To the Editors:
I have just been reading in The New Criterion the review of Brenda Richardson’s book on the Misses Cone (October, 1986).
My husband and I went to call on Etta quite some time after Dr. Claribei’s death. She showed us with pride the Jeune Fille en Jaune. Alfred noted with interest that Etta was still collecting.
The fact that the Blue Nude should be blue began to make special sense to me after a day in Morocco when I saw the sand dunes of the Sahara. They are red. There are many races of blacks in North Africa but the bedouins are pewter color; the contrast with the red sands makes them look blue.
We must note that the Blue Nude is described as a “souvenir de Biskra.” I think that Matisse while at Tangier wanted to see the sand dunes with his own eyes and Biskra was the closest place on the edge of the desert.
When John Gunther with his wife was preparing his book Inside Africa, Jane took a series of magnificent photographs of bedouins. I asked her to look at the head of the Blue Nude and she said that the features, tightly compacted into the center of the face, could only be bedouin.
Margaret Scolari Barr
New York City
