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<title>Philadelphia Art News: Vol. 1 No. 9</title>
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<bibl>Volume 1, Issue 9 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="1938-02-28">FEBRUARY 28, 1938</date></docDate>
<docEdition>Vol. 1 - - - No. 9</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>
</titlePage>
<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>
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<body>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-01">
<head>WEST BICENTENARY CELEBRATED</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig241.jpg"/>
<head>Self Portrait by Benjamin West</head>
<figDesc>Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Museum of Art</figDesc>
</figure>
<p>Benjamin West, born in what is now Swarthmore in 1738, is at last being honoured by a comprehensive exhibition. To celebrate the bicentenary of his birth, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will show, <date when="--03-05">March 5</date> to <date when="--04-10">April 10</date>, some sixty pictures, representing all phases of the painter’s work, a score of drawings and water colors, and a number of engravings made after paintings by West.</p>
<p>Benjamin West was a precocious child, starting to paint landscapes and portraits when he was only nine or ten years old. For a while he lived in Lancaster, but soon moved to Philadelphia, where he entered the College and Academy of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania. At this time he became a great friend of the Rev. William Smith, first Provost of the University. One of West’s earliest works is a portrait of this teacher. West lived in this city until 1758 when he went to New York as a portrait painter.</p>
<p>Anxious to study art in Italy, he secured passage on a ship sailing from Philadelphia to Leghorn, and arrived in Rome in <date when="1760-07">July 1760</date>. West did but few paintings in Italy. Among them was a portrait of a Mr. Robinson which was mistaken for an exceptionally fine work by the then popular Raphael Mengs, with whom West had worked more or less in competition.</p>
<p>Finally, in late <date when="1763-08">August, 1763</date>, West went to England and had almost immediate success. Introduced to George III by his friend and patron the Archbishop of York, West was given many important commissions and was made Historical Painter to His Majesty. With Sir Joshua Reynolds, he was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, of which he was made president after Reynold’s death.</p>
<p>Benjamin West’s influence was felt in American painting in two major ways—his innovations as an historical painter and his teaching. In his historical works, West was always careful to obtain complete accuracy as to costume and settings. In the famous “Death of General Wolfe”, Wolfe and his aides were attired in the correct military uniforms of their day. Again, Penn, the Indians, and Penn’s company in “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians” wear clothes suitable for the time of the incident. This practice was of course in direct opposition to that of most contemporary painters who especially in historical subjects, draped all figures in the multiple folds of classic Greece or Rome. Sir Joshua Reynolds in particular objected when he heard of West’s intention for the “Death of General Wolfe”, predicting complete failure for the picture.</p>
<p>As a teacher West’s influence was enormous. Numerous young American painters of the day flocked to London, that they might study under their famous compatriot, among them Gilbert Stuart, Matthew Pratt, Joseph Wright, John Trumbull, Washington Allston, and Ralph Earle. Matthew Pratt painted West in his London studio surrounded by students at their work. This picture, “American School”, will be lent to the exhibition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.</p>
<p>The West Bicentenary Exhibition has been drawn from the collections of fourteen museums, eighteen private collections, and several collections of dealers. Among the more notable pictures included in the show are the “Conference of the Treaty of Peace with England”, portraits of West’s aged father and of his half-brother, the “Death of General Wolfe”, “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians”, the three portrait groups of the Drummond family, and several recently discovered paintings done during the artist’s childhood, and belonging to the Pennsylvania Hospital. The self-portrait reproduced here is the property of William Gray Warden of Philadelphia.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-02">
<head>DESIGN FOR MASS PRODUCTION</head>
<p>The designer and the producer have at last united for the benefit of the average consumer. At least this is the outstanding impression one receives of “Design for Mass Production”, now at the Art Alliance.</p>
<p>This exhibition displays the modern use made of plastics, glass, ceramics, textiles, metals, woods, and papers, a use which always takes into account not only the function of the article but the nature of the material itself.</p>
<p>Contemporary designers now realize that while they may still turn to the past for pattern and shape inspiration, qualities inherent in some of the new materials offer even greater design possibilities. An example can be found in synthetic leathers, such as fabrikoid. Until recently the main object was to imitate real leather. Being an imitation, such products were thought suitable only for second-rate articles. Today these synthetic fabrics are being used for anything for which their peculiar qualities fit them. It is realized that, say fabrikona, has possibilities for wall-covering that other materials lack. The designer recognizes these individual qualities and turns them to decorative as well as functional use. Again, linoleum is no longer confined to the kitchen but in its new forms is employed wherever its durability and variety of color and surface is needed.</p>
<p>Two of the finest displays are those of glass and wall-paper. In the paper exhibit are shown the various stages in printing a floral paper; a lay-out of wall-papers for a typical six-room house; and various washable wall-papers. The uses of modern glass range from bricks for buildings to door-knobs, to perfume bottles. Examples of each of these and of many other uses are grouped in the glass section.</p>
<p>This exhibition demonstrates above all that the designer of today must not only know the function of the machine which is to reproduce his design in mass quantity, but, what is even more important, he must have a complete knowledge of his materials. As the old craftsman studied wood, its grains and wearing qualities, so the new designer must know intimately the possibilities of the metals, plastics, synthetic fabrics, etc. The fundamentals of design have not changed, but the methods have.</p>
<p>This exhibition was arranged under the general direction of Clyde Shuler, chairman of the Crafts Committee of the Art Alliance. He was assisted by a group of experts in the various fields. Henry Hagert supervised metals and plastics; Duncan Niles Terry, glass; Roy Requa, ceramics; Henry Allman, paper; Cynthia Iliff, fabrics; and W. Singerly Smith, woods. The architect for the exhibition was Lloyd Malkus.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-03">
<head>AUCTION HELD FOR FEDERAL ART</head>
<p>The work of the Federal Arts Committee, described in our <date when="--02-14">February 14</date> issue in a letter from Joy Pride, is being aided by funds obtained from a fine arts auction held last Thursday at 52 West Eighth St., New York City. The paintings and sculpture were donated by fifteen American artists interested in furthering the Federal Arts Bill, now before Congress. Lawrence Tibbett is national chairman of the committee.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-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>Of the two principal varieties of art gallery, the publicly sustained and privately endowed museum is probably the most popular with the layman.</p>
