b'Troy, New York, which gave me my first en- had been a mystery to me, how it was made, but counter with Picasso. As a child, I once said towith a burin in my hand, I was in business. Buck that I was an admirer of Norman Rock-well, and his reply was that he does not go farNMO: How did you know to study with him? enough. After seeing Picassos work at an exhi-bition at the Knoedler Gallery on 57th Street, IJKR: He was renowned as a great teacherhis understood. Picasso opened a door for me to theformer students still revere him. Leon Gottlieb poetry that art can be.once said of him that he was like Jesus, with disciples everywhere. I had a couple of scholar-NMO: And in college? ships,amongthem,onetoScripps.ThenI heard about Lasansky. I knew how to paint and JKR: My father insisted that I go for a liberal artsdrawbutIwasdesperatetobreakintothe and not an art school education. Mauricio La- seemingly opaque techniques of printmaking. sanskys print workshop at the University of Iowa Was Lasansky supportive of women artists?was my reason for going there. I had always want- NMO: ed to learn intaglio. When I first registered, I was told that as an undergraduate, I could not studyJKR: I had met my former husband on a week-with Lasansky. But I went to see him and he said,end away from college. When I returned, La-Show me a portfolio, and when he saw it, hesanskycommentedthatIhadchanged.He said, You are in. He took me into an advancedsensed what was coming, and when I later told class, and that began one of the most excitinghim that I was leaving to get married, he was times of my life. I was the youngest in that class.angry, saying that he was never going to train a They were all passionate. It was right after thewoman again and that I would end up arrang-war, and Marxism, Picasso, and Matisse were ining flowers and putting stuff on my eyelashes. the air. Coming from boarding school into that atmosphere of politics and art was really very ex- NMO: You later moved to New York?hilarating. It was 1949. The first thing that La-sansky did was give his students a burin and say,JKR:Myhusband,ourfourchildren,andI okay, use the burin and make a self-portrait. I stillmoved to New York in 1965. My husband was a have the self-portrait that I did then. Printmakinglawyer, and his career brought us to New York.'