Sunday I lost a friend and so did you. L. Clarice Davis, librarian
extraordinaire and book dealer even higher in standards, passed away after a
long struggle with cancer. She was a smoker--please, please do everything
you can to stop smoking. She couldn't until it was too late. But she was a
friend to so many of us. She was an assistant to Jean Moore in the UCLA Art
Library when I first met you 50 years ago. She then became the Art
Librarian at that institution, and then the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
director of the library. She was a very, very good librarian and art
historian.
And then she decided to open up a bookstore--and it was a great art
bookstore in Westwood Village, the home of UCLA and other wonderful people
too. The openings, the parties, the launchings, and the art gallery
promoted what she believed in--the best art books, the best art, and the
best parties.
And then she closed the shop and worked out of her beautiful home which
seemed to accomodate a book collection beyond imagination, as well as many
cats, dogs, and a few people. It was in San Fernando Valley.
She took me out to see the poppies in the spring one year, she was one of
the first members of ARLIS/NA because she always believed in what I was
doing, independent and aggressive as I was. She supported me through all
the ups and the downs of ARLIS in its first years, and I hear her deep voice
even now--which turned into a rasp, a scratch, and then silence, because of
so much radiation.
She stood out and she stood up for independent bookstores, for careful and
meticulous expertise in describing antiquarian books and used books, she
taught me high standards and scruples.
Tonight, if you could, raise a glass to Cal--and perhaps we shall honor her
at UCLA with some kind of gesture that will memorialize her presence in our
lives.
On the eve of my own sister's memorial,
Judith A. Hoffberg
Founding Executive Secretary of ARLIS/NA
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