<p>It generally occupies a prominent geographical position in his town; it is most impressive with its abundance of marble, (quite likely of Greek architectural inflection), and is, withal, an extremely agreeable place to spend a Sunday afternoon.</p>
<p>Once inside, he likes to look out the windows at the trees and vista in general. Then he turns an eye in the direction of the pictures hanging upon the wall and discovers that he thinks more of them than he did when he first visited the institution.</p>
<p>He sees saints, sinners, landscapes, still lifes, nudes and cracked portraits. Occasionally his attention is drawn to a modern canvas that he doesn’t quite understand. Nevertheless, he is fascinated by it all. He is very careful to make no noise—it would seem sacrilegious with all that marble about. Then again there are the guards, and no matter how great the thrill he receives in a museum, he has never felt completely at ease there.</p>
<p>Even so, he may visit such a sanctuary many times without once seeing the inside of a privately conducted gallery. This should logically make the museum greater as an influence, which, at the moment it may be with the layman.</p>
<p>In consideration of this, it is to regretted that so comparatively little living American art can be seen on these visits. It is due largely to the fact that the vast majority of bequests are collections of foreign art, and purchase funds stipulate the acquisition of old masters rather than our own artists. The exceptions are not sufficiently numerous.</p>
<p>In Philadelphia, the Johnson Collection, the Wilstach Collection and the Pennsylvania Academy’s Permanent Collection contain many notable achievements of the past, and we make no effort to detract from their artistic and cultural importance. But, numerically, it far overshadows our local collections of living American art. Various funds established in Philadelphia, the Lambert Fund, Fellowship Purchase Fund and others, are but a few of the many we should have for the purpose of acquiring the work of our artists.</p>
<p>Exhibitions held in various museums, such as the Carnegie International and others sponsored by the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy and the like, have done much to encourage recognition of artists and the purchase of their works. However, the major portion of our artists do not profit materially by this. Incidentally, museums frequently buy for less than the artist’s original price.</p>
<p>It is here that the privately operated gallery enters the scene as the American artist’s most practical aid to success, and this we shall consider subsequently.</p>
<p>Leonid Gechtoff, whose exhibit of paintings is current at the Sketch Club, has the distinction of possessing two absolutely distinct artistic personalities.</p>
<p>One, which might be called the more conservative, is well known to those who have observed the output of this painter for a number of years. Here he regards almost entirely landscape and still life, interpreting both with great technical freedom and thick impasto, no less than color as vivid as it is personal. We recall as his most impressive efforts in this direction some paintings of banyan trees exhibited in Philadelphia a few years ago; it is regrettable that there are none included in this show—they were beautiful weddings of manner and matter.</p>
<p>However, Gechtoff has retained his essential ruggedness in this group of oils, the most effective of which are “Autumn” and “Twilight”, both vigorous, but decorative in quality, and in unusual color keys.</p>
<p>We now come to what the painter terms his “American phase”, as completely removed from the other pictures as night from day. In these the artist has forsaken oil, except in one instance, utilizing pastel instead. Furthermore, thick, luscious application of paint has been replaced by a process of thin glazing, and composition, while built upon normal pictorial, and sometimes romantic lines, is achieved by means of mechanical lines, angles and circles. Gechtoff’s color, too, has undergone something of a transformation, due not only to his new type of picture, but the change of medium.</p>
<p>The most remarkable example of the “American phase” is a large portrait of S. P. Reimann, M. D., in which the artist has incorporated various private enthusiasms of the doctor. There is the central portrait head, around which has been introduced, among other things, hands playing the piano, a palette and brushes, a bottle, a crab (to indicate the cancer specialist), the modest building where Dr. Reimann’s cancer research was pursued, and similar pictorial suggestions. The mechanical linear basis is reinforced by opalescent color tone and is, incidentally, executed in the unusual combination of oil and pastel.</p>
<p>A portrait of Natol Sussanne is accomplished in similar fashion minus the symbolism, and a head of F. W. Weber shines forth through a maze of concentric circles and bold angles.</p>
<p>Various other smaller pastels, such as “Mechanical Modanna”, “Repeating”, “The Beginning of a Fugue”, “Eyes of Dots”, “Aviation” and “Rhythm” are particularly expressive and according to the artist are divided into objective and subjective categories.</p>
<p>We are told that Gechtoff was presented to Vincent Van Gogh at a most tender age—in which case a vivid memory of the event must have been the result, for this artist’s painting of Vincent indicates much understanding for, and sympathy with, that great, mad, pigmental personality.</p>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig242.jpg"/>
<head>“Still Life” by Burbridge</head>
</figure>
<p>Roberta Burbridge, who is exhibiting a group of twenty-eight oils at the Warwick Galleries, possesses a palette of extraordinary tonal delicacy, combined strangely but effectively with bold conception of line and volume.</p>
<p>Compositionally, Miss Burbridge’s paintings are given to exceptional simplicity. Unimportant details have been ruthlessly eliminated, notably in studies of nudes, with striking result.</p>
<p>One of the best examples of this is “Fantasy”, a female nude reduced anatomically to its simplest expression, limbs co-ordinating admirably with the model’s long, scroll-like hair.</p>
<p>“Backyard” and “New Jersey Jungle” are among the best canvases. The former is of fine, warm tone, volumes well selected and composed—the latter unusual with its reinforcement of static areas at the top, bottom and side of the picture, an agreeable contrast to the fluid masses of foliage within.</p>
<p>“Negress #1” has great fullness of form and a wealth of color suggestion in its soft flesh. “Landscape” (number 21 in the catalogue), is an exceedingly dramatic and compelling piece of painting—of inordinate depth but devoid of sweetness in any sense.</p>
<p>It is in floral studies that the artist achieves her lightest brushstroke and most luminous color, qualities that are likewise pre-eminent in her still life of grapes and peppers.</p>
<p>Withal, these paintings reveal definite, and admirable, individuality—they constitute an exhibition well worth seeing.</p>
<p>Being given occasionally to an introspective mood, we sit alone in a corner, stroke our long, white beard, and think what might have been if what was was not. For example, if the world’s first mighty pawnbrokers, the family Di Medici, had been in the habit of advertising, would Michelangelo have drawn illustrations for them?</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, say we. Possibly that flower of the Renaissance would have accomplished his task as a “tradesman”—but was it not in a similar capacity that he covered the Sistine Chapel with timeless murals?</p>
