What’s to become of Pedro Friedeberg’s letters?

The year 2015 has been designated one of Anglo-Mexican amity, with celebrations planned in both countries by both governments. But it looks as though one name will be missing from the list: Pedro Friedeberg’s. ‘Who?’ you may ask. Well, in 1982 I was in Mexico City to interview Gabriel García Márquez after he’d won the Nobel Prize for Literature. At a party given by a Mexican art-collector, I noticed several zany pictures on the wall. ‘They’re all by Pedro Friedeberg, my favourite Mexican artist,’ said the collector. I stared at one large framed square after another, at pictures in which the Old World and the New seemed conjoined in a frantic, electrified marriage.

The following week the Mexican currency collapsed. As I was walking past a gallery in the Zona Rosa, a painting in the window arrested me. Strangely attired maidens floated in a room which had a 19th-century look — until I peered more closely and saw that its wallpaper was patterned with tiny repetitions of E=mc². The picture was entitled ‘The Levitation of the Three Virgins of Guadalajara’, and it was by Pedro Friedeberg.

I went in. The assistant explained that the currency was still collapsing, but did I have any dollars? I did, in the form of traveller’s cheques. In which case the picture could be mine for $120. It was very large. ‘We can ship it to London.’ I wanted it, but I was about to leave for Acapulco. ‘We can reserve it for you.’ I remember thinking at the time that unless I took it with me, I might never see it again, but that it was too big to carry. I turned it down.