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Ben Shahn, my dear friend,
It is with deep emotion that I greet your final work and that
I pay homage to your memory. Others besides me with talent that I have not
might have been better able to write these few words and to honor the figure
that you have been. But it is upon the urging of your wife and friends that
I accept the honor of having my name stand in this work with yours. Knowing
your feelings as I do, I think that perhaps you would have approved the choice!
It was so long ago when you first came to visit me and work
in the old atelier in Rue de Chambrol! Then later, in our more modern place
in the 13th Arrondissement, again I welcomed you. We shook hands and were
a little emotional; perhaps it was your youth, our youth, that was brought
back to us then.
When we were young fellows each of us in his way learned
to be a good printer and a good lithographer; we were both strongly attracted
by drawing; we both loved beautiful letters, the carefully studied mise-en-page,
but you turned to Fine Art while I on my part remained loyal to printing.
After having received you in Paris it was then I who cam
to New York to seek you. At your home in Roosevelt, after a warm reunion,
I readily persuaded you to publish those illustrations that you had already
completed for the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke.
That was two years ago, and it was my son Jacques in
New York who printed the twenty-four lithographs which you executed. That
magnificent work is one of the most beautiful books ever published in the
United States; I believe you were most satisfied with it!
I wanted to continue that collaboration, and you, having now
done both drawings and calligraphy for "Hallelujah," the last psalm
of the Bible, agreed to its publication and its realization in lithography.
You entrusted to your friend Lawrence Fleischman the responsibility of publishing
it.
With a precision that always characterized you, you provided
Jacques with detailed specifications for executing the work. Alas, those
instructions, those technical details which you outlined for him have been
most useful, since you left us before having finished your task. But rest
assured, in every way this book will be done according to your wish, and
by a team of men who weep for you!
We will always cherish the memory of Ben Shahn, noted artist,
a good and loyal man who lived his fellow men. Your friendship will remain
in our hearts and we will not forget your message for freedom and peace.
Thank you, and be assured of our lasting devotion.
Good bye, my friend.
Fernand Mourlot
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