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Ad Reinhardt to Donald Judd, 1962. Courtesy the Judd Foundation.

Donald Judd to Ad Reinhardt, November 19, 1962. Courtesy the Archives of American Art.

1962
Donald Judd:

Here’s a speech I made last week in a Michigan museum, last month in a Wisconsin art center, last spring in a California museum and last year in two places in New Jersey. You know anything about New Jersey? I’ve been saying this for almost ten years and whenever anyone asks me to talk I say it again and whenever anyone asks me for an article I write it again and now I seem to have it down a little neater and so I am shooting it out to all kinds of art-places and outer-spaces. Couple of fellows with a movie camera were taking test-shots in my studio last summer but they didn’t give me much of a chance to “act” but this might be a sound-track. Do you live with Yasuo (?) Kusama? Do you know that “Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel” in Paris? Yvaral and his wife came to see me this past summer, son of Vasarely, gave me booklet on international movement, miss Kusama, representing New York, I couldn’t read all those manifestos, all in French. Here’s my speech, last words, before it appears in twenty-six languages.

—Ad Reinhardt

19 Nov 1962
Ad Reinhardt:

Thanks for the English version of your speech. It was lucid and will be useful when I do that article—about which I feel pretty guilty for being so slow. The one history, as an instance, is an awesome procession, as the whole is as well. As you say, they are your rules. I agree with some, partially agree with others and disagree with others, especially, as a general consideration, the one evolution. Yayoi had shown me the booklet—the Paris group. She has the loft below mine and lives with an architect, which is a fact not to be disclosed to Japanese society. I didn’t notice though that Yvaral was Vasarely’s son. It would be interesting to see a first-class show of Vasarely’s. Thanks again.

—Don Judd