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<title>Philadelphia Art News: Vol. 1 No. 3</title>
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<date when="1937-11-08"/>
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<bibl>Volume 1, Issue 3 of Philadelphia Art News, a bi-weekly arts journal in the 1930s</bibl>
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<date>November 10, 2013</date>
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<titlePage>
<titlePart type="main">PHILADELPHIA ART NEWS</titlePart>
<titlePart type="sub">ALL THE NEWS OF PHILADELPHIA ART IMPARTIALLY REPORTED</titlePart>
<docDate><date when="1937-12-06">DECEMBER 6, 1937</date></docDate>
<docEdition>Vol. 1 - - - No. 3</docEdition>
<docDate>Ten Cents per Copy</docDate>
<titlePart type="halftitle">PHILADELPHIA ART NEWS</titlePart>
<docImprint>Published every second Monday by</docImprint>
<docImprint>BEN WOLF PUBLICATIONS, INC.</docImprint>
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<div type="masthead">
<list>
<item>Ben Wolf</item>
<item><emph>President-Treasurer</emph></item>
<item>Henry W. Taylor</item>
<item><emph>Vice-President-Secretary</emph></item>
<item>Russell P. Fairbanks</item>
<item><emph>Advertising and Circulation Manager</emph></item>
</list>
<list>
<item><emph>Managing Editor</emph></item>
<item>BEN WOLF</item>
</list>
</div>
<div type="copyright">
<p>Subscription Rates</p>
<p>One year—20 issues—$1.25</p>
<p>Copyright 1937, Ben Wolf Publications, Inc.</p>
<p>This publication and all the material contained in it are the subject matter of copyright.</p>
<p>Address all communications to</p>
<p><name>Philadelphia Art News</name></p>
<p>1009 Central Medical Bldg.</p>
<p>Phone, Rit. 9810</p>
<p><name>Philadelphia, Pa.</name></p>
</div>
</front>
<body><pb n="1" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-1.jpg"/>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-01">
<head>STARS AND STRIPES FOR CURRIER</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> C<hi rend="small-caps">ARL</hi> S<hi rend="small-caps">HAFFER</hi></byline>
<p>An engaging aspect of the American parade at the Art Alliance, shown in the Fifteenth Annual of American Prints, is the united front of lithographers in a solid soapstone wall. Allegiance is so nearly complete that work in other forms of print making is coquettishly rare. But a print show which turns into a very good display of lithographs is also quite concretely national, as odorously of our land as the collections of the Whitney Museum; and if American Art is turning to stone, make what you can of it.</p>
<p>Another fact surprisingly shown among the accomplishments of the very earnest jury, is a measure of the work of the jurors; whose qualities shine in a show from which they slyly, or shyly, excluded themselves. Esherick, Pearson and Bailey exact an expertness and worth from the worker; and a high level of excellence through the exhibition does honor to their sincerity, their respect for dispatch. Bacon’s wit and Nura’s fresh point of view, account for fancies and humors, both ill met, and well met in quite many examples; as Baker, Becker, Biddle and Gag.</p>
<p>The Prize winner, a stunning mix-up of silhouette and white line, and a good humored picture of a goat escaping a downpour in the battered wreck of a car (called “Housing Problem,” by Grace Albee) should also win an award for daring to be a wood cut among stone prints—</p>
<p>In a similar way, honorable mention is earned by Eugene Morely because of a fine and subtle respect he has for ink, which makes his prints important as black and white; rather than as lithographs. His three examples are rich in artistic value, though the drama of “Mine Rescue” is fuller, and as well expressed as the simpler story in the rather pat “Pothole.” The artist, rather than the print is first in his case.</p>
<p>As a pleasant game, and not merely to quibble—allow us to question the other mention. Yes, or no?</p>
<p>Why is 25 singled out for mention rather than number 8, or 28, 44, 45, 55, 70, 82, 86 or 115? (To play this game you must see the show, and you really should!)</p>
<p>A quick look at the exhibition would leave one under the impression that several good prints were done by Orozco, and as many by Kuniyoski, with perhaps five more by Thomas Benton. Of these three influences, only “From Boardwalk” by Kuniyoski is there to be weighed with the works of his admirers, and also to show what he has, to be so admired. Lois Wilcox, Esther Williams, and Will Barnet (remember him? he got honorable mention) are a minor trio with personal qualities—How nationalism outruns the individual.</p>
<p>Except in the quaint “Transportation” of Clara Mahl, lithographs by the artists of the Federal Art Project quite take over the show. Among a fine group of their color prints, three of the nation’s employees are going to town; Peck, Gottlieb and Fousek. This group gives a stimulating exposition of the rich resources of color lithography, a field left unspoiled by Currier and Ives. “Winter” is here, by Russell Limbach, and should win the popular prize.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-02">
<head>NEW SPANISH ROOM OPENS AT MUSEUM</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig059.jpg"/>
<head>Ribera’s “Madonna and Child,” from the William L. Elkins collection, with a grouping of furniture of the period in the sixteenth century Spanish room given to the Pennsylvania Museum of Art by Mrs. Frank Thorne Patterson.</head>
<figDesc>Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Philadelphia</figDesc>
</figure>
<p>Continuing its policy of showing works of art in their original setting, the Pennsylvania Museum of Art has just opened a sixteenth century Spanish Renaissance room, the gift of Mrs. Frank Thorne Patterson.</p>
<p>“The room . . . is reminiscent of Spain in its days of prosperity and world-wide power. The austerity of this sparsely furnished room . . . reveals the old Spanish temperament and displays its authentic sixteenth century setting”, said Fiske Kimball, director of the museum.</p>
<p>Architecturally the room is distinguished by three wooden doorways. Two are sixteenth century examples from Ecija, in Andalusia, elaborately carved in geometric designs. The third door, from seventeenth century Seville, is rich in geometric moldings, and, in its acanthus leaf carving, shows a merging of Moorish influence with that of the Plateresco. The architecture of the room also includes a very fine sixteenth century ceiling from Seville, red tile floor, and pure white walls.</p>
<p>The furnishings in the room consist of a number of chairs of the period, several of which were supplied by Mrs. Patterson or her family, a very characteristic cabinet or vargueno, lent by Mr. Raymond Pitcairn, a carpet from the Joseph Lees Williams Memorial Collection, a glazed Hispano-Moresque plate, and a jar of Talavera pottery.</p>
<p>The one painting in the room “Madonna and Child” by Ribera is described by Mr. Kimball as reflecting the “strong and sometimes fanatical religious feeling so inherent in the Spanish race”. The painting is from the William L. Elkins Collection.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-03">
<head>EXHIBITIONS</head>
<list>
<item rend="list-head">WOMENS’ CITY CLUB</item>
<item>1622 Locust Street</item>
<item>Stained Glass, Mosaics and Oils from D’Ascenzo Studio. Through December.</item>
<item rend="list-head">GERMANTOWN Y. W. C. A.</item>
<item>5820 Germantown Avenue</item>
<item>Oils, Water Colors, Graphic Arts and Sculpture, by Artists of Germantown and Chestnut Hill. Through <date when="--12-12">December 12</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">ARTIST’S UNION</item>
<item>1212 Walnut Street</item>
<item>Pre-Xmas Exhibition and Sale of original Paintings, Water Colors and Lithographs for the benefit of the Ambulance Fund for Loyalist Spain.</item>
<item rend="list-head">Y. M. & Y. W. H. A.</item>
<item>Broad and Pine Streets</item>
<item>Originals and reproductions by Elias Grossman, William Meyerowitz, William Margolies, Saul Raskin, Lionel S. Reiss and Libby Siegel.</item>
<item rend="list-head">HARCUM JR. COLLEGE</item>
<item>Bryn Mawr</item>
<item>Water Colors of France, Germany and Italy, by Edith Lampe.</item>
<item rend="list-head">McCLEES GALLERIES</item>
<item>1615 Walnut Street</item>
<item>Paintings by Catherine Morris Wright. Through <date when="--12-18">December 18</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY CLUB</item>
<item>Warwick Hotel, 17th & Locust Sts.</item>
<item>Paintings by Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson. Through December.</item>
<item rend="list-head">CARLEN GALLERIES</item>
<item>323 South 16th Street</item>
<item>Lithographs by George Biddle. To <date when="--12-17">December 17</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA ART ALLIANCE</item>
<item>251 South 18th Street</item>
<item>Oils by Contemporary Americans. 15th Annual Exhibition of American Prints.</item>
<item>Ceramic Sculpture.</item>
<item>Oils by Members.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA A. C. A. GALLERY</item>
<item>323 South 16th Street</item>
<item>Philadelphia Paintings by Chinese Artists. To <date when="--12-06">December 6</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">BOYER GALLERIES</item>
<item>Broad Street Station Building.</item>
<item>Sculpture and Drawings by Emma Lu Davis. To <date when="--12-14">December 14</date>.</item>
<item>Water Colors by Abraham Chanin. To <date when="--12-20">December 20</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS</item>
<item>Broad and Cherry Streets</item>
<item>Thirty-fifth Annual Water Color Exhibition and Thirty-sixth Miniature Exhibition.</item>
<item>133rd Annual Exhibition of Oils and Sculpture. From <date when="--01-30">January 30</date>, to <date when="1938-03-06">March 6, 1938</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">1525 LOCUST STREET</item>
<item>Painting and Trays by Margaret Mellor-Gill.</item>
<item>CHARLES SESSLER’S 1310 Walnut Street</item>
<item>Original Audubon Prints from <date when="--11-20">November 20</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA PRINT CLUB</item>
<item>1614 Latimer Street</item>
<item>Fifth International Exhibition of Prints to <date when="--12-25">December 25</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">U. OF P. CULTURAL OLYMPICS</item>
<item>3425 Woodland Avenue</item>
<item>Senior Posters and Illustrations.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA SKETCH CLUB</item>
<item>235 South Camac Street</item>
<item>Exhibit of work by Pupils of John Geiszel.</item>
<item rend="list-head">WARWICK GALLERIES 2022 Walnut Street</item>
<item>Exhibition of American Painting. <date when="--12-05">December 5</date>.</item>
</list>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig058.jpg"/>
</figure>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-04">
<head>FRESH PAINT</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> W<hi rend="small-caps">ELDON</hi> B<hi rend="small-caps">AILEY</hi></byline>
<p>Once upon a time there was a man named Jones. Being a philosopher, and somewhat critical, he devised the theory that A, when considered in relation to B, produced an effect somewhat comparable to C.</p>
<p>Naturally, all philosophical and critical progress would, at this moment, have reached an enchanting impasse, had not Mr. Jones been suddenly confronted by the ominous presence of Mr. Smith.</p>
<p>Smith was likewise a philosopher, and equally critical, but his ideas differed palpably from those of Mr. Jones. “Why,” asked Mr. Smith, “should A and B equal C? X appears the logical conclusion.”</p>
<p>That, in essence, constitutes the greatest of all possible factors in the intelligent critical life of man. Mr. Jones, no matter what his critical conclusions may be, will inevitably find himself in the presence of Mr. Smith, who contradicts with impunity, and asserts the undeniable fact that Mr. Jones MAY be wrong.</p>
