17

The Last Battle

On the first day of February 1924, Roché joined Hermann von Wedderkop, the editor of Germany’s leading avant-garde magazine, for a lunch of langoustes at Jean Cocteau’s apartment. Then, finding himself near rue La Boétie, Roché decided to go see Picasso. Among other things, he wanted to ask him about the illustrations he had long promised for the German edition of Roché’s Don Juan. When Roché arrived, however, Picasso was distracted by something altogether more urgent. He had just seen a very large, unknown painting by Henri Rousseau that had been discovered in someone’s basement. Picasso said it was the best picture Rousseau ever made. He also said it made him think of John Quinn.[1]

For Roché, this was tantalizing news. For nearly four years—almost since he and Quinn had begun their collaboration—Quinn had been hunting for an exceptional Rousseau. He was fascinated by the painter’s naïf portraits and pure, enigmatic jungle pictures, an attraction that was heightened by Rousseau’s enormous influence on Picasso and his circle, who had revered him at the end of his life. By now, Quinn had managed to acquire several important Rousseau paintings, but the great, definitive painting he sought continued to elude them. Roché had consulted dealers, followed private leads, and obtained access to paintings that were not officially for sale, but nothing he found had quite satisfied Quinn. He needed to see Picasso’s painting right away.

The location of the mysterious work carried its own fascination. It was not being marketed by Rosenberg or one of the city’s several Rousseau specialists. Instead, the painting had come into the hands of Kahnweiler, who continued to make up in connoisseurship what he could not in capital. And he had chosen to show it to Picasso before anyone else. Ever since his return to Paris after the war, Kahnweiler had persistently pursued his friendship with Picasso. His gallery was nearby, and Picasso liked to drop in and talk to him. Already the previous summer, Picasso had agreed to make him a series of new lithographs, several of which Quinn had acquired from Kahnweiler during his second trip to Paris.[2] Kahnweiler also knew Picasso’s love for Rousseau, and giving him a peek at such an extraordinary painting was another way to signal his continued loyalty. For Picasso, the overture had come at an opportune moment. Just weeks earlier, Rosenberg had returned from his disastrous trip to New York and Chicago, and Picasso was furious that none of his paintings—none of the big neoclassical Harlequins that Rosenberg had demanded—had sold. Once again he had come up empty in the United States. He laid much of the blame on the dealer, telling friends that Rosenberg’s high prices had “hurt him very much.”[3] If he was not quite ready to give up on Rosenberg, he nevertheless took a mischievous glee in sending Quinn—Rosenberg’s most important American client—to Kahnweiler. As Roché later told Quinn, Picasso was “flirting” with Kahnweiler again.[4]

Roché didn’t need persuading. Kahnweiler’s gallery, on rue d’Astorg, was less than five minutes from Picasso’s apartment, and as soon as they were done talking, he raced over. The painting was still in the gallery’s cellar storeroom and Kahnweiler took him downstairs to see it. At first it didn’t look promising; the canvas was rolled up, and there were still cobwebs on it from years in storage.[5] As the dealer carefully unrolled it, however, Roché slowly began to absorb what he was seeing. A sheer, empty desert; a distant range of mountains; the night sky. A woman asleep; an enormous lion. The scene was inexplicably overpowering; it almost seemed to give off heat. Looking at it, Roché was seized with what he later described as “a bolt of love.”[6]

As he came to his senses, Roché felt certain that Picasso was right: The painting had to go to Quinn. He also thought that the painting was dynamite. As soon as Kahnweiler cleaned it and displayed it upstairs in the gallery, all of Paris would be talking about it. And the price Kahnweiler was asking seemed moderate: 175,000 francs, or about $9,000. Roché guessed that it could easily sell for 200,000 francs or more. What could he do? Nine thousand dollars was still a lot by Quinn’s standards, but it was not beyond his range. Roché also knew that Kahnweiler liked and respected Quinn from his visits to Paris. Using all of his persuasive arts, Roché pleaded—insisted—that Kahnweiler send Quinn a photograph before showing the painting to anyone else. He impressed on Kahnweiler that as soon as Quinn saw the photograph, he would surely take out an option—a nonrefundable payment to reserve a work for a fixed period of time. At length, Kahnweiler seemed to agree to the arrangement, though until Quinn purchased the option Roché had only the dealer’s word.