<p>As a “tradesman” be it—from both Daumier and Hogarth comes ample evidence of the artist’s boon to commerce, and so it proceeds to our own day.</p>
<p>The Print Club, in sponsoring an exhibition of book, magazine and advertising illustration, lends considerable impetus to the theory that much genuine “fine art” is being executed for commercial purposes. There are a number of contributions to this show that would do credit to any water color exhibition.</p>
<p>Peter Helck was awarded a prize of $100.00 for “Plowing”, a drawing in ink and wash. Honorable Mentions went to Pierre Brissaud for a water color: “Picnic in South Carolina”, Robert Fawcett for a gouache: “Haunted House”, and Fred Ludekens for “In the Valley of Mexico”, a lithograph. The jury was composed of Charles T. Coiner, Henry C. Pitz, Joseph P. Sims, Edward Warwick and N. C. Wyeth.</p>
<p>The Helck and Brissaud contributions are particularly potent—the former crisply handled, well composed and of enormous color suggestion, despite its lack of actual color—the latter soft, decorative and possessed of a charm quite akin to that of an old French print.</p>
<p>Other artists represented include John Atherton, Alfred Bendiner, A. M. Cassandre, Jean Charlot, Asa Cheffetz, Barbara Crawford, Samuel Chamberlain, Edith Emerson, Wanda Gag, Michael J. Gallagher, Emil Ganso, Charles R. Gardner, Edward Everett Henry, Peter Hurd, Paul Landacre, Virginia Armitage McCall, Thornton Oakley, Violet Oakley, Henry C. Pitz, Wuanita Smith, Roy Spreter, Edward A. Wilson and N. C. Wyeth.</p>
<p>Lithographs produced by Benton Spruance within the last three years are now being shown at the Carlen Galleries.</p>
<p>Spruance lithographs have long been one of our enthusiasms. With a bold vision and an eye sensitive to the sparkle of light and the beauty of motion he has placed his art upon stone in a peculiarly pure technical manner. In these, his most recent prints, we find greater compositional and tonal strength, but more particularly an increasing interest in the social problem.</p>
<p>The artist’s most notable contribution to the present show is a series of four large prints known as “The People Work”. To date it is certainly Spruance’s greatest accomplishment in print-making. All are literal cross-sections of city streets and subways crowded with workers.</p>
<p>The first is “Morning”, an example of magnificent figure grouping, in which the great mass of American toilers pack stairway, platform and subway car. “Noon” is a busy city street with men working below in a building excavation. “Evening” is another composition of busy traffic on the street and beneath in the subway. The last, “Night”, reveals some of our workers at play, others at their nocturnal tasks.</p>
<p>The most remarkable quality of these prints is the achievement of introspection by purely material, rather than poetic or mystic means.</p>
<p>There are a number of prints inspired by the motor car, as an agent of speed and a menace to life. The swift motion of the machines is patently expressed and, in Spruance’s eyes, motors become monsters, with Death lurking above them.</p>
<p>Much the same sense of motion is embodied in the prints of football subjects, seemingly a favorite of the artist and powerful in effect. The industrial comments are spacious, voluminous and treated with considerable crispness. It is in the delineation of quaint buildings that Spruance permits the play of his phantasy. They have an eerie, sometimes surrealistic, quality, and are frequently reminiscent of the poetry of Poe. Several prints that comment upon the more sordid variety of humanity complete the exhibit.</p>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig243.jpg"/>
</figure>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-05">
<head><pb n="2" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-09-2.jpg"/>MORE COFFEE BILL QUESTIONS</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>Until some of the questions posed by the Coffee Bill controversy are answered, the problem of setting up a Federal Arts Bureau which will foster American culture over a long period cannot be solved.</p>
<p>As now proposed, the Bureau would be a permanent continuance, with minor improvements, of the Federal Arts Projects under W.P.A. These projects, according to the bill, would be augmented to give employment to as many artists as possible.</p>
<p>The administrators of the bureau would be appointed from panels of names submitted by organizations representing the greatest number of artists employed under the Bureau. This, as we pointed out in an earlier editorial, would not be democratic representation of the cultural elements of our society.</p>
<p>Hence arise the questions:</p>
<p>What, specifically, are the cultural elements of society which should be represented in the choice of administrators?</p>
<p>Would they not comprise art organizations and art schools now existing? If so, what is a bona fide art organization or art school?</p>
<p>If projects similar to those under W.P.A. are continued, what will become of the vast number of pictures produced under the Bureau? What effect will this great picture-production have on the art market for non-government artists? Art must have financial support. Can the bureau encourage the patronage of art by the production and exhibition of countless pictures?</p>
<p>Taking the long view, art needs general patronage more than it does government support for a few of its practitioners. Therefore, the Bureau should not spring out of a temporary relief measure. It should be completely rewritten around a bigger and more constructive idea. Its preamble should outline its chief aim with greatest clarity. That aim should be the education of the public in appreciation of American Art as a whole, and the stimulation of popular financial patronage of art.</p>
<p>The bureau should consist of administrators and workers who can carry out this aim, persons who might well be expert advertisers and merchandisers rather than painters of easel pictures.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-06">
<head><pb n="3" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-09-3.jpg"/>EXHIBITIONS</head>
<list>
<item rend="list-head">ART CLUB</item>
<item>220 South Broad Street</item>
<item>Annual Exhibition of the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to <date when="--03-02">March 2</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">ARTISTS UNION</item>
<item>1212 Walnut Street</item>
<item>Second Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Sculpture, <date when="--02-25">February 25</date> to <date when="--03-27">March 27</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">CARLEN GALLERIES</item>
<item>323 South 16th Street</item>
<item>Lithographs by Benton Spruance.</item>
<item><date when="--02-26">February 26</date> to <date when="--03-16">March 16</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">McCLEES GALLERIES</item>
<item>1615 Walnut Street</item>
<item>18th Century Portraiture.</item>
<item>Contemporary American Painting.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS</item>
<item>Broad and Cherry Streets</item>
<item>133rd Annual Exhibition of Oils and Sculpture. From <date when="--01-30">January 30</date> to <date when="--03-06">March 6</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM</item>
<item>The Parkway</item>
<item>Johnson Collection.</item>
<item>Bicentenary Exhibition of Paintings by Benjamin West. <date when="--03-05">March 5</date>–<date when="--04-10">April 10</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA A. C. A. GALLERY</item>