<p>The worst, and best, of this situation is that Mr. Smith might really have the correct solution, and even if he has not, he succeeds in paving the way toward constructive discussion—and ultimate truth, if there is such a thing.</p>
<p>So, hurrah for Mr. Smith! If he reads our column and doesn’t like it, we hope he’ll have the courage of his convictions—enough courage, at any rate, to write directly to us and tell us about it. Then we can have a verbal free-for-all, and all the mutual benefit that goes with it.</p>
<p>Here’s a toast to Mr. Smith!</p>
<p>Contemporary American painters are yours for the looking at the Art Alliance. John Steuart Curry is much in evidence—represented by several canvases, notably a forceful self portrait and the dramatic, rapidly-moving acrobats and horses. David McCosh shows a “Winter Landscape” extremely direct in its interpretation of bleak sky and snow-blanketed mountains.</p>
<p>Andree Ruellan, in a study of negroes, manifests a fine sense of color tone no less than acute draughtsmanship, and shows all the earmarks of one of the best painters in the exhibit. Doris Lee strikes the decorative and, in certain ways, quaint note with her canvas of ice skaters, with its background of tiny houses, trees and mountains, against a blazing sky. Equally quaint, and almost like a print of Currier and Ives, is this artist’s “Hudson River Excursion.”</p>
<p>Other painters represented are Alexander James, Daniel Celentano, Lee Townsend, Joe Jones and Molly Luce.</p>
<p>The exhibit of oils by members of the Art Alliance includes Paul Wescott, Edith Emerson, Nancy Ferguson, Margaret Gest, Sue May Gill, Louise Wood Wright, Caroline Grainger, Katherine McCormack, Ralph McLellan, Pearl Van Sciver, Katherine Farrell, Arrah Lee Gaul, Hortense Ferne, and Mary Townsend Mason.</p>
<p>Supplementing this is an exhibition of crafts by Alliance members.</p>
<p>Vigor of treatment is by all means the outstanding quality of the oils and water colors by Catherine Morris Wright, currently on view at McClees Galleries. “Furnace at Ajax Metal Co.” has all the contrast necessary for its subject matter—the well controlled fire has not killed the rest of the composition. Considerably more than commendable is “Ice Storm,” an unusually successful study in gray. “Life for One” is a large canvas of whirling waterfall with dramatic suggestion and tremendously active composition, while in contrast, “Library of Pennsylvania Hospital” breathes the peace and quiet of a successfully handled interior.</p>
<p>In “March Romp” we find a boy and girl skating on ice—extremely fresh and joyous in color. “The Walk in the Snow” manifests an extraordinary sense of the bleakness of winter, “Three Girls” is an eloquent commentary on mother, child and baby, quiet despite its vigorous technique, and two small canvases, “Sombre Day” and “Bright Day,” are as exquisite as they are small; the rocks and the sea are little gems. Other notable oils are “Evening Breeze,” “Evening Meal,” “Lonely Giant,” “Late Picnic” and “Twilight.”</p>
<p>The water colors are characterized by as much vigor as the oils. The artist has learned to utilize this medium with due economy of means. Figure studies are simply handled, while rocks and water have unusual strength and motion.</p>
<p>At the Women’s University Club we find painting and drawings, by Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson—academic, to be sure, but exceedingly expressive.</p>
<p>Edith Emerson’s contributions are mostly portraits. Occasional studies of mountains, sea or landscapes add notably to the show. The blue and white of “Mont Blanc, Chamonix” and “Procession of the Knights of the Grail, Mont Silvat” are worth more than one look.</p>
<p>“Her First Born Son” is an eloquent study, rich in color, and “The Nawab Sir Vmar Hayat Khan Tiwana” is remarkable for its draughtsmanship. Other portraits by Violet Oakley include the Right Honorable the Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, Rev. Frederick R. Griffin and Katherine Drinker Bowen.</p>
<p>Edith Emerson’s water color group including studies of mountains and landscapes, have immense verve and refreshing utilization of brush stroke. Her portraits are inclined rather toward the poetic, with the exception of a vigorous delineation of Amelia Earhart, accomplished in a style eminently in keeping with the boldness, frankness and courage of its late subject.</p>
<p>Among Miss Emerson’s portraits are such notables as H. R. H. Princess Irene of Greece, and Her Late Majesty Queen Sophie of Greece.</p>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig060.jpg"/>
<head>“Khevsur Woman” Wood Carving by Emma Lu Davis Courtesy of Alfred A. De’Lardi</head>
</figure>
<p>A remarkable example of the Oriental and Occidental combination is to be found at the Boyer Galleries in an exhibit of the latest work of Emma Lu Davis. Certainly the paramount characteristic of this show is Miss Davis’s unique vision, and she manifests preeminently the rather rare ability to wed subject with appropriate manner of treatment.</p>
<p>In her carved work, Miss Davis is not limited to any one material—rather, we frequently encounter a combination of material in the same statue. We cite, as an excellent example, the walnut polychrome head of a “Khevsur Woman”, a thoroughly beautiful combination of visional sophistication and archaic linear handling. The eyes are colored, the earrings are of metal, and the head-dress most provocative. Also in walnut polychrome are “Head ‘Chinese Red Army Soldier’” (an elemental creation, with the peak of the soldier’s cap in motal) and “Head ‘Hsiao Di-Di’” (the most emotionally Oriental piece of modern sculpture we have seen for a long while).</p>
<p>A “Peking Coolie” is accomplished in terra cotta, with a delicately tinted surface, and almond eyes that have been cut completely through the mask. A rather startling pure white “Duck” reveals itself as pine wood, and hovers above a violently green, melon-like form. It attains great purity of effect.</p>
<p>With the exception of Noguchi’s scrolls, those of Emma Lu Davis are beyond doubt the most striking modern works in this vein that we have seen. However, calligraphy is tempted to run away with itself, and sometimes does. “Earth Figures, Spring” is the remarkable—extraordinary in its vigor, spontaneity of brush stroke, and rather conspicuous sexual symbolism.</p>
<p>Despite its black and white, “Dozing Cat” is one of the most vivid of the scrolls, and “Sub Griffin”, with its reddish and black tones, is extremely direct in handling, and quite Japanesque in effect. The numerous studies of horses are equally amusing.</p>
<p>On first view the work of Abraham Chanin, also at Boyer’s appears bizarre with a vengeance—on second thought, rather logical.</p>
<p>Rouault has left an indelible imprint upon Chanin—more than notably in such works as “Backstage,” “Posing,” “Comedian and Stooge” and “Scarlet Headdress.”</p>
<p>“The Big Hat” (also rather Rouault) does lots to us emotionally—there is vigor and a great deal of lust for paint. The same may be said for “Mary Joyce.”</p>
<p>“Gay Vienna—<date when="1934-07">July, 1934</date>” has something curiously in common with Dufy. The color planes of the picture have been decided with almost too much logic, as have the ideas. “Sonnet VIII: Music to Hear, Why Hearest Thou Music Sadly” is the nearest thing to a gem in the show.</p>
<p>A group of small water colors in the back gallery is, pigmentally, the lustiest of all—it is by all means a bizarre group, but we imagine we would live with any one of them for a long while.</p>
<p>George Biddle holds forth at the Carlen Galleries, with a series of recent lithographs. All in all, there is more to them than meets the casual eye, and they deserve much consideration.</p>
<p>“Sisters” is a delicate, poetic tonal commentary, simple in draughtsmanship. “Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been,” accomplished with a black background, suggests principally that the pussy in question has been raiding all the nearby garbage cans, and, if you don’t believe us, observe the feline stomach.</p>
<p>There are a number of animal studies along more or less conventional Biddle lines. However, we also find several recent female nudes in which the artist strays courageously from his accustomed path, and adds tremendously to technical interest. This applies likewise to several prints made with touch and brush—quite free and refreshing.</p>
<p>Two prints concerning a “Buffalo Dance” have much plastic character to commend them, and “Let Them Eat Cake,” a double portrait, is a vicious social commentary, closely akin to caricature.</p>
<p>Equally conspicuous in the show are Biddle’s negroes and rodents.</p>
<p>Margaret Mellor-Gill, whose still life studies are to be seen at 1525 Locust Street, is devoted to the decorative in art, and makes the most of it. Whether it be leaves, buds or flowers, the artist is quick to hit upon the essential decorative element, and turn it to vivid account.</p>
<p>Included in the exhibition are japanned trays.</p>
<p>An exhibition of Senior Posters and Illustrations at the Gallery of Cultural Olympics, 3425 Woodland Avenue, opened <date when="--11-24">November 24</date>. Included are the posters devised for the Youth Concerts, and illustrations, literal and imaginative.</p>
<p>Current at the Philadelphia Sketch Club is the Eighth Annual Exhibition of work by pupils of the Geiszel Sketch Class. The members are all actively engaged in business other than fine art, and show, generally, unusual freshness of color and freedom from the amateur’s tightness of technique.</p>
<p>Still life studies and heads by Joseph Collins constitute the most individual group. There is a certain amount of Demuth in them, but they are genuine and have charming delicacy. Mrs. Mildred Eckert Landis, who teaches commercial art at the Mastbaum Vocational School, grasps the substance of things, and accomplishes her paintings vigorously, with lusty, well rounded color.</p>
<p>William Loughery is a sign writer and, when turning to art for art’s sake, comments upon ships and docks with great breadth and warmth of color. Being a textile designer, Mrs. Elizabeth Derbyshire boasts previous art training, and her landscapes have both variety and delicacy of tone.</p>
<p>There is a distinct plastic personality back of the water colors of Mrs. Margaret Malpass Geiszel, and, while still a trifle complicated, they auger real painting. The still life, “Black Jug”, we consider the best—it is fluid and graceful, but strong. Other exhibitors are Paul Bradley, Mrs. Mary Scott Buckman, Adele Castratraro, Marion de la Rue, William P. Lear, Helen Lerch, and Mrs. Amelia Stevenson.</p>
<p>The current showing of mezzotint, dry point and stipple etchings by Horace Sheble at the Plastic Club proves that patience is not a lost virtue in graphic art. The prints are mostly architectural, but there are many figures and a few landscapes.</p>
<p>In subject matter, the architectural studies are the best. There is a fair sense of design, but rarely any contrast. Technically, the mezzotints are not the greatest we have seen, but they have softness of tone to commend them.</p>
<p>The figures, while lacking in verve, possess a naivete akin to some early American prints, and the general stiffness of their postures and their meticulous stippling add to this effect. The best print in the show is “Fish and Birds”, a really creative etching and one that has more than a little plastic imagination. We should like to see more of such compositions from this artist’s needle.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-05">
<head><pb n="2" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-2.jpg"/>A LETTER</head>
