Selected Letters: 1926-1955

This selection of letters by renowned French painter Nicolas de Stael begins in 1926 when he was 12 years old and ends the day before his death. De Stael wrote thousands of letters - to his adoptive parents, his wives and lovers, his children, gallery owners and dealers, poets, fellow painters and those who bought his work. They describe the course of De Stael's life from young man eagerly awaiting a cheque from a family member at a post office in Cadiz so he can buy his daily kilo of tomatoes, his wine, his newspaper, paints, canvases and sketchbooks, to the final months, when black gulls began to gather on his canvasses, bringing a darker, inky sense of foreboding to work that until then had been characterised by a boundless sense of colour and light. The letters also show the evolution of his understanding of painting, of what painting actually is, of the human cost - what part of the self must be sacrificed to it if it is to be successful, or even honest. And always he is aware of the complementary roles of language and painting. Stael's work, though it bears traces of figuration, is never illustrative; the writing is his illustrative tool, and his own words provide a dazzling commentary on the paintings.