RICHTER, HANS. (1888-1976). German American Dada painter, graphic artist, avant-garde film producer and art historian. Archive of nine ALSs and two APCSs. In total, 16 handwritten pages dating from 1941 to 1977, many on NY City College stationery, and written to Richter’s long-time friend, journalist LÉO SAUVAGE (1913-1988). With 4 signed envelopes, and 3 handwritten unsigned envelopes on Richter’s stationery, and an ALS from Richter’s fourth and last wife, FRIDA RUPPEL (1908-1978), written about a year after Richter’s death on February 1, 1976. In French with translations.

Excerpts from the correspondence:

1. ALS. (“H. Richter”). 1p. 4to. New York City, May 13, 1941. With signed envelope. Richter had escaped Europe in 1940 after the Nazis labeled him a “degenerate artist,” and landed in New York with little money and a limited command of English: “I just arrived in New York – a monstrous city – and am trying in vain to restore my equilibrium that was too much made for our old continent. I am dead-tired: of travel, of events, of people, of these sensitive times… Here I see Léger – as for French people, but that’s not saying much. – The last film of René Clair’s with Marlène was a blunder. – Renoir is shooting a gangster movie in Hollywood. – If you wish to have ‘news’ from the cinema world – ask questions – I will answer you right away.”

2. ALS. (“Hans Richter”). 2pp. 4to. New York City, February 22, 1947. With signed envelope. About his position at City College and his film Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947): “I have just received the news from Auriol (of the Revue du Cinéma), that you are alive and well. It has been almost six years since I wrote you a letter in Marseille asking for your dates… It was the reply to your letter and I never again heard a word from you. So – I told myself, you fell into the hands of either the Nazis or the Pétainistes! I am very happy that you have survived anyway and am curious to know how you managed it?! – Besides, I doubted that – in ’42 – you could have gotten a visa for here [in New York] - in any case not with my help… the help of an ‘alien enemy.’ – We were treated marvelously here but carefully watched – and communication with Europe…that, no. – As for me, I am director and professor at this university. A large institute with 300-350 students, and 15 classes… Besides that, I am finishing up a 90-minute color film… extravagant, eh, but straightforward and I think fun. I just sent pictures to Auriol. – If you want to have materials (photos or written) write to me. You will have priority.”

3. ALS. (“Hans”). 1p. 8vo. New York City, May 10, 1948. Richter writes, “Here are some more photos. Please return what you don’t need - Also ‘Theatre Arts’ with the Kracauer article on the film.” Sauvage’s notes for Dreams are on the verso, taken during an interview with Richter: “Dreams that money can buy secondary characters paid 10 dollars - primary nothing shot in a garment center loft 21st Street producer lends white tie, suit and shoes a piece of ribbon torn from an old sofa = Max Ernst scarf the spiral staircase from the house of one of the backers in all 30,000 dollars, the 10th of a series H production begun in 1944 - premiere April 23, 1948.”

4. ALS. (“Hans”). 2pp. 4to. New York City, February 5, 1952. Richter asks Sauvage to make corrections to a letter he is writing to the co-founder of the Institute of Filmology, Gilbert Cohen-Séat, about a future lecture: “You honored me with an invitation to give a lecture during the first congress of the Institute of Filmology in 1947 (?). I was not prepared at the time to come to Europe but proposed instead to have a paper of mine read, and to deliver my lecture personally as soon as I got a chance to visit Europe. This year, indeed, I will be in Europe starting from the end of May until the end of August, and I would be very pleased if you would be willing to include my lecture in your program --- if this is possible?”

5. APCS. (“Hans”). 1p. 4”x6”. N.p. [Italy], July 24, 1952. About a return visit to France, and his film Dreams That Money Can Buy: “France a little ‘disappointing’!!! but otherwise the rhythm of life is like always… and friends with the same quarrels, problems – except that they are more acute… I gave a little ‘non-orthodox’ lecture at the Sorbonne… I sold Dreams in France (but what a bureaucracy!!!).” With a note from his wife Frida Ruppel Richter, “It’s beautiful here but we try to break all heat records – Fridel.”

6. ALS. (“HR”). 2pp. 4to. Southbury, Connecticut, August 25, 1953. With signed envelope. Richter invites Sauvage to the set of his upcoming film, 8x8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957): “You probably have left this city of wonders? But if you will be back after Sept. 8 I would like to know if you would agree to come here to the country with my cameraman and Weinberg. We will finish up the shots for my new film here (1 or 2 more days) and I imagine it would be most fun for Le Figaro to have its representative right on the set with ‘actors’ such as the grand-daughter of Matisse, the Tanguy, Duchamp etc.”

7. ALS. (“Hans R”). 2pp. 4to. Southbury, Connecticut, June 18, 1957. With signed envelope and reply. On legendary French film director Abel Gance: “Meanwhile I also received a letter requesting information on 8x8 from a French company: it’s called ‘Connaissance du Cinema’, President Abel Gance... Could you find out about this comp. and if Abel Gance really is ‘active’ with them? He is a great man and I admire him – especially his Napoleon 3-screen (a masterpiece)… In any case – you’ll always have a place (bed and grub anyway), here in the countryside. Just to escape the heat in N.Y. Telephone me as soon as you get back.”

8. ALS. (“Hans R”). 1p. 4to. Southbury, Connecticut, August 31, 1966. With handwritten envelope. Richter mentions his book, Dada, Kunst und Antikunst [Dada, Art and Antiart], published in German in 1964 and in French in 1965, which quickly became a standard work on Dada. “Thanks a thousand times for your fast and effective cooperation - With you one is always well saved. [Pun on the name Sauvage]. I have already thought that the lack of a more detailed review in the Times showed that the book will not yet be published in English! When?” Richter has pasted a printed color illustration of a woman’s eye beneath his letterhead.