That night, Roché couldn’t stop thinking about the painting. When he got up, he immediately wrote to Quinn. “I have seen yesterday a Rousseau which has quite upset me,” he began. “Kahnweiler has just received it. Picasso saw it there and told me to go at once, thinking of you.” He said he couldn’t describe it, but then tried anyway, writing and crossing out words. “The woman, lying at the foreground, she is dreaming of love, her face is ‘inouï,’ the lion is probably going to eat her, but perhaps he will walk away.” The colors, he wrote, were equal to the composition: “They are a poem strange simple.” He told Quinn he was sending a photograph as soon as he could get it and warned him, “If it is exhibited, it is sold.” He also tried to convey the strength of his feelings. “I risk all my worth and all your confidence to back this picture,” he wrote.[7]

Kahnweiler was glad to entertain interest from Quinn, particularly on Picasso’s recommendation. But they would have to act quickly. For the time being, the painting was not yet ready to be displayed, but Kahnweiler recognized that it was a work of unusual interest and did not want to wait. For his part, Roché knew that the letter and photograph would take a week or more to reach New York, and his initial cables to Quinn had met with silence. A day went by, then another. Ratcheting up the pressure, Kahnweiler told Roché that Quinn would need to buy a 10,000-franc option—about $500—to reserve the painting. Roché cabled New York again, this time referring to himself in the third person for emphasis: “picasso says most wonderful rousseau…roche never saw more convincing picture.”[8]

Still, no reply came from Quinn. Roché began to worry. Just as he feared, Kahnweiler decided to hang the painting, now cleaned and framed, in his gallery and already it was attracting attention. Reporting the news to Quinn, Roché cabled that the painting was “creating unanimous sensation.” He urged him to risk an option even before seeing the photograph. Once again, though, he heard nothing. “Cabling John every day,” he wrote in his diary, “anxious hasn’t answered.”[9]

By now, a week had gone by since Roché first saw the painting, and Kahnweiler gave him an ultimatum: Quinn would need to buy the option by noon the next day or he would open the work to other parties. Somehow, Roché would have to get Quinn’s attention. That afternoon, he decided to take Brancusi to see the painting; his opinion would matter. But the sculptor would not be hurried. Roché arrived at his studio at lunchtime and Brancusi wanted to grill some steaks. Then, when lunch was finished, Brancusi said he needed to go to the bank, where they dealt with some complications involving a check he had received in dollars—from Quinn. The afternoon was getting on, and Roché kept thinking of the painting. But Brancusi needed a new coat. They made their way to the Boulevard des Capucines and, with the money from Quinn’s check, bought him a magnificent pardessus at Old England, known for its British tailoring. They were now near the Opéra, a thirty-minute walk from Kahnweiler’s gallery. They would have to get there in time to see the painting and cable Quinn. Crossing the center of Paris again, they finally reached rue d’Astorg. They went inside, and Roché led Brancusi to the big painting. For several minutes, Brancusi looked at it. Then he told Roché: He was touché au coeur. He also agreed with Picasso about where it should end up. As soon as they left the gallery, Roché cabled Quinn: “brancusi’s own words: fascinated originalist rousseau. something for friend quinn.”[10]

The next morning, hours before Kahnweiler’s deadline, Quinn at last broke his silence. For weeks, he had been nervous and withdrawn. When Jeanne Foster arrived from Paris in late December, he had met her at the dock, and she was startled by how much thinner he seemed. Since then she had been with him constantly, and he had determinedly kept up his work. But he had ceased almost all of his other activity and the wasting continued. He had a habit of taking her on a weekly Sunday walk on the Palisades, or in the hills around White Plains, sometimes with their friend Gregg. But Foster noticed that the walks were getting shorter.[11]

In his narrowing view, Quinn was less inclined to get excited by a painting. He also hadn’t received Kahnweiler’s photograph or Roché’s letter describing the work; he had no idea, even, of the painting’s subject. His answer was cantankerous and noncommittal: “cannot decide until see photographs. unwilling pay ten thousand option. too high.”

