1979
March 2, leaves for Paris, then Barcelona and Nice. Attends opening of the Whitney retrospective at the Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence; two days later, goes to Madrid with his niece, Daniela. Returns to New York, March 14.
April 25, speaks at the memorial for Harold Rosenberg at the New York Public Library.
August, writes to Aldo Buzzi about the drawings he is doing based on chamber of commerce postcards and his own travels: “I’m completely finished with my view of Milan…and other so-called views of Athens, Papantla, etc., which strike me as the equivalent of short stories.”
October 10, in Chicago to speak at Harold Rosenberg’s memorial, University of Chicago. Then goes on to Tucson to visit a cousin, Phil Steinberg, an electronics repairman, whom he has never met. The visit gave him “an idea of what I’d be like without education, without success…[it] left me with an exquisite taste of an authentic person.”
October 17, death of New Yorker humorist S.J. Perelman, a friend since the 1940s. ST later said that when he arrived in America in 1942, Perelman’s comic writing gave him an invaluable shortcut to the clichés of American culture.
Also in October, his New York City apartment is robbed. The thief “made off with all my gold cufflinks and the [gold] medallions from various Academies….I’m sorry about some of the cufflinks….”
2nd edition of The Passport is published, with some drawings substituted.
November, writes to Aldo Buzzi: “These days my drawings are being bought by rich people—as investments. What a responsibility! Good fortune or bad luck for widows and orphans.”
December, resumes playing the violin, which he had played as a child. His violin is a gift from Alexander Schneider. “Playing it loudly, out in the country, with no neighbors nearby, is a pleasure.” Over the next two years, takes lessons, plays with a trio and, informally, with Schneider.
Around this time, begins drawing portraits from life of Sigrid and visitors to Amagansett as well as realistic watercolor still lifes. Some are included in the 1983 publication Dal Vero.
