During Kokoschka’s stay with us, he was installed on the fifth floor of our home, which was a glass solarium that I used for hanging paintings. Oskar’s room was at the end of the gallery, and whenever he walked up to the fifth floor he would see two Soutine landscapes before he entered his room. After a few days he asked me if I would move the Soutines. He didn't think too much of Soutine as a painter. I told Oskar that they were my choice paintings at that time, and I'd like him to live with them a little longer.

Several weeks later, he was in my office, where a third Soutine landscape was hanging, and I noticed he was quite taken with it. He must have stood in front of that painting some twenty minutes. A friend of mine came in during that time. Kokoschka came over and shook hands with my friend, and then went back to the landscape. When the friend had left, Oskar came over to me and said, "Henry, Soutine is a painter." I suspected that Oskar found something in the landscape where Soutine had solved a problem that he had been unable to solve in one of his own paintings. He never said another word about the two Soutines that hung in my home.