Letter

CO-2447 Kent, Rockwell. [Carta] 1939 July 23, Au Sable Forks, NY [para] Candido Portinari, Rio de Janeiro, RJ. 3 p. [inglês][datilografado] Dear Portinari: It was good news to learn from Miss Horn that you were coming to New York this summer, and less good news to learn from you that your visit will not be until some time next winter. It is unfortunately probable that I shall be in Hawaii at that time, for a department of our government is planning to send me there. I’ll let you know definitely when my plans have matured. I have no doubt that you will be well received on your arrival and will soon have lots of friends with whom to visit. But it will be a pity if you have to miss seeing this particularly fine part of eastern America where I live. I have not been to New York since receiving Miss Horn’s letter. When I go down again I plan to see her and talk over plans for you with her. The copy of FORTUNE with your pictures I didn’t see. FORTUNE is a very costly periodical. Having your pictures reproduced in FORTUNE should have served to make you known to the class of people that can best afford to buy pictures, and the friendship of Miss Horn, with the power of the FORTUNE, TIME, LIFE group of magazines behind her, should prove to be of great value to you. I only visited the World’s Fair in its first days. Few of the foreign buildings were then open. I am not sure whether or not the Brazilian building was open; at any rate, not knowing about your murals there I didn’t go in. Sometime this summer we’ll go down and really devote sometime to the Fair. I look forward eagerly to seeing your pictures. Miss Horn wrote with great enthusiasm about your mural in the Department of Education Building. She didn’t tell me what I learned from you with sorrow, that you had not been allowed to finish it. I remember that was your great fear at the time that I was in Rio. I hope at any rate that you have received full compensation for you work. And now about lithographs: Stone is the very best and easiest surface to work on, but the preparation of stones requires expert knowledge. There are different grades of stone and different grades of surface. You have doubtless found out for yourself how much easier it is to draw on stone than on any other material. Not the least of the advantages is that you can erase almost at will, either by scraping or by rubbing down with sand or emery after the stone has been etched. I dislike very much working on metal plates. Some people however like the metal surface. For them there remains only the disadvantage that no erasures can be made. Paper is in some respects the easiest to work on, but I look upon lithographs done on paper as not lithographs in the truest sense. They are very apt to retain when printed the look of being just what they are: drawings on paper. Here is a method that I have devised for lithographs on paper that yields a result that is almost indistinguishable from lithographs on stone. Make a preliminary pencil drawing on a sheet of smooth paper. Then lay this paper on smooth surfaced drawing board and over it stretch a piece of smooth grained tracing paper of the old-fashioned non-oily kind (you must of course never employ an oily tracing paper for lithography). You stretch the tracing paper as architects stretch their drawing paper for water-color work; just paste the margins of the paper to the board and when the paste has set moisten the paper all over. When this dries it shrinks, stretching the paper tight as a drum. Through this you can see your drawing. Then proceed, of course, just as if you were working on stone. One advantage of working on paper is that you can erase or draw white lines by simply using Chinese white. A disadvantage is that you can not safely use tuche (the lithographic wax that you paint on for black surfaces or that on a stone you can work with as though it were water-color), and you should not depend upon the use of soft rubbed tones. It is of course possible to work on your paper transfer when it has been put on the stone or metal plate. Unless the grain of the drawing is quite fine you will find it rather difficult to work on it on the stone or plate. When you come to New York you must spend a few days working the shop of our best printer of lithographs. He will put stones at your disposal and show you everything he knows about the technical problems of lithography. His name, in case we forget to speak about this again and I am away when you come, is George Miller, 6 East 14th Street. Just tell him that you are a friend of mine and he will do everything for you. About crayons: avoid using the very hard crayons, especially in transfer lithography. And be sure that your crayons are of good quality and that they are not too old * (*not more than a year old). Old crayons are not reliable. With us the date of manufacture is usually stamped on the box. Our best make of crayons are manufactured by Korn. It may be that they are imported in Rio. They are made in pencil form and in square sticks. It is generally considered preferable to use the sticks. These are held in a charcoal holder and sharpened to a fine point with a razor blade. In sharpening them always draw the blade away from the point. One great advantage of using the crayons and not the pencil is that you can work with the flat of the crayon, or rather the long edge of it, and obtain certain effects. I think that you will profit a lot by spending a few days working with George Miller. I can appreciate you and Maria’s happiness in having a child. And your letter conveys something of your pride in him. I hope that he is thriving and growing every day to be at last as beautiful as his mother and as wise and gifted as his father. And that Maria, Joao Candido, Olga and Candido continue to live in prosperity and happiness. Faithfully yours, Rockwell