Profession: artist

De Kooning said he was lucky to meet Gorky, Davis and Graham soon after he arrived in the U.S. — mentors all; he also soon met his good friend Smith, and Kline, who became closest of all. Newman (also close), Pollock, Motherwell, Hofmann, Mitchell and Reinhardt were among his artist friends at The Club and the Cedar Bar, with Ashley, Koch, O’Hara, Schuyler and Creeley among the poets. His marriage to Elaine may have been troubled, but she did everything for his career. He painted in Castelli’s porch, posed (to type) as a drunk for Burckhardt, and gave Rauschenberg a drawing to erase.

Kienholz ran the gallery where Berman had his first show (which was closed by the police). Ruscha was among his artist friends, Warhol shot his first film in Berman’s house, and Ginsberg contributed to his mail-art magazine ‘Semina.’ Trocchi hung out with him in Venice Beach, di Prima sent him a lock of hair, while his friend McClure was photographed by him as a naked lion.

Brauner’s countryman Brancusi, befriended soon after he arrived in Paris, introduced him to Tanguy, who also became a friend and in turn introduced him to other members of the surrealist group. Giacometti as well as Tanguy lived in the same building as Brauner, while Breton wrote catalogue notes for his first solo exhibition. Dominguez threw a glass during a brawl, causing him to lose his left eye. Lévi-Strauss, Masson, Lam and Breton were all on the same boat to Martinique, escaping occupied France. Brauner’s refusal to denounce his close friend Matta led to his own expulsion from the surrealist movement.

Guérin taught Géricault, though he appears to have driven Guérin to despair. Delacroix was his fellow-student. Fleeing a failed affair, Géricault joined Delacroix and Ingres in Rome. He met Lawrence in London (his masterpiece having failed to set Paris alight, and his uncle’s wife having borne his child), and David in Brussels. Delacroix, who admired Géricault’s colour but tried to control his own “plastic ardours” posed for one of the figures in ‘The Raft of the Medusa’, and introduced him to Bonington. Georget owned, and almost certainly commissioned, a series of sympathetic portraits Géricault painted of psychiatric patients.

Calle asked Auster, who had been intrigued by her work and had based a fictional character upon her, to invent another “fictive character… which I would attempt to resemble.” Baudrillard, a friend, wrote her a text to complete her ‘Suite Vénitienne.’ Topor was one of the twenty-four friends and strangers she invited, for another project, to sleep in her bed.

Buñuel (a noted collaborator) and Lorca were fellow-students. Dalí’s reputation preceded his arrival in Paris, Miró alerting Picasso. Tzara, Breton, Magritte, Éluard and Aragon were met on his second visit. Éluard (and Magritte) went to stay with him in Spain, Éluard’s wife curing Dalí of his impotence (he said), staying on and marrying him. Dalí visited his hero Freud in London, who told him it wasn’t the unconscious but the conscious he sought in his works. Disney and Hitchcock both worked with him, though Hitchcock had little to do with the famous dream sequence. Breton anagrammatised him as ‘Avida Dollars.’

Johns and Rauschenberg shared lives for a while, living as partners and working as artistic close companions. Rauschenberg had also been involved with Twombly, travelling together in Europe and North Africa, sometimes with Bowles too. Albers taught him at Black Mountain College, where Kaprow, Cage and Cunningham also became friends — Rauschenberg described Albers as a beautiful teacher and impossible person. He was given a good drawing to erase by de Kooning, collaborated with Tinguely and Saint Phalle (with a script from Koch no-one followed), supported Dine, influenced the older Cage, and worked closely with Cunningham for 10 years.