Aldwinckle, Eric, Letter, 16 June 1945

Hand written letter, Eric Aldwinckle.
Description: 
Letter to Harry Somers

Tabs

Case Study: 
Creative Dialogue Across the Ocean: Eric Aldwinckle’s Letters to Harry Somers
Creator: 
Aldwinckle, Eric
Source: 
letter
Date: 
16 June 1945
Place: London
Collection/Fonds: 
Contributer: 
McMaster University Libraries
Rights: 
Copyright, public domain: McMaster University owns the rights to the archival copy of the digital image in TIFF format. Reproduced with the kind permission of Margaret Bridgman.

Identifier: 
00001617-5
Language: 
eng
Type: 
image
Format: 
jpg
Transcript: 

He wrote from Bournemouth just before leaving for Canada. "Dear Eric that painting you had on your easel has been haunting me.
Unfinished as it was it possessed some quality that I haven't been able to forget.
It's good Eric! For God's sake finish it, then perhaps I'll see it in the future and get it off my mind -- leaving tomorrow Best wishes"
This fellow baled out in Berlin in the inferno which his bombs had lit and it is no wonder that he is par [?] bald now, though only a youngster. He had not said a thing about my work in the studio, but this reaction made me feel I had caught something I was after, which perhaps only he and survivors of crashes will really recognise and so I have finished it.
It is so stimulating to get some real live reaction from someone who also has experienced these things that it comes as a heartener. So often has my finished work met the silent, unknowing and uncaring eye of administration to be whisked away to the silent unknown that I have been feeling sometimes as one robbed -- I have sung, I have shouted -- screamed or merely commented artistically but there has been no answer, until I have felt justified in believing that I was talking to myself and there seemed no point in speaking words of experience in a locked room. My field notes are exhibited -- my messages or my feelings have been hidden -- They will perhaps come to light later -- who knows. It doesn't matter.