Dear Serge,

I am writing to you from my studio; I drink a Whiskey, I listen to sweet music. Rhythms and melodies of the gypsy world. Music that comes from far away, from the beginning of the world. I just painted.

It is the face of a Tunisian bride.

I went back to Tunisia this summer and I went into a house to see the bride. It was extraordinary, she looked like a Saint Sarah; the virgin of the gypsies, I don't know if you have already seen her, she is in a crypt at Saintes-Maries -de-la-Mer.

A huge room without light with a few candles around it, incense, Arabic music, a crowd of women and kids screaming around it. She is covered with jewels from head to toe, her hands painted black, a naive, distraught, painful face.

That's what I'm trying to do, and until I'm sure I know what it is, I'm not going to do anything else.

Letter to Serge Creuz (1967)