Artists of Catalonia

Undoubtedly you will be inundated with letters protesting inaccuracies and fantastic assertions by the author of the article, “The Artists of Catalonia.” I wish to address myself to one inaccuracy, “Picasso never spoke Spanish. . . .” Wrong. He spoke Spanish with me. During the winter of 1966-67 there was a retrospective show of his works at the Grand Palais in Paris. The caterers hired American students from the Cite Universitaire de Paris to act as waiters. Halfway through the evening one of my co-workers bumped into me and made me drop a trayful of glasses. I let out a loud expletive that only the home boys of the barrio in East Los Angeles would understand and appreciate.

As I wiped the front of my jacket I saw a short man in a dark coat, but tieless, approach me. As the chunky short man stood before me I realized who it was. Once you’ve seen a photograph of Picasso, who can forget the piercing eyes, the sculptured head of a Roman senator? He perceived that I was nervous and placed a hand on my shoulder as he turned to his friends and said, in French, he’s from California. With his hand still on my shoulder, he turned to me and said, “Yo tambien soy de la California!” (I, too, am from California.) Everyone laughed at the pun, for La Californie was the name of his studio and country estate in the South of France. The entire incident took only a minute or two, but it was all, or mostly all, in Spanish.

JOHN DE BELFORT URQUIDI

Los Angeles