost any book on Modigliani, and also a portrait of his wife. It's extraordinary that these artists have attained such great fame and such enormous value, and not Gaugin or Van Gogh, although in my mind neither of them is as important was Gaugin or Van Gogh. Nor are the prices as great, but the prices are very great