<item>323 South 16th Street</item>
<item>Paintings by Nicholas Marsicano. <date when="--03-01">March 1</date>–21.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA ART ALLIANCE</item>
<item>251 South 18th Street</item>
<item>Designs for Mass Production, <date when="--02-23">February 23</date> to <date when="--03-11">March 11</date>.</item>
<item>Oils by Art Alliance Members, <date when="--02-26">February 26</date> to <date when="--03-11">March 11</date>.</item>
<item>Water Colors by Art Alliance Members. <date when="--03-10">March 10</date>–24.</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA FREE LIBRARY</item>
<item>Logan Circle</item>
<item>European Manuscripts of the John Frederick Lewis Collection</item>
<item rend="list-head">PHILADELPHIA PRINT CLUB</item>
<item>1614 Latimer Street</item>
<item>Exhibition of Book, Magazine and Advertising Illustration, <date when="--02-14">February 14</date> to <date when="--03-05">March 5</date></item>
<item rend="list-head">PLASTIC CLUB</item>
<item>247 S. Camac Street</item>
<item>Annual Oil Exhibition beginning <date when="--03-09">March 9</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL ART</item>
<item>Broad and Pine Streets.</item>
<item>McCandless Contest Exhibition of Outdoor Advertising Designs.</item>
<item rend="list-head">SESSLER’S</item>
<item>1310 Walnut St.</item>
<item>Rare Floral Prints, <date when="--03-09">March 9</date>–26.</item>
<item rend="list-head">WARWICK GALLERIES</item>
<item>2022 Walnut Street</item>
<item>Paintings by Roberta Burbridge. <date when="--02-21">February 21</date> to <date when="--03-12">March 12</date>.</item>
<item rend="list-head">WOMENS’ CITY CLUB</item>
<item>1622 Locust Street</item>
<item>Water colors by Florence V. Cannon. March.</item>
<item rend="list-head">WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY CLUB</item>
<item>Warwick Hotel, 17th & Locust Sts.</item>
<item>Oils by Betty Heindel.</item>
</list>
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<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig244.jpg"/>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-07">
<head>IN NEW YORK</head>
<head type="sub">NATOL SUSSANNE ROSS BRAUGHT</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> J<hi rend="small-caps">ANE</hi> R<hi rend="small-caps">ICHTER</hi></byline>
<p>Beset with a romanticised realism, a large section of American painting has, in recent years, seemed singularly devoid of imagination. This long absent quality has, however, returned in strength in the painting of Natol Sussanne and Ross Braught, who recently held one-man shows at the Findlay and Ferargil Galleries in New York. Mr. Braught is a former Philadelphian and Mr. Sussanne is now making this city his home. Both are symbolic painters, recreating not only the physical world in which they live but attempting by means of significant imagery to give substance to the inner world of mind and heart.</p>
<figure>
<graphic url="upl-philaartnews-fig246.jpg"/>
<head>“Hands” by Natol Sussanne</head>
</figure>
<p>Natol Sussanne is a painter of tumultuous life, expressing his conceptions with energy of form and color. The seed and the plant, the child and the man, the earth from which all rise—these are the subjects of his art, made apparent in swirls of color. Reds, blues, yellows, greens of unbelievable brilliance testify to Sussanne’s belief that life is essentially an exciting if mysterious experience.</p>
<p>The symbolism with which he presents this belief is equally as rich as the color. “Seed” is an attempt to encompass the mystery of creation. A great, onion-shaped seed fills the canvas, its roundness and strength but partially concealing the image of man, for a human face is dimly perceptible in the center of the seed form. “Peasant” shows a robust country girl, seated with her back to a window, through which one sees a field rich with growth. Everything in the picture creates an impression of physical luxuriance, an impression which is heightened by the symbolic painting out of the girl’s face. In most of these paintings the color is used with a very special meaning. The clear blood-red, present in so many, seems to typify for Sussanne, fecundity. The stalwart girl in “Peasant” is limned with it; in the little landscape, “Western Pennsylvania,” the very fields exude the blood color of fertility.</p>
<p>The thirty-one canvases included in this exhibit showed Sussanne as a painter of very decided if not completely determined power. As yet he is still somewhat of an eclectic, adapting the strength of many different artists to his own needs. For “To the Earth” and “Cross Roads” he has employed the short, vigorous strokes of Van Gogh; “Bayou Breed” shows the influence of one of Picasso’s early phases with a flakey, almost pastel-like use of pigment; “Under Water” recalls the reveries of Burne-Jones in theme and treatment. Sussanne however, is a highly original artist, belonging to no “school”, but rather feeling life intensely and interpreting these intense sensations imaginatively.</p>
<p>Using muted color and smooth sensual painting somewhat in the manner of O’Keefe, Ross Braught, former student at the P. A. F. A., presents a world of fantasy and fact welded in the dream. Like Sussanne, but with a very different mode of expression, he also brings to American painting the quality of an intense imagination.</p>
<p>“Donatello in the Jungle” might be said to symbolize Braught’s own theory of the value of the dream to art. The sculptor, lying on the lush jungle floor, dreams his creation, a group of singers in white marble. Structurally, this painting displays Braught’s very fine sense of composition, the design being two triangular masses, apex to apex, the lower, the curved body of the dreaming sculptor, the upper, the white aura from which his marble group takes shape. The painting itself, as on all his canvases, is meticulous, the color, warm but subdued.</p>
<p>Two scenes have evidently done much to formulate Braught’s work, the tropical luxuriance of the south, and the rock and sand shapes of the western deserts and mountains. From the first, he derived a series of highly stylized yet sensational flower and foliage studies as well as the settings for other paintings. The second influence is dominant in such paintings, as the symbolic “Tschaikowsky’s Sixth” in which a white dove flies above a mauve, ridged desert.</p>
<p>Even more than imaginative themes, religious themes have been lacking in most modern painting, and here again Braught is an innovator. One of the outstanding pictures in the exhibition was “Entombment,” a passionate realization of the burial of Christ. In this painting one may also see the art of the past with which Braught is most akin, that of Blake. Here are the same attenuated, rhythmic forms, the same white light as focus, and the same mystic approach.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-08">
<head>PICKETS AID MUSEUM</head>
<head type="sub">THOUSANDS FLOCK TO WPA SHOW</head>
<p>Big cities have become more or less picket-passive. Philadelphia, nevertheless, was jolted, one fine Sunday in January, by the sight of a chain of protesting artists marching in a picket line before the Greek serenity of the Art Museum.</p>
<p>Flaunting signs decrying the injustices committed by the powers that be—in this case the Museum officials and the head of the local Federal Art Project—the pickets attended the Museum every Sunday from <date when="--01-22">January 22</date> to the close of the WPA art exhibit yesterday.</p>
<p>Abetted by Barnes Foundation students and Artists’ Union members, the pickets proclaimed their grievances—that Mary Curran had withheld WPA art from the public too long, that the show she selected was not representative, that the Museum was “a factory for frauds,” etc., etc.</p>
