Francis Cunningham: An invitation to a show in Jerusalem

The following invitation, including the text, recently arrived at Francis Cunningham's studio. Alas, Dick will not be able to attend.

The image in the invitation is a portrait of Pesach Slabosky by Francis Cunningham. The text explains it and the origins of the exhibition.

בחברה הכי יפה

In the Finest Company

פראנסיס קנינגהאם, פסח סלבוסקי, נעמי בריקמן, אבי סבח, מאשה זוסמן, ינאי סגל, ג'אורג' גרוס

Francis Cunningham, Pesach Slabosky, Nomi Bruckmann, Avi Sabah, Masha Zusman, Yanai Segal, George Grosz

     When we both were younger, Francis (Dick) Cunningham was my teacher at the Brooklyn Museum Art School (of blessed memory*). We have been close friends ever since. Dick has made five trips to Israel, where he has traveled and painted. He has given workshops at Bezalel, and his work was exhibited in the exhibit, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, 1909-1999, Contemporary Views,   [תל אביב-יפו 1909-1999 נופים עכשיויים] at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, in 1999.
     The name of the exhibit, In the Finest Company, is meant to express my pleasure in friendship and collegiality towards me on the part of the participants, over long and shorter periods of time. The name and conceptualizing of the exhibition are mine, but Cunningham has the credit for the fact that there is an exhibition. His desire that he and I should have an exhibit together in Israel was what made me want to do it.
    These are the artists. Dick and myself. Nomi Bruckmann, who is my wife. Nomi was not formally Dick’s student, but she has maintained her own close relationship with him since the days when we three met at the Brooklyn Museum. The members of Barbur: Avi Sabah, Yanai Segal, and Masha Zusman. I thank them for not just hosting the exhibition, but also for agreeing to respond to the works of Dick, Nomi, and myself, with their own works. We are fortunate, too, to have available a work by George Grosz, the German master. Cunningham studied with Grosz in New York and remembers him fondly. His principal teacher, according to him, was the American painter, Edwin Dickinson. (There is a painting by Dickinson in the collection of the Israel Museum, which I have been told has never been exhibited.)
    Most unfortunately, despite Cunningham’s desire to be present, he was not able to make the trip. We shall be raising a glass to him.

Pesach Slabosky
*This is a story in itself. Since the 1970’s, The Borough of Brooklyn, in New York, has had a monumental upgrading, in which The Brooklyn Museum has taken part. From being a little-visited site, it has become a major New York art venue. As part of making that happen, the museum closed the art school, which had operated for more than fifty years, and was making a profit, to make more exhibition space.