<p>“I like a free for all and I like the Museum. Also I admire people who buy pictures; Tyson and Widener and Barnes, even Andy Mellon—though I’ll never meet him. Buying pictures would be my favorite pastime. If I wished to be admired. But I’m financially inhibited—I shall acquire a collection; because I like artists and a work of art is a superior, noble thing. The difference between me and the other collectors is only that I do not want the most of the best, because I can’t buy it. Like everyone else, however, I can, and I really must see it. For I am somewhat human and I enjoy the kinship I feel in the life of another mind, human too, though creating.</p>
<p>“The artist is not usually aware of the great generosity of his impulse. He pours his life into his work as though somebody cares. Much later everyone else does care, because everyone wishes to feel the pulse so like their own, there. And that much later, the objet d’art is quaint; or has become a standard of international exchange, assayed glory in a vault, a treasure in a pocket.</p>
<p>“On the train from Paris I was bored by a travelling salesman with a guide book who would tap his chest and repeat, ‘I have all Paris in my vest pocket.’ I found more in Paris than I’d find in guide books; as I found more in Merion than Doctor Barnes can explain. For years I’ve wished the collection of the Barnes Foundation could be let to speak for itself. The titan struggle of Cézanne was more than a tidy paste up of Titian and Poussin, colored by Pissaro; the old man of Aix was simple, but not that small.</p>
<p>“The Pellerin canvas has been called Cézanne’s most important composition, worthy of a great artist; Dr. Barnes alone says it isn’t.</p>
<p>“Furthermore, it is not likely that the chief item in the Pellerin collection was for sale earlier than a year ago—such deals are usually a matter of record—</p>
<p>“I am glad a painting I’ve wanted to see since 1922 is here, when I am. The example in Merion may be more juicy (!) but I like to pay my respects to Cézanne, whoever may buy him.”</p>
<p>Carl Shaffer.</p>
<p><hi rend="font-weight:bold">Commentary on Page 8.</hi></p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-06">
<head><pb n="3" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-3.jpg"/>PRISMS. AN ARCHITECTURAL COLUMN</head>
<head type="sub">GEO. HOWE . . AL. BENDINER</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> C<hi rend="small-caps">LYDE</hi> S<hi rend="small-caps">HULER</hi></byline>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig061.jpg"/>
<head>The Evening Bulletin’s New Front Office</head>
<figDesc>George Howe - Architect</figDesc>
<figDesc>Photograph by Schnall</figDesc>
</figure>
<p>“If I buy a new pair of pants, shall I get them too tight because my old suit happens to be a misfit? Some day, I may want a new coat to match the pants.”</p>
<p>So, replied George Howe, architect for the Evening Bulletin’s new Front Office, when I asked him why he so flagrantly ignored even the plan contour of the old building.</p>
<p>“The modern architect,” he continued, “distributes space for use. The traditional architect distributes ornament for inconvenience. The tower has no relation to the internal economy of structure of the Bulletin building. For years the entrance, windows, counters and desks of its Front Office were as badly arranged as possible to justify a monumental fancy. We have corrected all that.</p>
<p>“Competent critics generally agree that the appearance of the building is improved by this logical change.”</p>
<p>It is gratifying to know that in our city is a man who will follow through to the end without a shaded, uncertain compromise. A building is created for use—function. George Howe’s job was to house most perfectly an organic business unit. If he considered, after careful analysis, that the loss of space resulting from the rounding of a corner, merely to follow an old tower form, was uneconomical, then by so doing he would compromise. He would have had a misfit with relation to a functional working unit. This is honest and sound reasoning.</p>
<p>Few will deny the feeling of rightness when they enter the office. In this room work can be done, clean, crisp and sure. The eye rests easily on the blue-veined marble floor, the gray granite columns, the soft white ceiling. The outer walls are built of light itself. It is the architecture of the Prism, in which light is thoughtfully redirected for use in special purity. Glass brick or tile, possibly more than any other contemporary material, seems to be a part of the life in which we live or dream to live.</p>
<p>The dominating so called decorative feature of the room is the great world map with time zones. This occupies almost an entire wall and is constructed, as a giant jigsaw puzzle, of hundreds of pieces of colored formica. It is decoration with a reason, useful and functional. So also is the large transportation map of Philadelphia and the Time Showing device composed of Neon letters which change every minute. There is no “ornament for inconvenience” here.</p>
<p>As a contrast in point of time, there is the recent activity of another Philadelphia architect which had to do with a civilization flourishing eight thousand years ago on the plains of Mesopotamia, not far from the fabled city of Bagdad. It was to this now arid desert that Alfred Bendiner went this last year to help in unearthing a lost civilization. He served as artist to the Expedition sent by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, headed by Dr. E. A. Speiser.</p>
<p>In his Spruce Street studio last week, Mr. Bendiner showed us many drawings and told us much of great interest. An artist’s real job on such an expedition seems to be not only the making of pretty pictures but particularly the making of hundreds of accurate, measured drawings and water colors of all important finds. This totalled within a years’ time some six hundred Pen and Inks, about twenty water colors and two large crayon drawings. The crayon drawings are at present on exhibition in the Water Color Show at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and besides being original in character and composition depict most ingeniously the architecture, costumes and life of the village of Tepe Gawara in which the expedition was quartered.</p>
<p>“Do not imagine,” said Mr. Bendiner, “That because we were located in a native village situated in a Mesopotamian desert, I worked under great difficulties in making these drawings. On the contrary, the accommodations equalled if not surpassed those of many an American artist’s studio. Here in America we do not often have servants to light our cigarettes and clean our pen-points. There we did.</p>
<p>“However, the drafting room was on the second floor of a mud brick building, so conceived that the floor swung from branches of trees used as floor joists. Therefore complete quiet was compulsory in order to avoid noticeable sway. We had to put up signs in English and Arabic which read ‘DON’T MOVE.’”</p>
<p>He told us many things about the Devil-worshipping native Yazida, of their expertness in sounding earth for ancient walls and buried objects, of their inability to fathom what all this digging was about and of the layer upon layer of civilizations that lived so long ago. But what interested me most in its relation to our own contemporary life, were the little figures and pottery that they found in these ancient mounds. Here was purity of form, mass, color and design. Some of it might have been done by the most contemporary of our present designers. It made the eight thousand years seem a very short period of time. It made me feel that the same force impelled this old civilization as that which impels many of us today—the force to create now, out of and for the life that is now. This is important in any art which wills to endure as a vital force.</p>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig090.jpg"/>
</figure>
<p>“Both the motives reveal the painful effort with which Cézanne wrought the gracious, the picturesque. Of the two, the Barnes canvas is the belabored, almost repousse—much more obvious in its posing; though thanks to determination, the more painted picture. It has all the faults of the other ‘Bathers,’ with more finish.”</p>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig091.jpg"/>
</figure>
<p>Carl Shaffer</p>
<p>The following data on Cézanne’s Bathers has ben compiled for Philadelphia Art News, by Mr. Shaffer GERSTLE MACK</p>
<div>
<head>“Paul Cézanne”</head>
<label>page 314</label>
<p>“Some of the Bathers are very beautiful—though never sentimental or pretty—studies of the human form; but many of them are awkwardly, even grotesquely, posed, and on the whole they are the least ‘realized’ of Cézanne’s works. Compared with his landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, his nudes must be rated as incomplete, only partially successful attempts to solve a problem for which the means at his disposal were inadequate. The difficulty lay not in the conception but in the limitations imposed by temperament and circumstances.”</p>
<p>“Only in one group of pictures, the long series of nude studies known collectively as the Bathers, did he habitually work without having an actual model before him. This does not mean, however, that Cézanne miraculously freed himself from his usual dependence on a model when he painted these nudes.”</p>
<p>A.M.F</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>“A Visit to the Barnes Foundation”</head>
<label>Art News<lb/><date when="1936-11-14">November 14, 1936</date></label>
<p>“Between the huge canvas of the Pellerin Baigneuses and the similar subject at the Barnes Foundation the choice is a difficult one, although I make it without hesitation. To me, the infinitely superior interlocking of the figures in the Barnes picture—after all the kernel of the composition, without which it would be meaningless—more than makes up for the poetic arch of trees which the considerably higher Pellerin canvas allows. In reality these are two quite different pictures: The Paris Baigneuses is a Homeric effort, in which the grandeur of plan transcends its unequal realization; that at Merion is a vibrant personal concept completely carried through from fundamental purpose to ultimate form.”</p>
<p>WALDEMAR GEORGE</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>“Cézanne 1930”</head>
<label>Formes—<date when="1930-04">April, 1930</date>.</label>
<p>“Incidentally, at the end of his life the Aixois keeps his dynamic colours inside the unvarying limits of his compositions only at a cost of cruel sacrifices. The ephemeral balance between the subconscious and the conscious, which exercises a censorship over the life of the instincts is upset. Cézanne died leaving three unfinished pictures of Women Bathing, all of which attest the tragic vanity of his efforts to achieve an architecture, a sustained cadence.”</p>
<p>. . . (and about the Pellerin “Women Bathing”)</p>
<p>“We shall only love it more when we have reached the certitude of being able to love it without thinking of exploiting it, of profiteering with it, as they say in Belgium.”</p>
</div>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-07">
<head>HENRY FORD BUYS DRAWINGS BY BEALE</head>
<p>Mr. Henry Ford has again purchased for the Edison Institute at Dearborn, Michigan, a group of drawings by Joseph Boggs Beale, bringing the total number of Beale’s works permanently on exhibition there to fourteen.</p>
<p>The drawings by Beale, discovered in 1935 by Arthur W. Colen, Director of the Modern Galleries in Philadelphia, and reported in Time magazine “as the most remarkable find in the realm of Americana,” are now finding their way into many museums and private collections.</p>
<p>Beale, an intimate friend of Lincoln, Grant and other famous people of his day, was a descendant of a long line of Philadelphians, prominent in the social, civic and professional life of the city, Betsy Ross being a great grand aunt. “Professor” of drawing at the Central High School, he studied with Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.</p>