<p>Most picketing, if successfully strategized, results in terrorizing of the public. The average man, whether or not he is in sympathy with the cause for the picket-procession, is so intimidated at the thought of running the gauntlet of belligerents, that he refrains from going into the marked spot. And here lies the novelty of the Museum picketing. Although an endless line covered the foot of the wide steps, people did go in,—in droves.</p>
<p>The record attendance at any Parkway Museum exhibit was that for the Van Gogh show, which 29,306 persons saw in a three week period. Attendance at the WPA show, in one month, was 29,914. All of which may go to prove that as far as the Museum is concerned, both the Artists’ Union and the Barnes Foundation are merely sheep in wolves’ clothing. Dr. Barnes may shout for more and still more pickets, as he did at a recent lecture, Union members may surreptitiously give away pamphlets until the Parkway looks like Wall Street during a victory parade, and still the Museum won’t mind. They knew all along that Dr. Barnes and the Unionites were only fooling. Didn’t they draw the biggest crowd in the Museum’s history?</p>
<p>N. B. It might be a fine thing for the Benjamin West Exhibit, if the D. A. R. and Patriotic Sons of America would picket the Museum during March.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-09">
<head>ARCHITECTURAL COMMITTEE</head>
<p>The Fifty-Second Annual Exhibition of the Architectural League will be held <date when="--04-20">April 20</date> to <date when="--05-12">May 12</date> at the Fine Arts Society Building, New York. The Philadelphia Committee is composed of: H. T. Carswell, architecture; Dr. R. Tait MacKenzie, sculpture; George Harding, decorative painting, and Markley Stevenson, landscape architecture.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-10">
<head>PLASTIC CLUB HOLDS ANNUAL RABBIT</head>
<p>As per custom, the members of the Plastic Club, 247 S. Camac Street, donned festive costume to sup and frolic together at their annual “Rabbit”, on Saturday night, the nineteenth.</p>
<p>Mrs. Walter B. Greenwood and her committee were responsible for a very clever series of murals which lined the walls of the room where the entertainment, “A Night On the Air,” was given. Famous and infamous radio stars were expertly caricatured. Charlie McCarthy sat on top of the world, surrounded by such celebrities as the Roosevelts, Eddie Cantor, Laurel and Hardy, and the Lunts. One panel satirized the ado about Mae West’s fatal radio appearance. Mae appeared in the embrace of the serpent, with a delighted audience on one side, shocked spectators on the other.</p>
<p>Miss Ruth Robinson was chairman of the Program Committee. The M. C., a Major Blows, introduced singers, instrumentalists, and readers, and, among the big names, Rudy Vallee, Shirley Temple, Mayor Wilson, Stokowski, and Garbo were imitated. One of the highlights was a Samoan dance in native costume by Mrs. Horace Blakeslee who has recently returned from Pango Pango.</p>
<p>With the serving of the traditional Welsh rabbit, announced by a club member in rabbit costume, the merry evening was brought to a close.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-11">
<head>JUNIOR LEAGUERS EXHIBIT</head>
<p>An exhibition of oils, pastels, water colors, and charcoal sketches, done by members of the Junior League, opened <date when="--02-24">February 24</date> at the League clubrooms in the Warwick Hotel. Artists participating in this show include Mrs. John Bromley, Frances Pepper Wright, Mrs. Robson L. Greer, Ann Leisenring, Isabel Stafford, Ione Allen, Elizabeth S. Davis, Mrs. Bertram Lippincott, Sally O’Neill, and Patricia Hallowell.</p>
<p>Benton Spruance is expected to give a talk during the two weeks that the exhibition is on view, and to award the seven engraved ash trays which are to serve as prizes.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-12">
<head>ART IN TOWN HALL</head>
<p>Thirteen abstractions by Eleanor Arnett, after a recent New York showing, have been invited by the management of Town Hall for exhibition in the lobby until <date when="--03-06">March 6</date>. This is a pioneering venture for Town Hall, which has never before sponsored an exhibition. The paintings were chosen for their particular interest to music lovers. They represent Miss Arnett’s interpretation of the music of various composers.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-13">
<head><pb n="4" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-09-4.jpg"/>THE OLD CYNIC</head>
<p>A young artist, who has since become successful and famous, visited the ranch of a friend in Mexico. A large mound on the ranch attracted his curiosity and he excavated thousands of choice Indian relics from it. His interest in such things grew and he added to his collection until it became valuable. Few of his acquaintances shared his enthusiasm.</p>
<p>The growing demands of his profession weaned him away from archaeological considerations. He packed his flints, obsidians, ornaments, pottery, and miniature grotesques in barrels and put them in storage. His fondness for the collection even cooled to the point where he engaged an agent who quickly sold it. Many years later, the painter received a phone message from the buyer, whom he had never met, asking if he might call at the studio to learn some facts about the Indian relics. When the gentleman arrived, he immediately began to talk at great length about the collection. He ignored the handsome painting on the easel and those about the walls and seemed oblivious of the romantic atmosphere of the artist’s workshop. Finally he complained that his friends did not appear to be interested in his hobby, but looked at the curios only out of politeness. “Why did you sell the collection?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Perhaps that same lack of interest from friends which you have mentioned had something to do with it, but it was chiefly because I became occupied with other things which seemed more important.”</p>
<p>“It’s curious, and a little discouraging,” remarked the collector, “that a man can’t find much sympathy for his interests. Friends of mine who play golf will only talk golf, and bridge players care for nothing but bridge. When I show them my Indian things they look at me as though I were a nut!”</p>
<p>“What you say is very true,” agreed the painter. “For instance you have been in my studio for more than an hour and a half, and you haven’t indicated a single trace of interest in anything I do here.”</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-14">
<head>MEMORIAL HALL</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> J<hi rend="small-caps">ANE</hi> R<hi rend="small-caps">ICHTER</hi></byline>
<p>When was the last time you visited Memorial Hall? When you were nine or ten, we’ll wager. And probably your only impression of that relic of the Centennial is one of the cluttered curios in great gloom.</p>
<p>Much of the gloom remains, but partial order has come into Memorial Hall. And through that order we can see a really splendid collection of sculpture, painting, and crafts.</p>
<p>Occupying the main entrance hall is a collection of ceramics, sculpture, paintings, and furniture from the far East. Here are many things of interest—four Chinese tile plaques replete with Oriental suavity of line, chairs that belonged to mandarins and emperors—but few of more interest than two porcelain vases from China. They are unquestionably of Chinese workmanship, but the design is that of a Greek amphora. In their exposition of the inter-influences between these two ancient civilizations they seem to typify the internationalism of art.</p>
