Letters of Note: Art

A splendid new volume of missives about art, from the author of the bestsellingLetters of Notecollections.

Vincent Van Gogh curses the stare of the blank canvas. Salvador Dali contemplates mailing a piece of his 'lobster-colored pajamas' to Federico Lorca. Hollis Frampton, to the MoMA, demands that artists be paid. The dean of students at San Francisco Art Institute argues to Alicia McCarthy, in very stern words, that graffit is not art but, rather, a "pain in the ass." In a letter to the ed...