<p>Some of Beale’s most remarkable drawings are satires with all the flavor of Cruickshank or Hogarth, but when he speaks in his diary of his admiration for the French illustrator, Dore, he indicates the influence which accounts in some measure for his style. There is a similarity in the compositions of these two artists, although Beale shows a distinctive means of rendering.</p>
<p>A representative collection of drawings by Beale may be seen at the Modern Galleries, 1720 Chestnut Street.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-08">
<head>SALE AT FREEMAN’S</head>
<p>Paintings by American and European artists from the collections of the late Thomas B. Wanamaker, Edwin S. Stuart, Charles Newbold Welsh, and from the collection of Mrs. John Dickey were auctioned at Samuel T. Freeman and Co., <date when="--11-30">November 30</date> and <date when="--12-01">December 1</date>.</p>
<p>Tuesday afternoon the majority of American paintings were sold, including works by such artists as James Hamilton, Thomas A. Anshutz, Ernest Lawson, William M. Chase, Alexander H. Wyant, J. Francis Murphy, Charles W. Hawthorne, Thomas Moran, Edward W. Redfield, Everett Shinn and Charles and Emil Gruppe.</p>
<p>On Wednesday the group offered for sale had an international air. Among the paintings disposed of were oils by the Englishmen George Morland, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Henry Raeburn, Richard Wilson, Sir William Beechey, Sir Peter Lely, and Opie. The French school was represented in works by Bougereau, Le Brun, Gerome, Henner, and Diaz, the Dutch and Flemish schools, by Van Ravestyne, Jan Both, Pourbus, and Schreyer.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-09">
<head>PHILIP DE LASZLO</head>
<p>Philip de Laszlo, internationally known and honored portrait painter, died <date when="--11-22">November 22</date>, at his home in Hempstead, England, at the age of sixty-eight.</p>
<p>Mr. de Laszlo was born in Budapest in 1869, studying there and in Munich. The major part of his life, however, was spent in England.</p>
<p>Among the Americans who sat for Mr. de Laszlo were Theodore Roosevelt, President Wilson, President and Mrs. Coolidge, President and Mrs. Hoover, President Harding and Andrew Mellon.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-10">
<head>EMMA LU DAVIS</head>
<head type="sub">AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY</head>
<p>I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in <date when="1905-11">November 1905</date>, and continued to maintain a pretty high level of respectability until I came of age.</p>
<p>I was variously educated in Asbury Park public school, learning how to eat licorice sticks behind the third grade geography, and use, tho not understand, bad words.</p>
<p>Long before the third grade, however, I drew and modelled, loving animals particularly. I suppose this was because even at the age of four or five I was endlessly fascinated by bodies. Only animal bodies were visible at that era. California influence had not made itself felt and mohair and alpaca shrouded the human form even on the beaches. Ladies were considered to be solid around the hem.</p>
<p>Four years of boarding school and another four of college taught me a good deal more about people and the shapes and sizes in which they grew, and I began drawing portraits in my spare time. Caesar’s dull campaigns and the confusion of trigonometry reduced the “spare time” to a very small margin indeed, but I determined that when I had finished formal education, I should go to art school and do what I had wanted to do all my life.</p>
<p>So I set to work in 1927 to become an artist in spite of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, that old men’s home for aesthetic sidetracks and decorous caution.</p>
<p>At the end of my third year, I had the honor to win one of the Cresson awards—travelling scholarships carrying a stipend of $1000. I also won a prize for the best drawing of animals made during the school year. The travelling scholarship I did not accept, for after three years of the Academy, I was sick to death of art—school art—and wanted nothing but a summer of tennis and swimming in California.</p>
<p>In the fall I returned East, full of hope and sunburn and started trying to make art pay, and it did, tho not much. I took every order that came along; posters, stencil designs for Italian restaurants, painted screens for sportsmen, portraits or horses in pastel and of children in bas-relief, commissions to design and make modern furniture and even an order for a tombstone. This varied work added nothing to modern American Art, but taught me a great deal about working quickly and well in various materials.</p>
<p>In 1933 Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the Dymaxion house and co-inventor with Starling Burgess of the Dymaxion car, invited me to work in the Dymaxion factory.</p>
<p>There followed the most instructive and inventive six months of my life. Dymaxion plant gave me exactly what I wanted, the things the Academy of Fine Arts could not give—that is, the principles of good workmanship. I think there are a great many “artists” in the work but awfully few real craftsmen. Use of tools, and neat, fast, strong instruction are not taught much in art schools.</p>
<p>It was in Dymaxion that I made my first experiments with abstract forms; Starling Burgess had a six foot model of the hull of one of his cup-defenders hanging in the office—a great, white, flying shape. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen and awakened in me an interest in shape simply as shape. At this time I did the large bird-like form called “A Cosmic Presence.”</p>
<p>Leaving the Dymaxion with a new knowledge of technique, particularly in working wood, and with a keener interest in everything, I worked four months for P. W. A. P. making a set of illustrations for a book published by the Museum of Natural History, and a bust of Horace Greeley for City College. During the course of the year I executed a number of small private commissions and exhibited work in the Architectural League in New York, the Woodstock Gallery, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Annual.</p>
<p>Then in the Spring of 1935 I went to Russia. I wanted to see how the artists were organized over there, how they were utilized in the scheme of life, and how socialized patronage affected the arts.</p>
<p>I found that from an economic-social standpoint the Soviet artist enjoys the happiest situation in the world—as a trade union member he enjoys protection and social security, he never lacks employment, and building and decorative projects are broad enough to include all varieties of work—except good work. This, I believe, was in no way the fault of socialism. Soviet artists are not regimented any more than artists in other countries, but it happens that the pressure of popular taste is toward bad and tawdry styles in painting and sculpture. Russia has not a broad or intelligent popular base of appreciation of beautiful projects. The Russian tradition of real folk painting disappeared four or five hundred years ago with the last of the fine ikons. Since then there has been nothing but a second-rate tradition of academic paint and clay pushing.</p>
<p>So present day Soviet artists have every opportunity to go to town, but fail miserably because the cheap academic traditions have been continued under the name of “socialist realism”—that is all the facts and none of the meaning of the subject.</p>
<p>Now I am chiefly concerned with the development of cooperative artists groups in America. I feel that cooperation within the craft, and public patronage in a generous scale, but not connected with relief, are the hope of American artists. I like my own country and my craft, and I watch with satisfaction the growth of a self-conscious Americana, and of a feeling of solidarity and social-consciousness among American artists.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-11">
<head>TREE OF LIFE</head>
<p>Mrs. Helen Salus, nee Eiseman, has just won the Mural Contest for the Progressive League of the Northern Liberties Hospital, 7th and Brown Sts. The design Mrs. Salus submitted in this open competition depicted a Tree of Life, with a rising sun in the background. Mrs. Salus who has not been exhibiting for the past four years, is a graduate of the Women’s School of Design.</p>
<p>A lecture on “The Language of Art” will be given by Emlen Etting at the Bryn Mawr Art Center Polo and Haverford Roads, Bryn Mawr, on Thursday evening, <date when="--12-09">December 9</date>, at 8:30.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-12">
<head><pb n="4" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-4.jpg"/>THE OLD CYNIC</head>
<p>A Portrait Painter whom I know accepted a commission to paint the likeness of a little girl.</p>
<p>When the last changes on the eyes and mouth and curls had been made and the picture was pronounced complete by Artist and by Mother, the Mother said, “I love it! It’s a PERFECT likeness! It fairly LIVES! You must take this check—and I’ll have the balance for you next week.”</p>
<p>“Thank you so much.” The artist accepted the partial payment for his work</p>
<p>The Mother was so proud of her new portrait that she invited seventy-five of her friends to view it. She may have been just a little unsure of their reaction—as one always is about a portrait, you know—for she didn’t include the Artist in the group. However, the seventy-five guests came and immediately exclaimed over the wonders of the work. Everyone liked it. Several said “Oh, I’d love to have a portrait like that!” The Mother was most agreeably titillated.</p>
<p>Now among these seventy-five friends was one Important Dowager with a deep, round voice.</p>
<p>“My dear,” she exclaimed, richly, “it’s a marvelous piece of work . . . but . . . there is just one little thing . . . Why did you let him make her eyes that color? They just miss being right!”</p>
<p>The other seventy-four guests refocussed their lagging attention keyed to agreement with the impressive Mentor who was speaking.</p>
<p>“I thought that too,” interrupted a not-quite-so-young, unmarried lady.</p>
<p>“I could tell him exactly what to do,” continued the Dowager ignoring the interruption.</p>
<p>“Could you?” asked the Mother anxiously.</p>
<p>“I’d be glad to. I’ll drop in at his studio next time I go to town. You bring the portrait and we’ll have it made just right.”</p>
<p>With a faint sense of relief, tinged with disappointment the Mother watched her erstwhile enthusiastic guests depart. The gathering dispersed with a tone of surface brightness, and tactful Talk of Other Things.</p>
<p>Three weeks later the Portrait Painter phoned the Mother.</p>
<p>“Oh yes, Mr. Daub. I still like the portrait. But Madame Dickerflit has some suggestions on it. She has such marvelous taste! Oh—just little things. I’m sure you can do it in just a few minutes. Yes we’ll bring it in some day soon . . . just as soon as Madame Dickerflit gets back from Bermuda . . . Yes . . . I’ll phone you . . .”</p>
<p>Somehow Madame Dickerflit never found it convenient to go to Mr. Daub’s studio, nor the Mother to pay the balance of her bill, nor any of the seventy-five friends to order portraits from the Painter.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-13">
<head>D’ASCENZO WINDOW IN NATIONAL CATHEDRAL</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig063.jpg"/>
<head>“Jesus and the Samaritan Woman”</head>
<figDesc>Etching by Rembrandt Courtesy of Chappel Studios</figDesc>
</figure>
<p>The illustration to right represents the stained glass window recently designed and executed by the D’Ascenzo Studios for the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, The National Cathedral, Washington, D. C. Since an inspirational subject was required, the artist has taken as his theme Christ and the Woman of Samaria, the same subject which Rembrandt used in the etching also reproduced here. The contrast in conception by these two artists proves an interesting commentary on the results obtained from the different methods and media of individual workers.</p>