<p>In the rotunda, beneath the great dome of Memorial Hall, is grouped the museum’s collection of plaster casts. Too often subject to aspersion such casts are frequently valuable to the art student and teacher. They show, far more clearly than is possible by slides or word-descriptions, the actual form and size of monumental sculpture. Nicolo Pisano’s huge pulpit at Siena is reproduced here on full scale as is a typical Gothic tomb, that of Archbishop Ernest of Saxony at Magdeburg, Germany. There are also a few original pieces of sculpture, such as a stone sarcophagus from Syria.</p>
<p>The main feature of Memorial Hall is, of course, the justly famous Wilstach Collection of paintings. Unfortunately many of the pictures are poorly hung and the light is not what it should be. But, in spite of such technical defects, the collection remains one of the finest in the city.</p>
<p>As in all nineteenth century collections, the good is juxtaposed with the bad. Happily, in the case of the Wilstach group, the group is so very good, that we can endure walls of mediocrity for the El Greco “Crucifixion”, Jordaens’ “Circe and Ulysses”, a small Constable landscape, the Redfield, the Corot, the Monets, the delightful little winter-scenes of the seventeenth century Dutch School. Masters of the American, Flemish, Dutch, French, Italian, and English Schools are all represented in this group of paintings.</p>
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<head>“Plowing” Ink and Wash Drawing by Peter Helck Winner of the Florence F. Tonner Prize in the Exhibition of Illustration at The Print Club</head>
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<p>There are also collections of silver and of ceramics. Neither of these is at present open to the public—rearrangement is still going on—but the quality and quantity of art now available to the public should warrant an immediate visit to Memorial Hall.</p>
<p>The museum is open to the public 10.30 to 5 daily. Located at Forty-fourth and Parkside Ave., it can be conveniently reached by trolley cars 38 or 40.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-15">
<head>FULMINATION WITH FLOWERS A LETTER TO THE EDITOR</head>
<p>Henry McCarter told me, in 1924, “more can be learned from a day in the Johnson Collection than can be remembered from travelling all Europe.” I started to learn.</p>
<p>“Gentlemen die as fast as the sun sets and men go into the quiet rooms they have left and take out things whose acquisition has been an adventure. There is always something cherished, something rare, when gentlemen die. But few have been the gentlemen whose means permitted them to collect freely precious and beautiful objects.”</p>
<p>A board for slum clearance should immediately restore one house on South Broad Street; to hang at least one chosen exhibit as John G. Johnson wished it.</p>
<p>Obviously the collector intended his paintings to represent complete schools; his acquisitions clearly obey that plan. As an artist I gained a knowledge of Venetian painting from the first floor room in his house, not to be got by any other means. The cessation of “exhibits in rotation” left the work of that school in sight for a decade. I went continually, hoping Monet and Degas might again be on view; but they were not. I got to know a section of his notable gift quite well, with ten years spent on a third of it all; studying some pictures as Johnson meant all should be studied. Even without the “museum pieces”—gracing the “display galleries” at Fairmount, the Venetians left at home were worth study, though values were shifted. Now, that house near South Street shelters a sewing project, worthy enough if you wish to excuse the abuse; but an El Greco “Christ” should drive out the money-changers we have with us always.</p>
<p>In a city particularly dead at centre, the Johnson Mansion was rock among quicksands. Is the city aware of its possessions only as pigeon holes?</p>
<p>The Johnson Treasury, though you might not have noticed it, was a “Living Museum”. Primitive and religious art gained especially in significance in that outmoded setting. They had a blood-warming force, so near to modern realities. Time and mischance accomplished a juxtaposition more remarkable than the “sewing machine and umbrella on a dissecting table”. The thin, shrill life outside, intruding on all aesthetic thought, as did also the derelict guards provided for the mansion, distracted less than one single note of classicism might.</p>
<p>The sly canon behind his curtain, by Titian, was real there, and perturbed by the street scene. The mystic anguish shown by Crivelli’s cherubs had a profounder pain, contrasted by cries in the street where black babies play. And from a midpoint of the stairs in that dark hall El Greco’s Christ became so astounding one could curse, or pray; but not consider ine or color, “abstractly”, as in a museum. Rembrandt’s slaughtered ox, so near to South Street, shone as a visual experience, not to be considered a dilemma in taste. With removal of the paintings to the Museum, among the altered meanings most evident is that of Breughel’s “Unfaithful Shepherd”.</p>
<p>By wrenching a nosegay from a dead hand, a “study collection” without equal is culled, to display its best fourth. Now that the house is far on the way to condemnation, the vitiation of John G. Johnson’s will is complete.</p>
<p>CARL SHAFFER.</p>
<p>(“Gentlemen die” is from Fortune <date when="1933-05">May, 1933</date>.)</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-16">
<head>PAINT-CRAFT</head>
<head type="sub">CRAFTSMANSHIP OF FINE ARTS PAINTING</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> F. W. W<hi rend="small-caps">EBER</hi></byline>
<div>
<head>III</head>
<p>The palette of the painter at the time of the early Renaissance was rather limited. His selection of colors was:</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>REDS</head>
<p>VERMILION, chemically sulphide of mercury, is found native as mineral cinnabar in Spain, China, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Germany, and California, but it is rarely found sufficiently pure and bright in color in its natural state to be used as a pigment. Vermilions have always occupied an important place on the palette and are valued even today for their range of hues, being manufactured in cool bluish varieties to very warm scarlet and orange tones. However, early painters soon observed the tendency of vermilions to darken when subjected to prolonged direct sunlight exposure, a reaction which is not chemical but photographic. Vermilions which for centuries had retained their color in illuminated books and manuscripts have been known to darken when placed in museums where they were subjected to direct sunlight. To counteract this change, the early Dutch painters overglazed with Madder Lake, which acts as a filter screen absorbing the actinic rays and retarding reaction.</p>
<p>Vermilions have been used from the very earliest times. Four hundred years B. C. the Egyptians were known to have employed this pigment, while it is thought to have been familiar to the Assyrians and Chinese at a still earlier date. . .</p>
<p>RED LEAD, a bright red oxide of lead, was known to the Romans and Greeks as Minium, (latin for Vermilion). Like the true vermilion, Red Lead is not stable under prolonged direct sunlight exposure. In tempera and oil, where the pigment is better protected by the vehicle and varnish, Red Lead is fairly permanent. But in such techniques as water color and pastel, where it is less protected, Red Lead, like other pigments, prepared from lead, is sensitive to certain sulphurous gases in the atmosphere and turns black through conversion into the black sulphide of lead.</p>
<p>Paul M. Shearer has moved his studio to 222 South Jessup Street. He has taken a quaint two-story house which he is redecorating attractively.</p>
