Drawing of the Month #19

Tuesday, 1 April 2025. Newsletter 19.

Henri Michaux (1899-1984)

Untitled (Mescaline drawing), 1957

Pen and black ink on paper. Promised gift by Linda Karshan in memory of her husband, Howard Karshan. On long-term loan to The Courtauld Gallery, London

For our 19th drawing of the month, Linda Karshan, artist and President of ACLA, Athenaeum Comeliana de Litteris et Artibus, reflects on a highly personal drawing, a gift to the Courtauld Gallery in memory of her husband, Howard Karshan, and a highlight of the current exhibition, Henri Michaux: The Mescaline Drawings.

Following Ernst (and Ketty), I’ll focus my attention on the special nature of this drawing and its place in our collection at home. Considering the nature of the work, I'd like to quote Martin Kemp on Kenneth Clark's blindspot concerning Leonardo’s state of mind. Kemp refers to “the geometrical temper” of Leonardo's science and how it is intimately related to his feeling for the vitality of organic life. Reading more closely about Henri Michaux, I understood perhaps only yesterday that he considered himself a researcher, a scientist. He took mescaline to reach the vitality of organic life. His was a scientific frame of mind.

The drawings in this exhibition show nothing if not this vitality. Kemp goes on to talk about the organic complexity and living nature of Leonardo’s drawing, “right down to the minutest nuances of mobile form, [which is] founded upon the inexhaustibly rich interplay of geometrical motifs in the context of natural law”. This may seem to be a bit off-piste, but nevertheless, this is one of the important reasons that I am so taken with the drawings of Michaux, and why they hold together so well.

Michaux ends his wall text with these words: “Yet in spite of all the fissures nothing ever collapses”. I was taught to build a drawing so that it would not fall apart when you get up close. That was the Albers way. This drawing holds together, in spite of the fissures. That was always Howard’s and my criteria in selecting and buying a drawing.

The idea behind the Karshan Gift was to unlock the possibility of studying these drawings and exhibiting them beautifully, as we see here. It was meant to be a transformative gift, and it is. This season, we have not only this outstanding exhibition of Michaux’s mescaline drawings, but the display of the German and Austrian drawings, With Graphic IntenT. It could be said that the Kandinsky in that exhibition is another ‘Drawing of the Month’.

The Michaux had a special place in our collection at home. For Howard and me, it was an old friend. It sat on a wall, just as you entered the flat, and Howard could see it from his bathroom as he shaved. That's quite important; Howard always kept within his sightlines those drawings that he particularly valued. In choosing the 25 drawings for the Gift, this work had pride of place, as did the Kandinsky. What makes it so unusual? Its beauty. We know it was made under the influence of mescaline, and Ketty will refer to that. But to my mind, the real beauty lies in its form. The figure is implicit, without being spelled out. And it's masterful in its execution.

As one walks into the Butler Drawings Gallery, the Karshan Michaux holds the wall like none other. It is the most spectacular drawing in an exhibition of excellent drawings. And it's the most complete. This is an important point. There's nothing one would change about it. It’s the drawing that captures the eye, and from which one begins to study the others. Concerning its placement, it's not there as a contrivance. No, it belongs there. It's the drawing you want there.

Concerning its acquisition, I'd like to add something for the youngsters who don't know the history of London galleries: the underbidder in the Christies auction was the late, great Nigel Greenwood, a dealer of distinction. Howard and I recognized this drawing in the catalogue and immediately decided to bid on it. Few in London, especially in those years, had an eye for Michaux. As Plotinus reminds us, “The mind sheds radiance on the objects of sense out of its own store.” We were among the happy few. It’s heartwarming to see how the public has received this gift.

Image © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2024

This drawing is currently on display at The Courtauld Gallery in Henri Michaux: The Mescaline Drawings, until June 4, 2025.