<p>In the D’Ascenzo window fourteenth century design is presented in the well developed canopies of the two lancets and the architectural bases of the two figures, but the color is decidedly not the color of Chartres so assiduously copied in recent years by the designers in stained glass. It is rather the color and light of sunny Spain brought into an American cathedral. Glowing light dominates in spite of the northern exposure, and in this respect the artist and his associates have succeeded in developing a new note of optimism in American stained glass.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-14">
<head>ACTION SKETCHES</head>
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<p>Action sketches submitted by students of the School of Industrial Art evoked high praise from Mrs. Charles Bruen Perkins, of the Woodbury School in Boston, where they will be shown during December with similar work from eight other schools throughout the country.</p>
<p>Mrs. Perkins, nee Chew, a former Philadelphian, wrote school authorities that the drawings from the Museum School were the most dramatic in action and exhibited the best draughtmanship in the entire exhibition.</p>
<p>All of the sketches in the show were drawn from slow motion pictures. The Woodbury School inaugurated this method about six years ago, and the Industrial School was among the first to follow its lead. This will be the first exhibition of its kind to be held in this country.</p>
<p>Tentative plans have been made for bringing the entire show from Boston to Philadelphia.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-15">
<head>CRAFT NOTES DID YOU KNOW:</head>
<p>At the Art Alliance we saw a most satisfactory collection of glassware. Five nations were represented, all by large stores in Philadelphia, but Philadelphia was represented by Pennsylvania’s own Lawrence Saint, who showed a group of lovely vases. It was doubly gratifying to see that he alone had sold nearly all his group. We wonder if Philadelphians realize that Pennsylvania is one of the greatest glass centers in the world, and that of late some of the commercial companies are making a specialty of beautiful glass, notably the Duncan Miller Glass Co., in Washington, Pa.</p>
<p>That Chestnut St. Stationer has a truly wonderful collection of specimens of the heraldic art in his shop, executed in many media and for various purposes.</p>
<p>That Henry Cranmer of 224 S. 21st St., has a most beautiful pair of wrought iron candlesticks on display at the Arts and Crafts Guild, where there is also a notable display of pottery by our Philadelphians, Prue M. Harris, Mrs. Dooner, Mrs. Barlow, and the Galloway Potteries, and Emily Swift.</p>
<p>It would pay anyone to drop in to the Warwick Galleries to see their collection of jewelry by local Craftsmen; Lillian Foster, Nancy Tuttle, Emily Billman, and Miriam Cone. They are showing a highly diverse assortment of semi-precious stones set in silver and yellow or white gold, some in the Indian manner, some in the modern manner, but mostly in the original manner of the artist.</p>
<p>Florence Martin.</p>
<p>Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald, said to have one of the three finest collections of early prints in existence in this country, has found that he no longer has sufficient space to house his ever increasing collection. Consequently he is now building an adequate museum near his home in Elkins Park to furnish a suitable home for these splendid and important prints.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-16">
<head>BROKEN COLOR</head>
<p>We are still chortling over the anecdotes with which Dr. R. Tait MacKenzie regaled the Booksellers’ Association of Philadelphia at its meeting, <date when="--11-18">November 18</date>, at the Franklin Inn Club. He told the one about his colored manservant, staring enraptured at one of his heroic creations, who asked, “How long you been workin’ on dat now, Doctor?”</p>
<p>The Doctor thought, “Oh, about three months, I’d say,” he answered.</p>
<p>“I used to do that sort of stuff in school,” his good and faithful ventured.</p>
<p>“Indeed,” answered the sculptor, in a rather strained voice.</p>
<p>“Yassuh,” was the immediate reply, “but ah doesn’t have time to do that sort of thing anymore.”</p>
<p>And then there was the one about George Harding and the Marine Room at the Traymore Hotel, in Atlantic City. Having worked on the murals for this room for several months, Harding took them to the hotel one Saturday morning. The management had arranged for the room to be closed from Saturday until Monday night, to give the artist sufficient time to install the panels. A guest of the hotel happened to wander in just as Harding was finishing on Monday afternoon.</p>
<p>The guest whistled. “I am amazed,” he fairly shouted. “Do you mean to say you’ve done all this since Saturday?”</p>
<p>Harding admitted that he had, thinking the man was referring to the placing of the murals.</p>
<p>“Gosh,” the man remarked in a hushed voice, “I’d like to tell this to my paperhanger.”</p>
<p>A little birdie has told us a bit of gossip that would suggest that the ballet has reared its ugly head at the School of Industrial Art. Chirping with excitement, the birdie explained to us that he distinctly read the following sign there. “Ring bell. Be back in fifteen minuets.</p>
<p>Janitor.”</p>
<p>Sic transit gloria</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Reality versus Fiction</p>
<p>We were disturbed to overhear the following conversation in a local gallery.</p>
<p>He (studying bust of Napoleon) “Look! Napoleon.”</p>
<p>She (scornfully) “Naw it ain’t. It’s Charles Boyer.”</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-17">
<head><pb n="5" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-5.jpg"/>ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY</head>
<head type="sub">SENSATION</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> C<hi rend="small-caps">HARLES</hi> O<hi rend="small-caps">GLE</hi></byline>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig071.jpg"/>
<head>Photograph by Charles Ogle</head>
</figure>
<p>Angles are wangled in modern photography . . . not just haphazard. The making of pictures from an unusual viewpoint, regarded by many as a stunt, is in reality a serious effort to record a sensation . . . to capture a fleeting moment . . . to imprison a mood. Motion is thereby imparted to the otherwise static . . . mobility to the immobile.</p>
<p>The slightest change of angle of a camera brings about a corresponding change of position in relation to the other surrounding objects, varying the motif, presenting strange and intriguing perspectives.</p>
<p>Planned accidental accents are achieved and drama is born. Attention is arrested.</p>
<p>Modern momentum and the camera have created a new slant on this world of ours. We have become angle conscious. Emerging from the depths of the subway, our eyes, momentarily on the level of the street, glimpse the worms’ eye view, and tall buildings go off at dizzy tangents. These our minds instantly straighten . . . knowing what we know. But the sensation is there and is felt. The birds’ eye view has become increasingly familiar to us all from the vantage of the elevated, office windows, and tops of skyscrapers. The airlines have given us startling and beautiful patterns from the sky.</p>
<p>Camera angles permit us to experience and record the quintessence of sensation, translating into definite form the realism and emotion we feel. There’s all the difference in the world between calmly contemplating a roller-coaster from the ground and swooping thrillingly earthward from the topmost summit in the very last car. Hold your hat.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-18">
<head>VALENTE PHOTOGRAPHS EXHIBITED</head>
<p>Alfredo Valente is now exhibiting a group of photographs at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. Mr. Valente, a former Italian aviator, came to this country shortly after the World War. He took up photography in 1933. After doing still photographs in Hollywood, he came east to become a staff photographer for “Stage.” Mr. Valente may be termed a photographic purist, inasmuch as he uses few of the usual “tricks” of camera work.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-19">
<head>COLOR CAMERA</head>
<p>Color photography, one of the latest developments in camerana, brilliantly passed a grueling test on the salt flats of Utah.</p>
<p>“Twenty Four Hour Run,” a Saturday Evening Post article appearing in the <date when="--12-04">December fourth</date> issue, co-authored by Ab Jenkins, racing driver, and Elliott Curtiss, Philadelphia automotive editor, was illustrated with color photography by Mr. Curtiss.</p>
<p>The intense heat reached a peak of 120 degrees, while the reflected light from the salt bed was so bright that it exceeded the range of the Weston Exposure meter. Worried by the heat, Mr. Curtiss made arrangements with a tavern in Windover, Utah, ten miles away, to keep his film in the refrigerators there. However, of the fifty-four shots taken, all but three were usable. Taking no chances, “Curt” took two shots of each subject, but when interviewed by this scribe he declared them “unnecessary, for I believe color can be handled as easily and efficiently as black and white.” The films Kodachrome daylight, were rushed by airmail to the Eastman laboratories in Rochester, New York for processing.</p>
<p>Favoring Kodachrome over the one shot and three shot methods, Cameradventurer Curtiss used a Zeiss “Contax,” and a Sommar 1.5 lens, with a haze filter.</p>
<p>Adding to the already large list of Philadelphia “firsts” in cameractivity, Mr. Curtiss is the first author to illustrate his own article in the Saturday Evening Post photographically, and he is the first Philadelphian showing color photography in a “Post” article or story.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-20">
<head>MINIATURE CAMERA CLUB</head>
<p>The Third Philadelphia National Annual Salon of the Miniature Camera is now being held at the N. W. Ayer galleries under the auspices of the Miniature Camera Club of Philadelphia. There are ninety-eight entries from all over the country, as well as several prints by Sam J. Vogan from Ontario, Canada.</p>
<p>The Miniature Camera Club of Philadelphia is one of the largest and most active in the world. It was started about five years ago by less than twenty persons; today its membership comprises some two hundred people from various professions. One of the most unusual features about this organization is that it not only sponsors its own salon, but also holds a salon for women.</p>
<p>The officers of the Club are as follows: H. H. Morris, Pres., Earle P. Baltz, Vice Pres. and Salon Sec., Wagner Schlesinger, Sec., Charles Heller, Treas. The jury consists of Adolf Fasshender F. R. P. S., Fred Peel F. R. P. S., Alfred de Lardi, Elias Goldensky, J. B. MacKenzie.</p>
<p>The Salon Committee for this year was composed of D. Matthew Lynch, Chairman, John P. Mudd, A. R. P. S., Dr. L. W. Zimmerman, Ernest Meisner, J. E. Middleton, J. Gibson McIlvaine, Jr., Kenneth Devitt, Dale Vallance, and Frank Birkhead.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-21">
<head>PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY CELEBRATES ANNIVERSARY</head>
<head type="sub">OLDEST CAMERA CLUB IN AMERICA REACHES SEVENTY-FIVE YEAR MARK</head>
<p>Seventy-five prints from the most prominent photographers in the country—one for each year of its life—are being exhibited by the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, oldest camera club in America, second oldest in the world, in celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary.</p>
