Size: 38 x 15.5cm Technique: Blue ink on paper (folded sheet) Inscription: Signed by the artist
Category: Found Type: Letter
ART 1121
Additional notes: "Giotto's Hill"
92, 20th Street,
MENLO PARK,
Pretoria
30.9.75
Dear Stephen,
When we meet I will bring my eyes very close to yours [illustration of two faces in profile facing each other; the left being Gray and the right being Battiss] & will look at them & see you are beautifully CRAZY GRAZY GRAYzy & with a refreshing madness that will bloom under your satire. You tickle the (ribs? Or [illustration of breasts] of Nadine & its (sic) a rare thing for her to write a laughing review. Congratulations!
I return to glorious Antalya, Turkey, this now Friday but tell you the book "Local Colour" (Too tame a title for your hidden flambuoyancy & you dress too neatly & your hair not untidy enough - but WILL COME according to Ezekiel & Camus) & I say this book is the glorious shining tip of the iceberg [second page:]
- 2 -
that is strangely filled with volcanic fire & can explode in the future.
O yes, the book is a new thing in our S. A. MOANING LITERATURE. Good!
After your welcome gift - thanks for sending it so soon - I now read (1) the brutal/tender Charles Bukowski's "Life & Death in the Charity Ward" (Also a poor title, I think) of London Magazine Editions 1974 & (2) Ezekiel 3:3 etc.
Eternal Love [with a flourish and an illustration labelled] "a Karoo Chanting Goshawk rather than Ravan for you"
Illustrated in "Printing the Seventies: Battiss, Burwitz, Skotnes and More. The Stephen Gray Collection"