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Madam Maurice de Rennes' in Paris. Maurice de Rennes is the great auctioneer in Paris and he was a friend of theirs. I went to visit him in his studio and bought some paintings from him there and bought some paintings from his dealer. I bought a large picture of a marvelous blue shape which I gave to the Des Moines Museum as a gift.

How does it happen that Des Moines came in here?

Well, the Coles brothers wanted me to give something to the Des Moines Museum--John Coles actually. I wish I still owned it. It's really a beautiful picture. I don't say that he's the creator of this movement since 1945. He's a part of it and he has a better sense of color and more delicate and sensitive in color than most of the other painters. But he's not the leader that de Koonig or Pollock or Rothko and Klein and Gottlieb are or have been.

I have no painting by Pollock and never met him. I met de Koonig. I went to visit de Koonig with Bernard Rice a couple of years ago with Lem Billings and he showed us a number of his things. He's disingenuous, charming, very nice-looking, like a good-looking Dutchman, a very fine face. But he's very very upset and after we left him that day, he disappeared