<p>In <date when="1862-11">November, 1862</date>, a meeting was called by Coleman Sellers, Constant Guillou, Professors Fairman Rogers and Edwin Emerson, Francis Fassit, Dickinson Sergent, S. Fisher Corlies and Eugene Borda, all prominent Philadelphia camera fans. Elected first president of the society was Constant Guillou, who two years before had issued a circular letter to amateur photographers, urging the formation of “an association whose reunions would be agreeable and beneficial.”</p>
<p>Due to improvement through photographic research, much of it by members of the society, many Philadelphia painters were intrigued by this new medium of expression, and a salon was held at the Academy of the Fine Arts, the first in the world entirely devoted to camera pictorialists. That salon, copied internationally, dates the birth of many camera clubs and the popularity of photography as a hobby.</p>
<p>Each year it is the custom of the society to place one print from its annual exhibition, held at the society’s headquarters at 1615 Sansom Street, in the permanent exhibition. “Curves,” by Manning P. Brown, gained the coveted honor for 1937. Others of the society’s widely known salon pictorialists include A. R. Hallowell, Edward W. Quigley, Lewis Tabor, John Allen, Robert A. Barrows, John P. Mudd and William M. Rittase.</p>
<p>The president of the society is John P. Mudd, and among the living ex-presidents are Yarnall Abbott, Dr. Collier Martin, Robert Achuff, W. Parrish Pearsall, Dr. Robert F. Ridpath, Fred Peel Wardlaw M. Hammond, Harry P. Baily, and W. W. Chambers, the latter two nearing their golden anniversary of membership.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-22">
<head>OVAL TABLE SOCIETY</head>
<p>More than five hundred photographs from twenty countries were included in the current exhibition of The International Salon of Photographers in the galleries of the American Fine Arts Society Building, New York. The show was sponsored by the Oval Table Society, a non-profit organization to promote the art and science of photography. Although a New York group, the Oval Table Society includes among its members several prominent Philadelphians, among them H. Crowell Pepper.</p>
<p>This is one of the largest salons in the United States, some nine hundred and eleven exhibitors entering three thousand, one hundred and fifty-five prints. Five hundred and sixty-eight prints were accepted. The three hundred and sixty-five photographers whose work finally gained entrance came from all over the world.</p>
<p>Three of the galleries display pictorial prints, grouped according to subject matter, including portraiture, landscape, still life, flower subjects, marine and other classifications. Another entire room is hung with prints of a technical nature, among them illustrative aerial, commercial, medical, surgical, and microphotographic subjects.</p>
<p>The jury was composed of men distinguished in the photographic field, among them J. Dudley Johnston, Honorary F. R. P. S., who came all the way from London, and the Philadelphia photographer Robert A. Barrows.</p>
<p>The Philadelphians exhibiting in the show were John Allen, Robert A. Barrows, Alice Benedict, Bryn Mawr, Alfred De Lardi, Edw P. Goodell, Chas. Heller, Sam Langston, H. Crowell Pepper, Edward Quigley, Dale Vallance, Dr. LeRoy M. Ennis, Wardlaw M. Hammond.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-23">
<head><pb n="6" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-6.jpg"/>THUMB TACKS</head>
<head type="sub">COMMERCIAL ART NOTES</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> P<hi rend="small-caps">ETE</hi> B<hi rend="small-caps">OYLE</hi></byline>
<p>Jingle Bells:</p>
<p>The sight of Santa Claus cheerily ringing his bell on every corner brings two things to any artist’s mind. First, whether he can afford the Christmas number of L’Illustration, and then the solemn resolve to get his Christmas card done on time next year.</p>
<p>A group of young hopefuls have taken over the studio next to that of Arthur Carles. Recent graduates of the School of Industrial Art, they have started the weary round of sample lugging that forms a sort of initiation to the ancient and honorable calling of commercial art. (“Just leave your phone number, and we’ll get in touch with you.”) The partners, namely, Boland, Quinn, James, Talone, Marfessas, and Dunbar, call themselves “Studio 400.” They’re not being high hat. That’s the room number.</p>
<p>Bob Williams has spread himself all over the landscape with a full color billboard for Edison Battery A twenty-four sheet job, it shows a ballerina on tiptoe, to emphasize the efficiency of the product.</p>
<p>Earle Horter’s collection of American Indian relics and war implements was recently installed in his Germantown home. The prize of the collection is a pickled human hand beautifully decorated by the original owner. Probably something for evening wear.</p>
<p>Frank Rodenbach, art director of Edward Stern and Co., parked his car in the garage the other day after having been gone with the wind for two weeks, as far south as New Orleans.</p>
<p>James Reid, of Lambdin Associates, delivered the final drawings for a booklet on Whitehead Metal Products to be reproduced by Jean Berte Process. It was a Franklin Printing Company assignment.</p>
<p>Roland G. Harper turned nimrod over the week-end and stalked innocent deer all over Pike County. The sensitive creatures took it on the lam and gave the hunter a bag of disappointment. Harper is probably the tallest commercial artist in town (6 feet 6 inches) and has the shortest nickname, “Bud.”</p>
<p>Don’t Look Now Department—</p>
<p>Bill Jepson (Franklin Printing Co.) is the youngest A. D. in town. People still take him for the office boy . . . The P. S. F. S. Building probably has more artists than any other single structure in town. That’s what always happens when you put a lot of north light in one place . . . Ted O’Laughlin, the sports cartoonist, could play the lead in “Man of Aran.” O’LAUGHLIN without any makeup.</p>
<p>Ripley W. Bugbee, A. D. of the Clement Agency, wowed a good sized audience at the Sketch Club with his movies of the Canadian Rockies. Using a small home movie camera, he got results that would have done credit to a Hollywood lensman.</p>
<p>Gilbert (Gib) Shivers has opened a free lance studio with Albert Kayser in the Lafayette Building.</p>
<p>We notice that J. Ellsworth Bolden is now doing illustrations for the Sunday Inquirer, no less.</p>
<p>We’ll still call him “Joe.”</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-24">
<head>BEGGARS’ MARKET</head>
<p>Continuing the successes of former years, the Alumnae Association of the Moore Institute, Broad and Master Streets, held a Beggars’ Market at the school, <date when="--12-02">December 2</date>. Various articles made by the students were offered for sale.</p>
<p>The Market was held under the chairmanship of Mary Braid Hartman, head of the department of design. She was assisted by the following committee: Elsie Fincke, Eleanor Sale, Florence Bradway,</p>
<p>Edna Leonhardt, Marion Vodges, Arrah Lee Gaul, Margaret Wadsworth, Paulette Van Roekens, Frances Schantz, F. Chantry Coe, Esther Richards, Edith Lampe, Doris Greenberg, Kathryn Goodling, Miriam Cone, Nancy Tuttle, and Laura Greenwood.</p>
<p>PHILADELPHIA ART NEWS wishes to announce that, for the convenience of subscribers, it will devote a space to Classified Advertisements, at the rate of twenty-five cents per agate line.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-25">
<head>LETTERS TO THE EDITOR</head>
<head type="sub"><date when="1937-11-23">November 23, 1937</date>.</head>
<p>To the Editor of the Art News:</p>
<p>Apropos of the Barnes vs. Museum controversy, let us presume that Barnes’ “Bathers” is worth $150,000 and that the Museum’s “Bathers” is only worth $75,000. The Museum’s painting will still be worth more than the Barnes’ to the people of Philadelphia for the simple reason that anyone interested enough may see it as often as he wants. While even students who have studied at the Barnes Foundation as many as three years, (speaking from experience) are refused admittance to the gallery by being handed a printed slip of paper saying that it is not a public gallery.</p>
<p>Since Barnes insists on keeping the best and most valuable Cézannes away from even painters in Philadelphia, why should he resent their having second best to look at?</p>
<p>Mildred J. Murphy</p>
<p>34 S. 17th St.,</p>
<p>Philadelphia</p>
<p>“Not being a Philadelphia resident, it is more difficult than ever to keep in touch with art news of the city. Your publication has certainly filled a great need and I am sure that I am only one of many, many more who feel the same way. Art News is bound to be a huge success!”</p>
<p>Marjorie M. Rensch,</p>
<p>Supervisor of Art Education, and Painter.</p>
<p>“. . . your paper . . . a much needed news organ.”</p>
<p>Katherine H. McCormick</p>
<p>Artist</p>
<p>“Very surprised and pleased . . . Never dull reading like so many art publications. Recalled to me the names of so many people I knew in Academy days.”</p>
<p>Roderick MacCrae</p>
<p>New York Artist</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-26">
<head>PAINT-CRAFT</head>
<head type="sub">PIGMENTS</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> H<hi rend="small-caps">ENRY</hi> W<hi rend="small-caps">HITE</hi> T<hi rend="small-caps">AYLOR</hi></byline>
<p>Art students commonly use cheap, inferior, and non-permanent pigments on the premise that they are “learning how to paint,” and that they don’t care what means they use to attain this end. Too often, bad habits are formed which persist far into their better years. We know a number of good painters who insist on using bad paint combinations, no matter what! This indicates that it would be better to learn to appreciate good craftsmanship in the beginning and to perfect it constantly in professional practice. Much time would be saved for conscientious painters were this phase of instruction to be emphasized in art schools.</p>
<p>Specifically, the undesirable pigments and bad combinations commonly used are:</p>
<p>Zinc yellow, which turns green by itself, very bad with alizarin. Permanent with oxides.</p>
<p>Gamboge (usually water color)—Not lightproof. Extremely bad in oils.</p>
<p>Chrome yellow—eventually turns black.</p>
<p>Vermilion—which turns black from exposure to light.</p>
<p>English vermilion—iodide of mercury—which evaporates off the canvas.</p>
<p>American vermilion—which usually bears no relation to true vermilion (sulphide of mercury), but is often red-lead dyed with a fugitive tint. (Cadmium red is a permanent substitute for Vermilion.)</p>
<p>Alizarin and madders mixed with iron or chromium or oxides which destroy its color. (Ultramarine red is a permanent substitute for the cool red of rose madder.)</p>
<p>Inferior Cobalt Violet—arsenate of cobalt and a deadly poison . . . grows dull or black. (True cobalt violet, cobalt phosphate, is permanent.)</p>
<p>Prussian Blue—complex chemical structure with tendency to fade.</p>
<p>Emerald green—extremely poisonous. Turns black with sulphur colors such as cadmium and ultramarine—or when exposed to our industrially polluted air.</p>
<p>Permanent green—mixtures of uncertain content . . . unnecessary.</p>
<p>Combinations of emeraude and alizarin or lakes.</p>
<p>Some of the above colors or combinations make tones which are tempting. But most of these may be approximated with absolutely permanent combinations which one should form the habit of using.</p>
<p>Below we list the permanent palette:</p>
<list>
<item rend="list-head">SULPHUR GROUP</item>
<item>Zinc white</item>
<item>Cadmium pale, middle, deep, orange, red</item>
<item>Ultramarine red</item>
<item>Ultramarine violet</item>
<item>Ultramarine blue, light, dark Ivory black</item>
<item rend="list-head">OXIDE GROUP</item>
<item>Zinc white</item>
<item>Barium yellow</item>
<item>Strontium yellow</item>
<item>Yellow ochre</item>
<item>Raw Siena</item>
<item>Raw Umber</item>
<item>Burnt Siena</item>
<item>Burnt Umber</item>
<item>Red ochre, light red, Venetian red, etc.</item>
