Letter

CO-2444 Kent, Rockwell. [Carta] 1938 Jan. 22, Au Sable Forks, NY [para] Candido Portinari; Maria Portinari, Rio de Janeiro, RJ. 2 p. [inglês][datilografado] Dear Portinari and Maria: Your second letter has just reached me. I think that by now you must have received not only the letter which I sent you by airmail some time ago, but the package of books. I am still working very hard, not having yet completed my report on my trip to Brazil. When that report is completed and printed, I’ll send you some copies of it, trusting that they may be allowed to go through to you. I think it would be better if you would address the portrait of me to Carl Zigrosser, c/o E. Weyhe, 794 Lexington Avenue, New York City. He is an art dealer, and familiar with the red tape of importing works of art. I believe that the picture will be admitted free of duty. Nevertheless, I think it will be best if you put a low valuation on it, say $75.00. I think that in my last letter to you I asked you to send me as many photographs as you could pf your work. I am not anticipating the least difficulty in arranging for you to come to New York and have an exhibition here, but it will be absolutely necessary for me have photographs. By this same mail I shall send a letter to your Minister of Education and enclose a copy of it for you to read. I’ll also send a copy of it to Gilberto da Fonseca, hoping that he can give it some publicity. I wish that you and Maria could be here now and see this beautiful mountain country as it now is, all covered with snow. The ground has been thickly blanketed with snow for weeks, and it is now snowing again. We have been having bitterly cold weather, it having gone to 35º below zero, Farenheit. I am sending you a lithograph portrait of myself that I made a year or two ago. I hope that you can endure its stern look. In making it, I planned to give copies of it to girls that I might be in love with, to hang facing them in bed to remind them sternly that they must be true to me. I am looking forward eagerly to your more pleasant picture that you made, and I am looking forward eagerly to your forthcoming visit, as I continually look back to my very happy days with you and Maria. You have again, as always, my affectionate best wishes. Faithfully yours, Rockwell P.S. I couldn’t make out from your writing how the name of the Minister of Education was spelt, so I have written to the secretary of the Brazilian Committee in New York to find out the correct spelling. I’ll send my letter to the Minister as soon as I receive the correct spelling.