Listen to the narration of the correspondence between Forrest Bess and Meyer Schapiro discussing art
Excerpt from the documentary Forrest Bess: Key to the Riddle (2000).
Checkerboard Film Foundation (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
[Music]
NARRATOR: In 1948 Bess read an article in "Life" magazine by the art historian Meyer Schapiro. The article led to a correspondence that lasted over 25 years.
WILLEM DAFOE: Dear Mr. Shapiro,
My name is Forrest Bess. I'm a painter and fisherman. I live on Chinquapin Bayou on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
MEYER SHAPIRO: I am fairly unknown and desire to remain so. But like most painters, when I hear or meet a person with a viewpoint similar in some ways to mine, I have the natural inclination to desire to further that acquaintance.
He had a rare kind of innocence, and besides that a lot of curiosity.
LILLIAN SHAPIRO: Mey used to buy works by Forrest Bess for my birthdays, but these came in the mail from him in a box which he had made himself, apparently, so intriguingly mysterious, with text on the back. Well, that was Forrest Bess to me, a mystery.
"'The Asteroids.' First, I noticed them moving to the left. They were in small groups in the heavens. Next, they gathered themselves into a pattern of kaleidoscopic beauty."
WILLEM DAFOE: Dear Meyer,
All my life these visions have happened. I can recall them all, back until I was about three or so, as clearly as if they happened yesterday. I just go to bed, close my eyes, and see these things.
NARRATOR: In 1948 Bess read an article in "Life" magazine by the art historian Meyer Schapiro. The article led to a correspondence that lasted over 25 years.
WILLEM DAFOE: Dear Mr. Shapiro,
My name is Forrest Bess. I'm a painter and fisherman. I live on Chinquapin Bayou on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
MEYER SHAPIRO: I am fairly unknown and desire to remain so. But like most painters, when I hear or meet a person with a viewpoint similar in some ways to mine, I have the natural inclination to desire to further that acquaintance.
He had a rare kind of innocence, and besides that a lot of curiosity.
LILLIAN SHAPIRO: Mey used to buy works by Forrest Bess for my birthdays, but these came in the mail from him in a box which he had made himself, apparently, so intriguingly mysterious, with text on the back. Well, that was Forrest Bess to me, a mystery.
"'The Asteroids.' First, I noticed them moving to the left. They were in small groups in the heavens. Next, they gathered themselves into a pattern of kaleidoscopic beauty."
WILLEM DAFOE: Dear Meyer,
All my life these visions have happened. I can recall them all, back until I was about three or so, as clearly as if they happened yesterday. I just go to bed, close my eyes, and see these things.