Gilles Deleuze’s letter to Dado

Gilles Deleuze addressed this letter to Dado in 1994.

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Dear Sir,

I was truly delighted when our mutual friend Gilles Degois brought me the book ¹. I haven’t put it down (my health now forces to me to rely on books, on reproductions, though in your case this is still worthwhile).

Your painting is powerful. A terror in which man constitutes the material. There’s a relationship unique to your work between matter-forms and animal-man, the invertebrate, and color-grounds that afford powers of transparency and reflection. The beauty of the colors.

Your entire oeuvre such as it appears in the book is striking. With great painters it sometimes happens that a picture that is not necessarily among the most perfect enters into a personal, secret relationship with a certain viewer that paves the way for the entire work: for me this was The Crucifixion of 1955. You have invented a style that touches me intensely. May I assure you of my profoundest admiration.

Gilles Deleuze
Translated from French by D. Radzinowicz

1. Alain Bosquet, Dado, un univers sans repos (Paris, La Différence, 1991)