Beschreibung:

Beckett, Samuel BECKETT SAMUEL. SERIES OF OVER 240 LETTERS, POSTCARDS AND NOTES, MOSTLY AUTOGRAPH, TO HIS CLOSE FRIENDS, THE PAINTER AVIGDOR ARIKHA AND HIS WIFE, THE POET AND WRITER ANNE ATIK THE MAJORITY IN FRENCH, C.20 OF THEM (ADDRESSED ONLY TO ATIK) IN ENGLISH, WRITTEN FROM PARIS (SOME OF THESE SENT AS PNEUMATIQUES), USSY, BERLIN, LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, COVERING THE THREE DECADES OF THEIR INTIMATE FRIENDSHIP; ALSO INCORPORATING AUTOGRAPH FAIR COPIES OF FOUR "MIRLITONNADES" (OR "BIRD CALLS"): "NE MANQUEZ PAS À TANGER..."; "À BOUT DE SONGES UN BOUQUIN..."; "LE NAIN NONAGÉNAIRE..."; AND "QU'À LEVER LA TÊTE..."; OVER 250 PAGES IN ALL, 4TO AND 8VO, WITH SOME AUTOGRAPH ENVELOPES PRESENT, 4 SEPTEMBER 1956 TO 12 SEPTEMBER 1988 AN INVALUABLE LITERARY AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCE FOR BECKETT SCHOLARS AND ENTHUSIASTS. In June 1956 Avigdor Arikha first met Beckett backstage at the Théâtre Hébertot, after a performance of Waiting for Godot, although it was only after leaving the theatre that he found out to whom he had been talking. A few days later they met again at the house of the poet Alain Bosquet, drank half a bottle of whisky together and continued talking until eight the next morning (having foregone an after-dinner trip to The Crazy Horse Saloon nightclub with Bosquet and his other friends). This was a foretaste of many long, learned, drink-fuelled lunches and evenings to come: throughout this series of letters are references to meetings at La Coupole, Les Iles Marquises, La Closerie des Lilas, Brasserie Zeyer, etc. "...They drank up and down the Boulevard Montparnasse, Avigdor and Sam...chummily bobbing along in full fettle...No quantity of alcohol, however extravagant, seemed to affect their memory, either for historic dates or for poetry, and the two had gone on in this way since their first conversation in 1956, when Avigdor was twenty-seven years old and Sam fifty..." Despite their difference in age, and the five years it took for them to use the 'tu' form of address (evident in these letters), their affinity with eath other was immediate. "...What made them instant friends, I suspect, was not only their love for German literature, but their shared thirst for knowledge in general, their passion for and, at the same time, wariness of erudition; erudition was their temptation...and both knew it sometimes was come by at the expense of innocence..." (Anne Atik, How It Was: A Memoir of Samuel Beckett 2001, pp.3-4 & 15). The first letter in this series (4 September 1956) alludes to a recent visit by Arikha to Beckett's country retreat in Ussy, where he was shown an untitled "petite pièce": an early version, in fact, of Endgame (Fin de Partie): "...Je suis très touché que la petite pièce vous accompagne ainsi. Le problème du titre me tracasse toujours. J'ai l'impression qu'il faut éviter le mot 'Fin'...". A few months later Beckett visited Arikha's studio, and having announced that he had added a monologue, began to recite it from memory ("On ma dit l'amitié, c'est ça, l'amitié..."). Arikha was to recall this moment as "one of the greatest spiritual, aesthetic discoveries" in his life (Atik, p.41). Such was his intimacy with the play that in 1984 he was commissioned to design the set and costumes for the New York production directed by Alvin Epstein for the Samuel Beckett Theater and then the Cherry Lane Theater. The developing friendship between Arikha and Beckett was to be a continual source of inspiration for the artist. His portraits of Beckett, who was always cooperative yet unselfconscious, were done from life, in everday situations such as listening to music, smoking, or "with a glass of wine". A selection of these portraits, which also traces the stylistic changes in Arikha's art over two decades, was exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum from February to May 1976, as a tribute to Beckett on his 70th birthday. Some of the portraits are reproduced by Duncan Thomson in Arikha (London, 1994). Arikha also produced drawings