There’s a current that hums beneath the bloodstream of modern art — a shimmer between the painter and the critic, between devotion and desire.
In the late 1950s, Salvador Dalí wrote a note about Alexander Eliot, the visionary art critic for Time magazine. Not an essay, not a lecture — just a flash of ink, hot and lucid, in French:
“Almost demoniacally, Freud penetrates a work of art. Malraux mingles it with his own anguish. Between these poles of promiscuity, Eliot’s moral attitude is original: Chastity; he loves art without violating her, he is intimate without so much as a touch. And just as Gala is in all my work, Eliot’s partner lives in his.”
— Salvador Dalí, on Alexander Eliot
That small note made Eliot a kind of monk of beauty — one who adored art from the edge of touch.
But art doesn’t always want to be worshiped. Sometimes, she wants to be held, smudged, or fought with.
In July 2002, another note appeared — a mirror to Dalí’s — written to me from Eliot, on a little orange piece of paper. He quoted Dalí’s line back at the top, and then flipped it:
“TODAY, STANDING ON THE WATERFRONT BEFORE THE GATELESS GATE OF DAVID HINNEBUSCH’S ART, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY.
MR HINNEBUSCH TAKES — + MAKES — SUCH UNCHASTE PLEASURE IN PAINTING!
HE SHOULDERS DISRESPECTFULLY PAST THE GREAT EXPRESSIONISTS OF YESTERYEAR — SUCH AS MAX BECKMANN + WILLEM DE KOONING INTO THE FUTURE.”
— Alexander Eliot, July 2002
That’s the handoff:
Dalí the dreamer.
Eliot the witness.
Hinnebusch the joyful violator.
Each one crosses the same line — between reverence and rapture — but in a different century’s light.
The two notes, photographed above, appear in my graphic novel in progress, HFN Volume 2. The Eliot note is in my hand; the Dalí note is in French, in Dalí’s hand.
See the work in Montreal: my paintings are listed with L’Original, the Montreal gallery — my artist page
More: Shop originals · Dalí’s note on Eliot, in English, at alexandereliot.com · My VoyageLA interview
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