<item>Mars yellow, orange, brown, red, violet</item>
<item>Terre verde</item>
<item>Chromium oxide, dull</item>
<item>Vert Emeraude</item>
<item>Cerulean blue</item>
<item>Cobalt blue</item>
<item>Cobalt violet (Cobalt phosphate) </item>
<item>Ivory black</item>
</list>
<p>Good new whites containing titanium dioxide cover well, but should not be used with alizarin.</p>
<p>Alizarin crimson is fairly permanent only when used with the sulphur group.</p>
<p>The sulphur and oxide groups may be mixed when alizarin is omitted.</p>
<p>The ultimate in permanency results from the use of the sulphur group alone, or the oxide group alone, with proper handling on good grounds.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-27">
<head><pb n="7" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-7.jpg"/>PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION</head>
<head type="sub">THE PROBLEMS OF THE ART TEACHER</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> W<hi rend="small-caps">AYNE</hi> M<hi rend="small-caps">ARTIN</hi></byline>
<div>
<head>THE CURRICULUM</head>
<p>If the following statements seem a bit radical to you, perhaps they are so because you haven’t thought of them in this light, or if you have, you haven’t bombarded your administrative staff or board sufficiently with them to make them aware of these facts.</p>
<p>To begin with, let us consider this age old cry of “fundamentals.” I’m not sure at the present time just where we stand in the educational world about them. At one time in my schooling I learned “plain” fundamentals. I laid flat washes; I rendered a bit of drapery in pen and ink, to learn the medium; or I made a dovetail joint or a lap joint, just that, to learn how to make one. There was no application of these principles. We’ve come a long way since then, I hope. In most of the schools I’ve contact with, some application is made along with technique, but not enough. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ll always affirm that technique is paramount in the equipment of the artist, but to waste the formative years of a pupil’s life in a continued harping on it to very little end is just foolish.</p>
<p>My friends and acquaintances who teach in the professional art schools have said, to a man, “Send us, for goodness sake, people with ideas; we’ll teach them technique. That’s what we are for.”</p>
<p>Now let’s take the above for a starting point and build our “curriculum” around that. The conclusion is simple enough to write, but in application I’ll warn you that headaches and heartaches are in store. But what an end, and what a reward to look forward to.</p>
<p>It’s September and we’re meeting our assignments for the first time. Those that have come up to us from the Junior School or the grades in our own system are easy; each one has a folder of his work, and his accumulative record cards in the office offer a very complete dossier of his interests, abilities, accomplishments and also that very important thing, his home background. We can start where his other teachers left off, or perhaps we’ve had contact with him before if our system allows a fully integrated program. We’ll have this hypothetical boy for three years. It’s up to us to foster each interest and idea that comes to him. We’ll have to simulate interest at times. Remember his interests aren’t ours, and our sophistication isn’t his. That boy’s interest is his curriculum and his accomplishment depends on two things, his own ability and our ability in furthering his interest. They won’t all be shining lights and a glorious ornament to the department, but they will have achieved upon graduation a fuller experience in the field of fine arts.</p>
<p>Now to come back to the new pupil from another system, where unfortunately they haven’t the record card system. There’s the conference, preferably out of school, a walk, a meal, a talk about anything and everything, the pretext to see how far advanced he is; the intelligence and placement tests by the school research executives; then with this data, we can proceed logically, letting him build his own course of study to fit his own needs and desires.</p>
<p>I can see figurative smirks on a lot of faces when this is read, but this system can work, it does work, proof can be offered if needed. But to return; it is my contention that all the fundamentals needed and all the technique required can be taught by the teacher, clearly and concisely, while the pupil is furthering his own interests. All this means work and a lot of it on the teacher’s part, but all the records to be kept, the necessary change of viewpoint as each new problem is presented, the keeping abreast of innumerable subjects (you’ll be surprised by the catholicity of interests), all have their compensations when an old pupil returns and tells you that he’s won a prize or has sold something or has gotten a new job, because he had a new idea; or one not in the art field still keeps up his interest in some phase of the work avocationally because he was able to see for himself that the beginning and ending of art was not for him one year laboriously spent in rendering a column, nay, only a segment of its capitol or a like time spent in the execution of a design for a never (Thank God) to be used wallpaper.</p>
<p>Mrs. R. Tait MacKenzie, wife of the noted Philadelphia sculptor, recently read her poetry to an appreciative audience comprised of Philadelphia booksellers.</p>
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</div>
<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-28">
<head>“THE CATHEDRAL”</head>
<p>The canvass reproduced in this issue is by Antonio P. Martino and was awarded the First Hallgarten Prize at the National Academy of Design in <date when="1937-03">March 1937</date>.</p>
<p>Mr. Martino has been painting landscapes and earning his living as a commercial artist since 1920. Most of Martino’s canvasses have for their subject matter suburban Philadelphia. During his annual visit to Gloucester Massachusetts he varies his subject by painting the Massachusetts’ rocky coast.</p>
<p>Several Art Institutions have honored him with prizes or medals.</p>
<list>
<item>Honorable Mention</item>
<item>Phila. Sketch Club (1925)</item>
<item>Honorable Mention</item>
<item>Art Club of Phila. (1925)</item>
<item>J. Francis Murphy Memorial Prize</item>
<item>Nat’l. Academy of Design (1926)</item>
<item>Medal</item>
<item>. . Phila. Sketch Club (1926)</item>
<item>Bronze Medal</item>
<item>Sesqui Centennial Phila. (1926)</item>
<item>First Hallgarten Prize</item>
<item>Nat’l. Academy of Design (1927)</item>
<item>Wanamaker Regional Art Purchase Prize</item>
<item>. . . John Wanamaker, Phila. (1934)</item>
<item>First Hallgarten Prize</item>
<item>Nat’l. Academy of Design (1937)</item>
</list>
<p>His canvasses have been invited this year to the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D. C., the American Federation of Arts—Western Tour, Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum, New York, the Harrisburg Exhibition of Penna. Artists, the Circuit Exhibition, Seattle Art Museum, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-29">
<head>CORRECTION</head>
<p>In our issue of <date when="--11-22">November 22</date>, Alfred Kastner and Oscar Stonorov were said to be the architects of the Carl Mackley Houses. Kastner and Stonorov were the designers, erection being directed by W. Pope Barney, architect.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-30">
<head>TRICKS OF THE TRADE</head>
<p>With Xmas practically here, and with the annual problem of the gifts to our artistic friends and what to give that budding young genius of a nephew (he paints too!) still unsolved, along comes one of our local shops offering a superb and simple solution—a gift order. A gift order ranging from one to twenty-five dollars that is good over a period of time, that can be used to purchase sets or individual items, appeals to us. We expect to add years to our life this Xmas by dodging hours of frantic and generally futile search for just the right thing.</p>
<p>However, for the optimistic and energetic, we list here a number of items gleaned from our browsing in local art supply shops.</p>
<p>What would be more practical, simple or useful than a goodly supply of pencils. It is here too, that we finally discovered a benefit derived from the depression and Foreign Situation. It seems that our large domestic companies were too busy with their regular lines before depression to bother with the artist’s needs. We had to be content with Gillott pens from England, Kohinoor and Catell pencils from Germany and Austria. Now the picture has changed. E Faber has brought out Carbon and Sanguine pencils and sticks, comparable, if not superior to Wolf or Conte. Their Nu Pastels are available in thirty-six colors, and compare favorably with German Faber Polycromos.</p>
<p>Pen assortments by Esterbrook, Hunt, Spencerian, ranging from twenty-five cents to a dollar have surprised many artists used to foreign pen points. But best of all, the domestic products are invariably cheaper.</p>
<p>Then there’s that attractive little model, Norma, (a mechanical pencil) that writes four colors (one at a time of course) at the flick of a thumb. But there is also a pencil selling for only fifteen cents that still has us slightly dazed. This paragon not only writes four colors separately but four colors at once. We swear we weren’t cocktailing and that we actually saw it work. Four at a time or separately, ladies and gentlemen; you pays your money and you takes your choice.</p>
<p>For that young hopeful, why not start him out on a profitable career with the Enright Engraver (we nearly succumbed ourself). This has been designed by a practical Philadelphia jewelry engraver as a toy, but is as professional a toy as we’ve ever seen. It consists of an Engraver’s Block, Plate holder, Engraving plates of varied colored catalin, and a firmly tempered Steel Engraver’s Tool. We suggest that the family silver be put out of the reach of the embryonic engraver, however.</p>
<p>If you share our tendency toward procrastination and find that the sketch for a Christmas card, done last July, is still not on a block, you’d better waltz right in and see the new white surface Linoleum Blocks. These eliminate drawing in reverse, will take transfers from newspapers, magazines, etc. by a Decora transfer solution, are very hard, and will convey minute cutting with clean sharp edges. These come in sizes 1" x 1" to 9" x 12", and are surprisingly inexpensive. There are also fine Aquaprint Inks, Oils, Inking Rollers, Tools, Presses, Matched Paper and Envelopes, in fact everything to make the usually painful operation simple.</p>
<p>Finally, after years of saving old razor blades, ruining mats, and cutting fingers, we bought us a real knife for a dollar. “Keen as a surgeon’s scalpel—safer—faster—and easier to use,” the salesman told us, and he was right. These miracles come in five types of holder and you have a choice of twelve different blades.</p>
<p>Our old friend Pyrography creeps up on us again. This time with the fancy name of Electric Color Burning.</p>
<p>The “Magic Stylus” a “midget in size, a giant for work” is only a dollar and a quarter. It can also be obtained in sets complete with stylus, water colors, woods, etc. There are hundreds of novelties to be made as gifts, as well as signs, decorative schemes, etc.</p>
<p>Speaking of signs, we have discovered a lettering device, that’s almost disgustingly simple. It consists of a Wrico lettering guide and a special pen. The largest set has five different pens and eight types of guides. It is the simplest and most effective means of doing window cards, architectural lettering, etc. we have ever seen.</p>
<p>At long last, however, we offer a suggestion on a par with our gift order. Perhaps, like us, you have no desire to stain your fingers block printing or burn them with pyrography; then be sure to see the exceptionally fine imported cards, twenty for a dollar, that can be had at the art supply shops.</p>