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</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-17">
<head><pb n="5" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-09-5.jpg"/>PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION</head>
<head type="sub">THE CORE CURRICULUM</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> W<hi rend="small-caps">AYNE</hi> M<hi rend="small-caps">ARTIN</hi></byline>
<p>In most progressive systems today, the curriculum is built around a core subject, designed to fit locality or interest. The worthwhileness of such a system has yet to be proved adequately, but those working in schools where it functions speak well of the plan to date. Four to six more years of trial and experiment will show whether this radical departure from mere subject teaching is to be desired or not. Many feel that this system, or one stemming from it, will prove the answer to meeting the social and cultural problems confronting the school of today. We talk of meeting these problems in our meetings; we are aware only too well of their existence and yet, in practice, do nothing or next to nothing to face them successfully.</p>
<p>Heretofore the core subject around which the whole curriculum of a system has been built, has been some phase of the social sciences—that subject which covers a multitude of courses, ranging from Medieval History to Social Hygiene. Here we have, to begin with, that elastic quality of subject that will stretch in any direction indefinitely. The fact that it is so pliant, defeats its purpose. Those teachers who care little to change their particular rutted teaching techniques can, by half truth and rationalization, justify their courses to their own satisfaction. If their supervisors and principles also lack vision, they can proceed in the old way, talking progressively in their meetings, but doing nothing in their classrooms.</p>
<p>Too much of our “progressivism” is pure talk, reserved for meetings with other schoolmen, or the university classroom, where we take courses to acquire degrees for mercenary reasons. Supervision also is too often superficial. Our supervisors have long since stopped teaching, and are impervious to the pulse beat of a classroom. They profess satisfaction if they can see work being done and order being kept, too hurried to do a good job, too lax to inquire, too satisfied by their position to bother, too poorly prepared, perhaps, to know. But granting a progressive system and sympathetic and directed supervision, can we go forward logically with an elastic center to our course of study? Should not the core, the center, rather be firmly established? If it is of sufficient worth, the implications it carries can be stretched to permeate the system.</p>
<p>Years ago, a great pioneer in the progressive movement, Dr. Frank Alonzo Hildebrand, said that starting with the greatest of all the world problems as a basis for curriculum building, we could not go wrong, and that that problem could permeate a whole system from kindergarten through the twelfth grade, with enough left over for years of college and graduate work. That world problem of his, and to him and many who have never heard of him it is the greatest of world problems, was “The Home”.</p>
<p>I admit it sounds trite, hackneyed, and overdone, but it’s never been done adequately or throughout an entire system. It’s implications are legion in terms of courses of study having “The Home” as a starting point; its potentialities manifest themselves by the hundreds.</p>
<p>It is my hope in following articles to advance some ideas and suggestions as to how the art teachers may be the means and the pivot around which such a system, with such a core subject, could revolve.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-18">
<head>CULTURAL OLYMPICS</head>
<p>A jury composed of James House, Jr., Robert Rushton, and Alessandro Colarossi made the following selection from the recent Cultural Olympics exhibition of Junior Water Colors, Oils, Prints, Pen and Pencil:</p>
<list>
<item rend="list-head">WATER COLORS</item>
<item>Palms<list>
<item>Jeanne Doane</item>
</list></item>
<item>Mummers’ Parade<list>
<item>Stanley Fine</item>
</list></item>
<item>Mexican Street Scene<list>
<item>William James</item>
</list></item>
<item>The Storm,<list>
<item>Joseph Lawrynkiewicz</item>
</list></item>
<item>Study from Nature<list>
<item>Anna Lourie</item>
</list></item>
<item>The King at Home<list>
<item>Grace Markun</item>
</list></item>
<item>The Flood<list>
<item>Doris Raymond</item>
</list></item>
<item>Fashion Sketch<list>
<item>Nancy Savage</item>
</list></item>
<item>Neighbors<list>
<item>Nancy Savage</item>
</list></item>
<item>Country Scene<list>
<item>Edgar Schell</item>
</list></item>
<item>Plans for Small Store<list>
<item>Clare Zuarski</item>
</list></item>
<item rend="list-head">OILS</item>
<item>Fall Flowers<list>
<item>Gertrude Looby</item>
</list></item>
<item>Sign of Spring<list>
<item>Marie Woehr</item>
</list></item>
<item rend="list-head">PRINTS</item>
<item>Windmill<list>
<item>Aaron Miller</item>
</list></item>
<item>Townsend’s Inlet<list>
<item>Harry Wright</item>
</list></item>
<item rend="list-head">PENCIL</item>
<item>Sketch from Life<list>
<item>William Dietrich</item>
</list></item>
<item>Little Sister<list>
<item>Betty Lynch</item>
</list></item>
<item>Classmate<list>
<item>Nancy Savage</item>
</list></item>
</list>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-19">
<head>FELLOWSHIP NEWS</head>
<p>The Fellowship Prize ($50.00), given annually “to the best work or works in the Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts by a member of the Fellowship who has been a regularly registered student in the Academy Schools within the last ten years”, was awarded this year to Walter Gardner’s “Bowman’s Hill”. The Jury of Award was composed of Beatrice Fenton, Juliet White Gross, Maurice Molarsky, Francis Speight, and Helen Weisenberg, all former recipients of the prize.</p>
<p>The Jury for the current show of the Fellowship, Grace Gemberling, Paul L. Gill, Mary Townsend Warner, Raphael Sebatini, and Franklin Watkins, awarded the “Gold Medal Award” ($50.00) to Anna Warren Ingersoll for “Marcelle” and the “May Audubon Post Prize” ($5.00) to Virginia Armitage McCall for “To the Concert”.</p>
<p>A group of thirty paintings by Fellowship members are now on exhibition at The Playhouse, Chestnut Hill.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-20">
<head>PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY</head>
<p>Among the paintings purchased by the Academy of Fine Arts for its permanent collection, from the current annual exhibition, is Antonio Martino’s cityscape “Leverington Avenue” which won the Jennie Sesnan Medal.</p>
<p>The other purchases were: “Doris,” by James Chapin; “Young Woman,” by Isabel Bishop; “Bather’s Picnic,” by Jon Corbino, winner of the Walter Lippincott prize; and John McCarron’s statuette, “The Bather.”</p>
<p>There were three Academy students represented in the Annual. Alex Kricheff made it with sculpture; Richard Hickson and Henry Rothman both entered paintings.</p>
<p>Jo Mielziner, former student at the P. A. F. A., and now one of America’s leading stage designers, was responsible for the very unusual sets in “Save Me the Waltz”.</p>
</div>
<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-21">
<head>P. M. S. I. A. NOTES</head>
<p>Boud Dohm, recent Industrial grad, is now with General Exhibits, north 13th St. General Exhibits has eight spots in the Home Show at the Commercial Museum, all designed by Dohm.</p>
<p>Miriam Faison and Nonny Gardner, two seniors at Industrial, recently visited New York. Faison took some fashion drawings to Ethel Traphagen, and it seems she made an unmentionable ‘faux pas’ when she started to discuss price. A careful secretary, however, hovering to the rear made several strange shushing motions, crimping Miriam’s attempts—which she later learned was a good deed on the secretary’s part.</p>
