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Great news about the Tea cup being returned. I think that was left quite far away. Do we have contacts for the returnees? I love this project.
I am concerned we might be wasting peoples time but somehow the whole process seems to echo the feeling of going through the Archive finding things ourselves; it’s very serendipitous and depends a lot on our attitudes as much as what more objectively is there.
Your find this week of the torn notes from Kathleen Garman’s calendar of the dates that Theo and Esther died are amazingly sad. These actual fragments of paper torn by their mother from a rolodex style calendar are easily enough to make you weep. They are the first step to the formation of a show in the archive devoted to those around Epstein who were perhaps the unwitting victims of his incredible single mindedness but also of the casual cruelty inflicted by parents on their children. Or perhaps it’s just that some young people need help and support to get through their twenties. This job of going through the Archive has made me think long and hard about parenthood. I have two children; I know I am guilty of not always being around for them, often because of commitments to do with art.
Dear Bob,
We do have contact details for those who have returned objects and they know about the tour of the gallery and archive as well. The guy who found the tea cup wants to have it back as he said it looked rather nice on his mantle; I said that he is welcome to it after we display all the returns.
The calendar dates were certainly a poignant find. I looked into the dates of Theo and Esther’s deaths a fair bit and while I wasn’t able to pin down the exact day, the months and years match up so I think it’s pretty safe to assume that their significance isn’t misplaced.
I sometimes have to check myself when being critical of Epstein in his personal life; the mind of the artist is something that I have no point of reference for, so cannot relate to that obsessive pursuit of artistic goals that he clearly had. Having said that, I think this could be a convenient and overly simplistic explanation for his behaviour. I haven’t quite figured out Epstein yet.
Neil.