9. APCS. (“Hans R” and “Hans Richter”). 1p. 4¼”x6”. Locarno (Switzerland), January 16, 1969. On the postcard’s verso Richter has drawn a “Dada Head” (his best-known artistic motif), and written his message within the drawing. Richter is likely referring to the year 1968, arguably the most turbulent year in modern American history. It included the assassinations of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and aspiring presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, massive protests over civil rights, and heightened social unrest over the Vietnam War. “I hope that… you will be all right - especially in view of the somber aspects (and even worse) of the general-situation-pain in the ass!”

10. ALS. (“Hans R”). 2pp. 8vo. Southbury, Connecticut, July 30, 1970. With handwritten envelope. At the time of Richter’s writing, Sauvage was covering the months-long, sensational Charles Manson (1934-2017) murder trial, for the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. The 1970 administration Richter refers to is that of Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994), American president from 1969 to 1974. “The ‘Manson assignment’ is interesting. The murderous (and suicidal) instincts are not isolated. They are the sign of a dead end society. – There were always assassins – reformer – idealist – revolutionary, but this was only a paranoid exception. Today it is the climate –created day by day and even more by an administration that sees nothing, understands nothing, and counts on for re-election, only for a national crisis to manifest itself (in a terribly threatening way). My God!”

11. ALS. (“Hans R”). 1p. 8vo. Locarno, January 17, 1976. With handwritten envelope. Richter writes in a shaky hand two weeks before his death on February 1. He mentions Georges Méliès (1861-1938), the French magician, actor, and film director who led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of cinema. The “20/30/40 years” refers to the 40 years since the Richter-Sauvage friendship had begun, when in 1937, Méliès introduced them to each other by mail, suggesting they meet in a Paris apartment to watch Alexander Calder perform one of his famous Circus shows: “Excuse my writing, my right hand is partially paralyzed but with the aid of physiotherapy things will be all right. The year '75 was indeed a miserable year – and not only for Mr. Nixon. My wife like me was sick for a long time, but happily she is better… and me I am working, nevertheless. I will be staying in the hospital for a while longer… And how are things with the children? You are probably already grandparents? So are we! It is a special vocation. – I would be so happy to meet once again in N.Y. or in Conn. and figure out what happened in these 20/30/40 years from Méliès until today. I would love to – if my health permits it this summer. So see you soon.”

12. Frida Ruppel Richter. ALS. (“Frida Richter”). 2pp. 8vo. Locarno, March 11, 1977. With the handwritten signed envelope (“Richter”). “As I have almost nothing on Hans in the thirties, I would be very grateful if it would be possible to know your memories of this period. I get asked for ‘shows’ etc. + H. wrote very little about this period and I don’t know anyone who saw him during this time. As you say, it’s sad, the friends are gone... H. kept thinking in terms of the future, even when he was sick + we were pretending + hoping to go to the USA. He was very happy when he received your letter in January [changing to English], he was very fond of you both, always very attached + grateful to + for old friends. It’s very difficult for me to get used to the situation, I guess it’s not possible.”

Hans Richter was born in Berlin, Germany, and became one of the principal figures of avant-garde art in the 1910s and 1920s. As an art historian and pioneer of Surrealism and Dadaism (sometimes called an art movement but more accurately an anti-art movement), Richter was a major influence on artists in many disciplines. He is now best known for his groundbreaking surrealistic films Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947), whose cast included Max Ernst and Stanley Kubrick, and 8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in Eight Movements (1957), both of which are discussed in our correspondence. Richter immigrated to New York City in 1940 at age 52, and in 1943 became a professor and the director of the Institute of Film Techniques at NY’s City College, a position he would hold for 13 years. He married German-born Frida Ruppel in 1951 and in 1956, turned to teaching documentary filmmaking. In 1962 he retired, and they moved to Locarno, Switzerland.

For 25 years, Léo Sauvage was the New York foreign correspondent for the Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro, and, under the byline “New York: Léo Sauvage,” reported to French readers on American news, political and cultural events, while reviewing theatre and interviewing celebrities in all fields. He was also the author of nine books, the best-known of which are The Oswald Affair (1966), about the JFK assassination, and L’Affaire Lumière (1985), about Georges Méliès and the origins of cinema.

Our archive which chronicles the long and warm friendship between the two men mentions many important artists, filmmakers and film scholars including:

French abstract painter Fernand Léger (1881-1955);

French writer and filmmaker René Clair (1898-1981) who made the 1924 Dadaist film Entr'acte based on a book by Francis Picabia and featuring Picabia and Eric Satie. His 1941 film The Flame of New Orleans starred German actress Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992);

French filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894-1979), the son of painter Pierre-August Renoir, whose films include the highly esteemed La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game. In 1941, Renoir made his first American film, the noir Swamp Water;

German critic and journalist Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966) helped establish the field of modern film criticism and penned the 1947 classic From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film;

American film journalist Herman G. Weinberg (1908-1983) pioneered the use of English subtitles in foreign films;

The cast of Richter’s 1957 film 8 x 8: A Chess Sonata is a veritable who’s who of avant-garde figures including French artist Jacqueline Matisse (1931-2021), French surrealist painter Yves Tanguy (1900-1955) and Influential French-American Dadaist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) likely best known for his controversial Conceptual “readymade” piece Fountain.

French film director Abel Gance (1889-1981) is best remembered for his films J’Accuse, La Roue and Napoléon, mentioned in our letter, and for his pioneering use of montage.

In overall excellent condition and rare.