Laughing Torso

LAUGHING TORSO

/vhose face certainly was not what the English
workman would describe as an " oil painting." He
said, "I have seven sons, this one is the best, you
:an imagine what the other six are like." I very
much wanted to know but I did not like to ask him,
I sent his portrait and four others to the Salon
i'Automne. I saw Othon Friesz, whom I knew
quite well and who liked my work and, knowing
that he was on the committee, asked him to look
out for them. This is done in Paris as elsewhere.
I received a notice, to my astonishment, to hear that
they had all been accepted. I went to the Varnish-
ing Day and found, to my surprise, that they were
not in Friesz's room at all. Each member of the
committee has a special room, where he can hang
the paintings of the people that he approves of. I
looked round the Salon^ and found that all mine
were very well placed in a group " On the line," in
the Salle of Andre Lhote. This was very odd, as
apparently Friesz had not been able to find my
pictures on the day that the committee had judged
them, but they had been discovered by Lhote, who
was not on speaking terms with Friesz at the time and
he had placed them in his salle. I had met Lh6te
one day in 1920 at the Rotonde with Wassilieff, but
I don't think he had even seen my work and cer-
tainly did not know my name, so that I considered
that it was a great compliment. I had a few press
notices in the French papers and one in Polish that
was very complimentary. I decided to have a
"One man show." I had met Monsieur Lucien
Yogel at the Boeuf sur le Toit. He had a very nice
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