Still, he had never seen Roché so exercised about a work of art. Quinn asked him to make a counteroffer on the option, if only to prevent the dealer from selling the painting to someone else: “would be willing to pay four thousand two hundred fifty francs option.” Then, in a second, “confidential” cable to Roché, he wrote that he had “no intention” of making such a large purchase and that it would “strain resources” to do so, though he “might possibly make exception this case.” This was not at all reassuring, but at least not a definitive no. Roché relayed the counteroffer to Kahnweiler and awaited his answer.[12]

The next day, Roché was invited to lunch at the home of Jacques Doucet, the fashion magnate and avant-garde art patron. Now in his early seventies, Doucet lived in a townhouse filled with works by Picasso, Derain, Modigliani, and other contemporary artists, as well as thousands of modern literary manuscripts and printed books, and he was one of the few Parisian aesthetes whose advanced taste in art and prose rivaled Quinn’s. He was also a great Rousseau admirer, having earlier beaten out Quinn for the Charmeuse de Serpents, one of the painter’s most acclaimed works. Roché wondered what he would make of the Kahnweiler painting. It was a delicate matter. Doucet’s wealth far exceeded Quinn’s, and once he saw the painting, he might well want to buy it himself. But Roché was already deep in negotiations with Kahnweiler, and though they had not yet agreed on Quinn’s option, the dealer, as a point of honor, would probably not go behind his back. Moreover, since Doucet had acquired the Charmeuse, it seemed unlikely that he would pursue a second big Rousseau. In balance, Roché decided that the chance to get Doucet’s opinion was too good to pass up. He told Doucet about the Kahnweiler painting, and straight after lunch they went to see it.

At the gallery, even Roché was shaken by Doucet’s response. The old designer was utterly transported, confessing that he found the painting “even more important and surprenant”—astonishing—than his Charmeuse.[13] Hurriedly, Roché cabled Quinn again: The owner of the greatest known Rousseau felt that the new painting was better. That same afternoon, Kahnweiler told Roché he was willing to accept the 4,250-franc option until the photograph reached New York. Everything now depended on Quinn. Each day, as Roché awaited a response from New York, he went to Kahnweiler’s to have another look at the painting. On the tenth day, fearful that Kahnweiler’s photograph might have been held up in the mail somewhere, Roché asked Man Ray to come take a new set of pictures of the painting. Then he sent Quinn another letter. “I hope and believe it will be, if you take it, one of your greatest joys as a collector,” he wrote.[14]

On February 15, two weeks after Picasso had alerted Roché about the painting, Kahnweiler’s photograph finally arrived at Quinn’s apartment. As he examined it, Quinn was baffled. The black-and-white image was not particularly convincing; whatever power the composition had, it certainly wasn’t evident here. He had spent too much on art the previous fall, and was not yet ready for another large purchase. His inclination was not to take it. Before he could get off a message to Roché, however, another cable arrived from Paris.

By mid-February, news of the huge, unknown Rousseau was rapidly spreading around the French art world. Dozens of people were coming to Kahnweiler’s gallery each day to see it and a group of avid supporters had begun raising funds to donate it to the Louvre. For all of Roché’s efforts, it was starting to look as if this one would slip away. But there was still one connoisseur he hadn’t consulted, a man whose opinion might carry more weight than anyone else’s.

Antoine Villard was a well-off landscape painter who had developed a passion bordering on obsession for Rousseau. Over time, he had amassed a dozen of his paintings, amounting to one of the largest and most distinguished collections anywhere. Roché had met Villard the previous spring, reporting to Quinn that he was “crazy about Rousseau, loves him, cannot stop speaking about him and his works.”[15] Eventually, Roché had persuaded him to let Man Ray photograph all of his Rousseaus for Quinn. What would Villard, a man who lived and breathed Rousseau’s work, think of Kahnweiler’s painting? Roché needed his judgment immediately, and in the end, managed to convince him to see it that same day. In the new cable to Quinn—the one that arrived while Quinn was examining the photograph—he recorded Villard’s response: “villard proclaims this picture greatest miracle. is despairing not possessing it.”[16]

Quinn read it and the other cables again. He read Roché’s letter. He looked at the photograph. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t know what to do. He called Jeanne Foster and asked her to come downtown for a walk. They went down Broadway, a few blocks from Quinn’s Nassau Street office. After they passed Trinity Church, it started to rain; they sought shelter under the el. As they stood there in the downpour, Quinn brought up the painting and told her about the cables from Paris. He knew he was not a well man and asked her to decide. She looked at him, at his frail frame and tired face. “Buy it,” she said.[17]

Quinn was happy. Somehow, she had understood. They walked back, and when he returned to the office, he cabled Roché. Then he called his bank and ordered 175,000 francs to be sent to Kahnweiler the next morning. Not only had Quinn not seen the painting; neither he nor Roché knew its title. Six weeks after the sale, they learned from Kahnweiler that Rousseau had called it La Bohémienne endormie—The Sleeping Gypsy—but even Kahnweiler knew nothing of the painting’s history since the time of its creation more than a quarter century earlier.[18]

In Paris, news of Quinn’s coup spread quickly. Congratulations poured in from Picasso, Brancusi, and his other friends; Roché was ecstatic. Kahnweiler himself wrote Quinn that he was glad it had “gone in the collection of somebody who is able to appreciate it entirely.”[19] Improbably, one of the most important paintings of the entire modern era was not going to stay in Paris, where there was a legion of modern artists who admired it, numerous connoisseurs who coveted it, and even a world museum that might have received it. Instead, it was destined for an apartment thousands of miles away, in a city that was still deeply ambivalent about modern art. That Quinn was able to pull this off, for a moderate price, without even seeing the painting, was an extraordinary statement of the influence of one American and his ambition.

