Audio file 139-1

Wonga is speaking about Francis Gruber, a portraitist, that Sonja Ferlov Mancoba knew; he starts to list artists Ernest knew: Henri Goetz, Hans Hartung

[tape stopped and restarted] Wonga asks if Ernest heard about any of the European modern artists, like Picasso, when he was in South Africa (from Lippy Lipshitz) and Ernest replies no; Ernest recalls Lipshitz telling him the leading European artists were curious about African art but not African artists

elsewhere, Ernest speaks of Lipshitz telling him about Vincent van Gogh

Wonga is astonished Ernest had not heard of any European masters before he arrived in Europe (mentions Van Gogh and Paul Guillaume's book); Ernest agrees Paul Guillaume mentioned Picasso but he only learned of Picasso's work when he was in Paris and that it was Sonja Ferlov Mancoba who explained the importance of Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso to him

Paul Guillaume's and Thomas Munro's book "Primitive Negro Sculptures" (1929) closes by describing how African art inspired the European modern artists

Wonga asks when Ernest first met Giacometti but diverts to speaking about Rita Gueyfier and Clarisse Penso, Sonja Ferlov's friends

Rita Gueyfier was an artist model who modelled for Giacometti; Clarisse Penso was Rita's friend

Wonga returns to Giacometti, recounts how Sonja Ferlov Mancoba met him (Bille, Mortensen and Linien artists visiting Giacometti's studio; mentions Surrealists - Andre Breton - and Antonin Artaud); recalls Sonja saying the Danes were disappointed Giacometti was not making abstract works

Ernest interprets Giacometti's style of figuration, between abstracted and representational; he clarifies the Danish artists hoped to find Giacometti's purely abstracted works; Wonga adds Giacometti did not hue to modern art only being abstract art, to which Ernest agrees

Wonga asks again about first contact with Giacometti, Ernest says they exchanged greetings; [tape stopped and restarted] Ernest explains he met Giacometti through Sonja; Wonga adds Ernest's studio would be above Giacometti's and what did he notice?

Ernest had 3 studios from when he arrived in Paris to when the family left for Denmark. His last was in Giacometti's complex. Sonja Ferlov's studio was already in the complex

[tape stopped and restarted] Ernest recalls Giacometti coming up to his studio and holding newborn Wonga; Wonga wants Ernest to speak about time before the war

Wonga was born in 1946. The family lived in Ernest's studio in Giacometti's complex until they left for Denmark in 1947.

[tape stopped and restarted] Ernest speaks about the Occident avoiding African artistic perspective; Wonga tries to redirect back to personal exchanges with Giacometti, Ernest says that Giacometti (and Picasso) never tried to learn about African culture; Wonga defends Giacometti (Picasso, Cubists, Surrealists, Linien artists, Artaud) as having consciousness of Africa but Ernest argues otherwise

[tape stopped and restarted] Wonga continues about the modernists' interest in Africa and Ernest repeats that Giacometti did not make an effort to learn about Africa from him; Wonga admonishes Ernest for not making the effort to begin the conversation unlike Sonja who made efforts

[tape stopped and restarted] Ernest recalls poor women asking Giacometti for help but he forgets the detail, Wonga is frustrated

[tape ends]