Three ALSs from Albert Einstein’s stepdaughter, Margot, and one TLS from Einstein’s secretary, Helen Dukas, each sent to German artist Elsa Schmid, who became Margot’s art instructor in the 1940s. Margot’s letters, five total pages, each approximately 6 x 9, dated between 1950 and 1963, contain the following sampled passages:
February 26, 1950: “I wanted to tell you that your work looks simply beautiful! I was standing there for a long time, watching it from each side—how interesting you work! What an expression…I admire you deeply! And the drawing next to it is my heart’s delight.”
February 18, 1959: “You know how much I love your work! But, to my feeling, the portrait of my father is one of the greatest things you have done. It expresses his whole spirit—you are the only one—I would say—who presented the ‘real’ Einstein, who was so humble in his heart, so kind and childlike and wise all together.”
June 5, 1963: “How sweet of you to ask for my health. I feel much better this week…Enclosed I am sending you a ‘copy’ of the ‘Chapter’ of your mosaic by my friend…from Vienna.”
The TLS from Dukas, one page, 8.5 x 11, December 30, 1968, in part: “I hope this finds you well and recovered at home. Margot is still in the Engadin-sie wanted to come home for X-Mas but got 111 herself und is now recuperating (an infection). I am glad, she did not come right now she would catch the flu at once! I have talked to a physicist friend here about what you wrote me—there is a new Physics-Building going up as a matter of fact. He told me the colleague in charge of the ‘Art’ side is Professor John A. Wheeler (Dept. of Physics, Princeton U.) and it cannot harm your son to ask him. I know Prof. W. but, as you can imagine, I myself, do not want to do anything except answer questions. W. is, by the way, a specialist in Relativity and a great admirer of AE.” In overall fine condition.
Elsa Schmid (1897-1970) was an accomplished German artist of many mediums, best known for her mosaic and glass work. In her youth, she spent many summers at an artists' colony in the Italian hill town of Anticoli Corrado, learning mosaics, painting, and art history. After immigrating to the United States in the 1920s, Schmid’s experimental mosaic technique, laying stones in the sand ground face-up, caught the attention of the art world and beyond. In the 1940s, she began teaching the craft to Albert Einstein’s stepdaughter, Margot, and soon became close friends with the famed physicist. In a letter thanking Schmid for a portrait she created of him in 1952, Einstein praised her artistic skill: ‘You were able to capture my innermost spirit.’ Schmid’s work is held in several prominent collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge.