The morning after the painting’s arrival, Quinn, in a letter to Roché, called it a “glorious victory.” With the Rousseau, his collection now formed a remarkable, gemlike unity: the best Seurat; the best Rousseau; standout paintings by Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh; defining works by Picasso in almost every one of his major phases; a definitive series of Matisses; a sweep of Brancusis; singular works by Derain, Braque, Vlaminck, Duchamp, and many others. It was hard, though, not to see the irony. While the apparition of The Sleeping Gypsy in Quinn’s living room left all of Paris seemingly in awe, the event passed largely unnoticed in New York. In fragile health, Quinn had kept the unveiling a private affair, inviting just a few of his intimates for the small celebratory dinner. And though he didn’t know it yet, The Sleeping Gypsy would also be the last battle he and Roché fought.


In the weeks after the Rousseau arrived, Quinn struggled to carry on. By now he found it uncomfortable to sit in any one position for long, yet he still crawled to the office for a number of hours each day. Most evenings, Jeanne Foster came over to sit with him and talk, and, to the extent he could, he followed events in Paris and New York. In late April, a friend wrote to him about yet another Italian Renaissance show that had gone up at the Duveen Gallery. It sent him into a rage. “The god damned benighted, provincial country has not yet got beyond Rembrandt and the early Italians,” he snapped. “These things belong in Italy. They don’t belong in New York in the twentieth century.”[20]

A few weeks later, Quinn received a belated diagnosis: advanced liver cancer. At the end of May, he stopped going to the office and canceled all plans for the summer. Foster, returning to his apartment after a visit with her family upstate, was shocked to find him reduced almost to a skeleton. She did not leave his side from then on. Retiring mostly to his bedroom, he surrounded himself with the paintings he admired most. As was his usual practice, he didn’t bother to hang The Sleeping Gypsy. Instead, he simply propped the enormous painting on a table next to his bed, between two east-facing windows, where he could watch it gradually fill with light from the glow of the sun rising over Central Park.[21]

In late June, in one of his last letters to anyone, Quinn dictated a long letter to Roché. “This letter is for you personally,” he began. “I have cirrhosis of the liver.” He said that he didn’t think his case was as dire as his doctors thought, but that he had been put on morphine. He thanked Roché for giving the extra copies of Man Ray’s photo of The Sleeping Gypsy he had ordered to a number of friends in Europe—Picasso, Brancusi, Erik Satie, Robert Delaunay, Wilhelm Uhde, Antoine Villard, Jacques Doucet. Quinn made one final dig at Rosenberg, for his “trickiness” in up-pricing Picasso’s work. Then he said that, given his situation, he wouldn’t be able to buy any more art for six months to a year. (“Of course,” he added, “my refusal to buy paintings does not include the Braque if it comes off well and is a real masterpiece.”) Finally, he told Roché not to worry about him and to keep everything he had said in confidence. “I don’t want my condition to be told to anybody, not even Brancusi.”[22] As a kind of defiant farewell, he wrote that he hoped that he and Roché would someday “have many long tramps and games yet and play out in the open.”

As Quinn’s strength dwindled, Foster was distraught. Their time had been cruelly short. And they had been truly free only in Europe, during those two trips. After their first sojourn in Paris in 1921, she had stayed behind, writing to him wistfully about the “lost years” of his life, his inability to escape his driven New York existence. She had also promised him she would never “give the ‘wolves’ a chance to tear your life work down.”[23] But now, confronted with losing him, she began to wonder about that life work—all his plans and dreams, the projects that had pulled him, searching forward, in the few years they had been together. The wolves were still there.

He had never said much about what he wanted to do with all of his art, and they never discussed it. He also had few living relatives, and she herself had no formal legal connection to him. But one day, as he drifted in and out of sleep, he turned to her and said that if anything happened to him, it would be terrible if his paintings were sold. Two weeks later he was dead.

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