small selection of letters and written pieces by Else – Includes a letter sent by Kathe Kollwitz to Else Meidner
Meidner 29 Objects Correspondence from Else
[Transcription/translation] 7 October 1973 My dear Berlioz, Enclosed the review of your book. Please do keep it. There is no such thing as Jewish art, and I am not a Jewish artist. Born in Berlin and raised on German art and culture, I shall not let Hitler (the prick) win by allowing myself to be branded as such!!! There is one human religion, but I do not stem from orthodox Jews. My father was a liberal Jew. Heine was Jewish, and lived out his last years in Paris, but he remained a great German artist. When Socrates was asked to …
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[Transcription/translation] 1 August 1969 ‘Who never spent the darksome hours weeping for the morrow, he knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers.’ Dr Hodin, Dr Hodin, I’ve been thinking about you all this time, but you write that you’re tired and weary, and I myself have not been well and I’m finding it hard to write. I’ve been terribly depressed. What you said in your letter was of course unfair and not entirely true. Two years ago I had a visit from someone who’d been to see you. This person told me, to my embarrassment, that all your walls are covered …
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[Transcription/translation] 10 January 1970 Dear Dr Hodin, Since I think I owe you an explanation regarding those drawings that haven’t been sent to your American friend in the USA, I shall do it here. The reason is that I’ve had some awful experiences selling work to foreign buyers, and I wanted to avoid any further stress. When one agrees to buy something one generally has pay for it first, before one receives the goods. For some reason this doesn’t apply to works of art!!! One then has to write letters begging for payment or the return of the work. It …
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[Transcription/translation] But why should a lady painter be modest? Could you please tell me why?
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[Transcription/translation] 24 November 1968 My dear Dr Hodin, Firstly, congratulations on the publication of your Kokoschka book! Secondly, I have received an official invitation from the municipal authorities in Darmstadt. They have asked me to exhibit some forty drawings in the town hall there. Thirdly, you said that if I were to exhibit in Darmstadt, you would write about it. Does this offer still stand? Fourthly, looking after myself has become very difficult for me. I have certain demands and expectations that no nurse could meet. I am in constant pain and I can barely walk. That’s why I can …
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[Transcription/translation] 5 May 1969 Dear Dr Hodin! Hopefully the award of the honorary doctorate will have brought you all joy you deserve. I wanted to tell you that I was terribly stressed both before and during the exhibition, and although I regard every exhibition as a day of judgement, this time it really was terrible!!! I think I must have said all sorts of incomprehensible things when I spoke to you on the telephone. This was just me trying to be funny, my attempt to cope with the intolerable stress through humour. I hope that’s what you took it for. …
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[Transcription/translation] 30 July 1975 Dear Dr Hodin, I’ve always told myself that if I must be the fool, I shall be the good fool and not the bad fool! I refuse to accept that I wrote too soon, for you suggested the monograph a year ago, when I didn’t dare undertake anything because it was too expensive. I should have liked to have had back the letters from Ludwig that I lent you for your book; you forgot to give them back to me. It seems I was right to have buried all hope years ago. I did not deserve …
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[Transcription/translation] 21 September 1970 To be sung to the tune of ‘Ännchen von Tharau’: O, Hodin of Swiss Cottage, If he were mine how I would boast, Of all the people in the world It’s him I love the most. I sang this down the telephone, but they’d put me through to the wrong number. Someone said: ‘You have a lovely voice.’ Unfortunately it wasn’t you. I promptly hung up. It was your number I dialled though. The enclosed card shows that you meant to come and see me in September. I waited, then I telephoned again because I have …
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[Transcription/translation] 27 November 1968 Dear Dr Hodin, If I now repeat and say to you: ‘Those who forget so much good grace one tends to regard with scornful face,’ you will call me a parrot! My letter vexed you, but that really was the last thing I wanted! You did in fact say something about a possible exhibition, though that may have been before your article. I have been taking a dessert-spoon of the said article like medicine every three hours, and you ask me whether I’ve read it! You may well have read the question in my last letter …
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