Richard Brown Baker, whose journal excerpt “My Dinner with Jasper Johns” appeared in issue 143 of The Paris Review, is one of the foremost and most prescient collectors of twentieth-century paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures in America. In 1995, he bequeathed a large portion of his collection to the Yale Museum of Art. Now eighty-six, he has been keeping a journal since his boyhood in Rhode Island.


Defending—and Buying—Lichtenstein 

 

At the point these excerpts begin, Baker is recounting a visit to artist Milton Goldring and Goldring’s wife Marian in their new Riverside Drive apartment. Lichtenstein was then relatively unknown and much derided by many artists and art collectors.

 

 

December, 1961—New York

 

… Through much of the evening we discussed the qualities of various dealers …