Milan Mrkusich (1925–2018)

Twenty years ago I wrote a letter to Milan Mrkusich in which I described the surfaces of his paintings as ‘visually beguiling’, and asked whether the intention was ‘to elicit visual or sensory pleasure’. Mrkusich’s reply floored me: ‘Beguiling is your word and the intention you surmise follows the dictionary meaning.’ I thought he was being testy and pedantic. In retrospect, his letter speaks of someone who believed in getting things right. Absolutely squarely right. The specific qualities of Mrkusich’s letter are a statement in themselves: pale grey paper, dark grey lower case ‘milan mrkusich’ letterhead, carefully typewritten text, my questions numbered and cited at the left margin, each brusque response (none longer than three sentences) indented, titles of paintings and key phrases underlined. My choice of or fool the eye (though reproductions of them do). I think he wanted me to check that I was getting things right.