<p>And for the person “who has just everything,” the ideal gift is a subscription to the PHILADELPHIA ART NEWS—twenty issues of vital art news impartially reported, for only a dollar and a quarter.</p>
<p>Names of places where the above items may be purchased will be furnished on written request accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-31">
<head>DEFENDANT ACQUITTED</head>
<head type="sub">Children Judge Hospital Mural</head>
<p>In Glenn Dale, Maryland, a Mother Goose mural, done by W. P. A. artist Bernice Cross, was ordered painted out from the walls of the Children’s Tuberculosis Sanitarium. District of Columbia’s health commissioner, Dr. George C. Ruhland, thought it “grotesque” and “unsuitable,” no doubt because of its modern treatment. W. P. A. artists protested and won for the mural a fair trial, by a jury of five children picked at random from Washington schools, aged ten and eleven. The verdict was “not guilty” and the painting remains, to gladden young eyes and irk those of the disapproving adults.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-32">
<head>STUDENTS PURCHASE BAUM PORTRAIT</head>
<p>Students of Walter Emerson Baum, art editor of the Evening Bulletin, recently purchased a portrait of their instructor, by Cesare Ricciardi of Philadelphia. Mr. Ricciardi, a guest lecturer at one of Mr. Baum’s classes in Allentown, executed the portrait during the class period. Students liked the painting so well that they bought it for the local art museum, where it now hangs.</p>
<p>Mr. Baum is now having an exhibition of water colors at the Harlow Gallery in New York.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-33">
<head>VITAL ISSUES IN ART</head>
<p>The last two of the series of five free lectures at the Pennsylvania Museum of Art, entitled Vital Issues In Art, were given on <date when="--11-20">November 20</date> and <date when="--11-27">November 27</date>.</p>
<p>On <date when="--11-20">November 20</date>, Mr. R. Sturgis Ingersoll introduced Mary R. Beard, co-author of “Rise of American Civilization,” who spoke on “Tradition in American Art.”</p>
<p>On <date when="--11-27">November 27</date>, Mr. Rhys Carpenter spoke on “Sculpture, Past and Present.” He was introduced by Mr. Henri Marceau, Assistant Director of the Museum. Mr. Carpenter is the author of “The Humanistic Value of Archaeology” and “Aesthetic Basis of Greek Art.”</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-34">
<head>MASK AND WIG POSTERS BY MOORE STUDENTS</head>
<p>Students at the Moore Institute again entered a poster competition for the Mask and Wig production, this year “Fifty-Fifty,” and again won prizes—Melba Lukens first, Naomi Gross second.</p>
<p>Twenty students engaged in the competition, turning out a varied array of designs. Characters from “Fifty-Fifty,” including G-men, politicians, gypsies, and counterfeiters, were depicted.</p>
<p>The collaboration of the Moore Institute with the Mask and Wig is not an unusual occurrence. In 1935 twenty-six students made posters for “Drums Fortissimo,” Margaret Nitzsche, Janice Hackenburg, and Kathryn Sobey being awarded the first three prizes. Again in 1936, seventeen students designed posters for “Red Rhumba.” That year Anna Spater won first prize.</p>
<p>Two important art lectures were given on Thursday, <date when="--12-02">December 2</date>.</p>
<p>At the Academy of the Fine Arts, Paul L. Gill gave a gallery talk on the current exhibit, describing the technique used by the artists to obtain their effects.</p>
<p>At the Art Alliance, Clinton H. Beagary spoke on “The Creative Impulse.”</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-35">
<head>TRAVEL SKETCHES</head>
<p>The works of Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson will be exhibited at the Women’s University Club, 1701 Locust Street, during December.</p>
<p>Violet Oakley, distinguished mural painter of Philadelphia, will show sketches of personalities and places, made during her numerous trips in England, Europe, and Northern Africa. Miss Emerson who has just illustrated a book on India, will also exhibit travel sketches.</p>
<p>On Tuesday evening, <date when="--12-07">December 7</date>, Miss Oakley will lecture on Geneva and Rome, at her Lower Cogslea Studio. This will be the last of this season’s series of Cogslea Lectures. The first four were given by Miss Emerson.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-36">
<head>S. GERTRUDE SCHELL GIVES GALLERY TALK</head>
<p>Discussing the trend of modern water colors from lively sparkling treatments to the weighty, dark arrangements that dominate this year’s Academy show, Miss S. Gertrude Schell gave an informative gallery talk at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, <date when="--11-24">November 24</date>.</p>
<p>According to Miss Schell, the broad, rugged comprehensiveness, the richness and depth of color, that characterize so many of this year’s water colors, produces a strength and vitality that gives them the qualities of oil. Outstanding among them, she believed, were the group by O’Hara, whom she termed “a master of water color.”</p>
<p>Miss Schell considered the two paintings by Carter Schwitzer to be among the most artistic efforts of the exhibition. “Pale, yet their exquisite opalescent quality makes them as strong, in their own way, as the work of Presser.”</p>
<p>She also discussed at some length the works of Albert Guld, a first year exhibitor, and of Andrew Wyeth, both for their general excellence at present and the “amazing potentialities” of these newcomers to the field.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-37">
<head><pb n="8" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-03-8.jpg"/>ART IN PRINT</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> B<hi rend="small-caps">EN</hi> W<hi rend="small-caps">OLF</hi></byline>
<p>It is most unfortunate that there should be so many “phoney” art books on the market today. Such is the case, however, and it behooves all those interested in building an art library to tread most carefully indeed. Dilettantes, Pedagogues and other so-called “experts” are flooding the book market with “authoritative” volumes on subjects concerning which they have no understanding. It is one thing to read biographies and rehash them verbosely, and quite another to write concerning that of which one really has some actual knowledge. The average art biography, as we know it today, has very little to do with art appreciation or knowledge of aesthetics.</p>
<p>If we may presume to offer advice as to the best possible way to avoid being taken in by this kind of swindle, it would be simply this:</p>
<p>Read fewer books about artists’ lives and loves, more concerning themselves with analytical studies of their work.</p>
<p>Believe about ten per cent of the opinion you read and be wary about accepting authorities.</p>
<p>Buy books containing reading matter, not “picture books.” Reproductions of paintings are important, it is true, but generally give but a poor idea of the actual work.</p>
<p>Forgive our seeming conceit in “advising” you, but the art world has been so full recently of spurious “art books” that we simply had to get this off our literary chest.</p>
<p>A biography that is really, in our humble opinion, of real merit is “The Life of Paul Gauguin” by Robert Burnett, published by the Oxford University Press. Interestingly written, it does much more than paint a poster of a lurid life. Cause and effect join hands here, and a fine analytical study of the painter’s life that shows quite clearly the “why” of his pictures is the happy result.</p>
<p>May we suggest that any of the following books would make admirable Christmas presents:</p>
<list>
<item rend="list-head">A WORLD HISTORY OF ART,</item>
<item>Sheldon Cheney, <emph>Viking</emph></item>
<item rend="list-head">THE ARTS,</item>
<item>Hendrik Willem Van Loon, <emph>Simon and Shuster</emph></item>
<item rend="list-head">PAINTERS AND PERSONALITIES,</item>
<item>Samuel A. Lewisohn, <emph>Harpers</emph></item>
<item rend="list-head">SIX CENTURIES OF FINE PRINTS.</item>
<item>Carl Zigrosser, <emph>Covici Friede</emph></item>
</list>
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<p>PHILADELPHIA ART NEWS will announce a subscription selling contest in the near future. Read the <date when="--12-20">December 20</date> issue for details.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-03-chapter-38">
<head>TAKE A WALK</head>
<p>We were most happy the other day to receive a letter from Mr. Earle J. Taylor, Display Manager of Strawbridge and Clothier and brother of Theodore Taylor, the display man doing such excellent and creative work for U. G. I.</p>
<p>We were happy not only to find that we actually had a reader but one who could and did define the virtues and limitations of functional decorative lighting in an authoritative, lucid, and simple manner.</p>
<p>We print therefore:</p>
<div>
<head><name>Philadelphia Art News</name></head>
<label>“Take a Walk Editor”</label>
<p>Dear Sir:</p>
<p>In reference to your “Lights Out” paragraph (<date when="--11-22">Nov. 22nd</date> issue) may I humbly submit the following</p>
<p>While functional decorative lighting in certain forms is a very interesting and intriguing display technique it does have definite limitations.</p>
<p>It is most effective on the shady side of the street, because only there will its subtle quality be fully apparent. On the sunny side the strong reflection on the glass minimizes the effect, often resulting in an irritating gloom.</p>
<p>On the sunny side it is almost necessary to literally flood the window with light to counteract to some degree the strong glare outside. This does not mean interesting lighting effects cannot be obtained, but does mean definitely that the volume of light in the window must approach the volume of light outside. Of course, theoretically, one cannot produce light comparable to daylight, but we must approach it or the glass becomes a mirror and merchandise or message is barely discernible.</p>
<p>Many decorative lighting effects are of course wholly effective at night, no matter what the store location might be, but then, as night traffic is thin in certain locations, the appeal of the window must be to the greatest number (that is day traffic in such cases) if the results are to justify display expense.</p>
<p>A simile—To use certain pale gray tones rather than black in printing your column might be highly attractive and artistic, but would cause eye strain and a loss in reader volume, and be quickly abandoned, I believe, as the effectiveness of your message would be decreased.</p>
<p>Certain decorative functional lighting is like gray ink.</p>
<p>Earle J. Taylor.</p>
<p>P. S. If your <date when="--11-22">Nov. 22nd</date> issue is a sample of what we can expect from Philadelphia Art News, please accept my subscription.</p>
<p>E. J. T.</p>
<p>This column is sincerely appreciative of Mr. Taylor’s letter and herewith issues an urgent appeal and invitation to display men of Philadelphia to send us letters—articles—news of like calibre. We feel that such a column could be a clearing house of infinite value to the display field.</p>
<p>Philadelphia display men are certainly going to town with Xmas decor and display.</p>
<p>We greatly admire the man who finally decided Xmas feeling could be had without resorting to red and green—reindeer—or candles We’ve always been soft on Reina Rosenthal angels, and Bonwit’s couldn’t have pleased us more than with their border adaptation. The horses as foretold here last week are by Weinberg across the street and are really something!</p>
<p>Ed Arco likes blue and white and does an effective job of it at Gimbel’s.</p>
<p>Blum’s ladies look a bit bored with their silver trees hung with lingerie, but certainly portray the Xmas feeling in a modern manner.</p>
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