Letter from Marie Laurencin, Paris, to Paul Rosenberg, 1949 December 30 : autograph manuscript signed.

Sending him New Year's wishes. She has a bad cold--maybe the beginnings of whooping cough--and it's worse when she lies down. If it were only a well-deserved rest rather than the annoyance of this cold, she'd be happy, because she's disgusted with life--especially when she sees photos of Picasso in "The Life." She says he has all the luck. He and she went to the south of France. He was hot and was walking around naked. She said he must be in a state of euphoria with all the kids and sycophants surrounding him. They stayed 2 hours in her little studio. Every day she gets a request to speak on the radio. André Gide and André Maurois have done so, and she said it was terrible. She said she has only one desire--to get away for good, and she wonders what people will say afterward. Madame Apollinaire, after offering her in 1939 her letters written to her husband [Guillaume Apollinaire], has let her know through Robert le Masle [a doctor whom she did a portrait of] that she will have copies made for her, either by hand herself or on a typewriter, and she'll give them to her. This dumbfounded Laurencin. Mme Apollinaire just gave Francis Poulenc three drawings by Laurencin, from the inheritance of Apollinaire. Poulenc just called her to ask her to sign them. Business is not good. A South American bought one of her paintings through an intermediary. For two months the light has not been good for painting, even in her heated studio, where she has lunch to economize. Madame Jacquart put out a lithograph [by her] of three heads, and she's on her 25th black engraving for Sapho [see MA 3500.238]. In spite of what other people like, she likes only black engraving, the "true" engraving. She went to a fancy party, where all the women wore black. Mr. [Carlos de] Beistegui talked about jewelry. Daisy Fellowes is coming to live in Paris. She has an amazing new piece of jewelry. Georges Geffroy is finding her a place to live, maybe with Christian Bérard. She says that the newspaper Le Figaro has reported that the Marshall Plan is sick and tired [of how it's proceeding]. She adds that Picasso is the only Phoenix rising from the ashes and says he should govern Europe.