BECKETT, Samuel Barclay (1906-1989). A series of 3 autograph correspondence cards and one autograph note signed ('Sam') to Jack Garfein, Paris, [14 March 1983] - 4 July 1989; five autograph envelopes. 'NO BETTER, HEAD GONE, CAN'T HELP': elliptic messages from Beckett's last years. The earliest cards give an address and thank Garfein for a book (Garfein's Escape from Auschwitz ), adding 'BARRY is the first name'. A card dated 7 October 1988 concerns stage rights for the television play Nacht und Träume : 'Can't see how such specific TV as N. u. T. can be staged & have already refused to do so. But you I won't refuse. So go ahead as best you can simply notify Suhrkamp you have my OK'. The last of the series, only five months before his death, is annotated on the upper margin of a letter from Garfein proposing a meeting to discuss 'a program of Beckett without words ' which he is planning with the French actor Rufus, and is a strikingly bleak depiction of his state, but characteristically softened by a note of friendship: 'Old crocks home, no better, head gone, can't help, can't propose a meeting. Clear the rights & go ahead. Best wishes to you both'. For Jack Garfein see note to lot 236. From 1988, after the onset of emphysema and a number of falls, Beckett lived in a small nursing home in Paris until his death on 22 December 1989. (5)
BECKETT, Samuel Barclay (1906-1989). A series of 3 autograph correspondence cards and one autograph note signed ('Sam') to Jack Garfein, Paris, [14 March 1983] - 4 July 1989; five autograph envelopes. 'NO BETTER, HEAD GONE, CAN'T HELP': elliptic messages from Beckett's last years. The earliest cards give an address and thank Garfein for a book (Garfein's Escape from Auschwitz ), adding 'BARRY is the first name'. A card dated 7 October 1988 concerns stage rights for the television play Nacht und Träume : 'Can't see how such specific TV as N. u. T. can be staged & have already refused to do so. But you I won't refuse. So go ahead as best you can simply notify Suhrkamp you have my OK'. The last of the series, only five months before his death, is annotated on the upper margin of a letter from Garfein proposing a meeting to discuss 'a program of Beckett without words ' which he is planning with the French actor Rufus, and is a strikingly bleak depiction of his state, but characteristically softened by a note of friendship: 'Old crocks home, no better, head gone, can't help, can't propose a meeting. Clear the rights & go ahead. Best wishes to you both'. For Jack Garfein see note to lot 236. From 1988, after the onset of emphysema and a number of falls, Beckett lived in a small nursing home in Paris until his death on 22 December 1989. (5)
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