<p>A general meeting of the Alumni Association of which John Geiszel is President was held <date when="--02-16">February 16</date>. Attendance was fair. A drive to acquire new members was started. Three vacant seats on the Board of Directors were filled by Raphael Cavaliere, Charles Boland, and John Wohlsieffer. Progress of the Alumni Ball, to be held in April, was noted. After the business part of the meeting was over, Richard Dooner gave a very enlightening talk on pinhole photography.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-22">
<head>LECTURES</head>
<p><date when="--03-03">March 3</date>, at 2:00 P.M. Hobson Pittman, Philadelphia painter, will speak in the series “Academy Gallery Talks”, at the P. A. F. A.</p>
<p>Speakers in conjunction with “Design for Mass Production”, the exhibition current at the Art Alliance, include designers of note from many fields. <date when="--03-01">March 1</date>, at 4:00 P.M. Gwenyth Waugh will talk on “Art in the American Dress Industry”. The evening of <date when="--03-03">March 3</date>, John Harbeson and a member of the Edward G. Budd Mfg. Co. will present the problems of “Mass Production in Light Weight High Speed Trains.”</p>
<p>“The Art School’s Relation to Mass Production” will be discussed <date when="--03-08">March 8</date>, at 8:30 P.M. by Alexander Wyckoff, instructor in design at the School of Industrial Art, while <date when="--03-10">March 10</date>, at the same time, Charles T. Coiner, Art Director of N. W. Ayer & Son, will talk on “Modern Packaging”.</p>
<p>Following the regular Friday afternoon tea of the Women’s University Club, Miss Agnes Addison will speak <date when="--03-04">March 4</date>, to a group of Club members on “Highlights of the Annual Academy Exhibition”.</p>
<p>Christian Brinton, internationally known critic and author, will lecture on “Impressionism to Expressionism”, <date when="--03-04">March 4</date> at 8:30 P.M. in the Academy Lecture Room. This talk is being given under the auspices of the Fellowship of the P. A. F. A.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-23">
<head>AERONAUTICAL MURAL</head>
<p>A mural, “There Shall Be Wings” by William Tefft Schwarz has recently been hung in the New York Engineer’s Club. The painting, depicting the development of aviation from 1490 to the present, was presented to the Club during the convention of the Institute of Aeronautical Engineers. Mr. Schwarz based his designs on material furnished by Mr. Ralph McClarren of the Franklin Institute, thus insuring accuracy in all technical and historical details.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-24">
<head>“FOURTH OF JULY”</head>
<p>Virginia Armitage McCall, whose “Fourth of July” is the insert for this issue, received a Cresson Traveling Scholarship in 1931. Her first one-man show was held at the Mellon Galleries, Washington, in 1934; a second, at the McClees Galleries in 1937. Miss McCall has also exhibited in Paris, New York, Detroit, St. Louis, Worcester and Chicago, where she was represented in the Century of Progress Exposition.</p>
<p>Honorable Mentions have been awarded Miss McCall at the Chicago Art Institute and the Philadelphia Art Club, and in 1932 she won the Mary Smith prize in the Academy Annual. Her latest honor was the May Audubon Post Prize in the current show of the P. A. F. A. Fellowship.</p>
<p>The Pennsylvania Academy, the Whitney Museum, New York, and many private collectors in Philadelphia, New York and Chicago own paintings by Virginia McCall.</p>
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<head>FRIENDS OF ART AND EDUCATION</head>
<p>The first public meeting of the Friends of Art and Education was held at Witherspoon Hall, <date when="--02-18">February 18</date>.</p>
<p>Presiding at the meeting was Dr. Albert C. Barnes, President of the Organization, (although he modestly asserts he is only filling this post until someone comes along who can do the job better).</p>
<p>Mr. Harry Fuiman, lawyer, read a paper on “The Progressive Degeneration of the Pennsylvania Museum of Art.”</p>
<p>The attacking of Miss Curran’s WPA Project was done this time by Henry Hart, writer of the pamphlet “Philadelphia’s Shame,” and Secretary of the Friends of Art and Education. After his talk, Dr. Barnes complimented Mr. Hart because he had “committed criminal libel three times” (not against Miss Curran). Following this statement, Barnes invited a suit for criminal libel or for improper use of the mails, a practice in which he proudly admitted his own indulgence. He believes such a suit would benefit the Friends of Art.</p>
<p>Dr. John P. Turner of the Philadelphia Board of Education spoke very sanely on the contributions of the Negro to American civilization and his need for fair treatment. He gave instances of negro discrimination and cases where this had been intelligently corrected.</p>
<p>Mrs. Mary Foley Grossman, Vice President of the American Federation of Teachers talked of the need for State Aid to Local Schools. In opposition to the Mayor’s statement that the Board of Education had built “marble palaces”, she cited the case of the dingy Claghorn school which she said “should be torn down by a group of indignant citizens.”</p>
<p>Dr. Barnes complained that the local press more or less ignores these vital matters of art and education. He gave reasons for the neglect of each of the daily papers, but failed to mention the Philadelphia Art News, no doubt through an oversight.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-26">
<head>PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH POTTERY</head>
<p>Pottery making in the Pennsylvania German manner was demonstrated last week in Strawbridge & Clothier’s Old York Road Store when Isaac and Thomas Stahl, potters of Powder Valley in Lehigh County, gave daily exhibitions of their methods in the Jenkintown store.</p>
<p>The two men, long known to museums and private collectors of ceramics for the high quality of their work, have done much to preserve early Pennsylvania Pottery designs and the art of executing them.</p>
<p>Working at a Pottery founded by their father in 1847, the two brothers create authentic reproductions of early Pennsylvania German patterns and styles. Bean pots, pinched water bottles, apple butter jars, coffee pots, plates, pitchers and bread pans are but a few of the many vessels these skilled craftsmen produce.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-27">
<head><pb n="6" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-09-6.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>Ben Bittenbender, who has been dividing his time between his native Nescopeck, Pa. and Cleveland, O., is back in town. He can be reached at the Sketch Club.</p>
<p>One of the new Photo magazines, PEER, has a reproduction of Lou Hirshman’s caricature of Chico Marx, minus a credit line.</p>
<p>Mark Schulhof, account executive of the John Falkner Arndt Agency, tells us that his brother Bill, an Academy alumnus, has opened a free lance studio in the Chrysler Building, New York, with Adolph Kronengold.</p>
<p>Friends of Edward C. Smith are conducting a whispering campaign designed to force him into the purchase of a new hat. The Smithsonian Institute is reported interested in acquiring his present chapeau which looks as though it had been run over by a truck.</p>
<p>John Gough moved his residence to Lansdowne this week but still keeps busy at his 15th and Locust Street studio. Gough has been doing those Little Man cartoons for Esslingers Beer and showed us a proof of a sample book done for the Hamilton Paper Co. at Miquon, Pa.</p>
<p>Frank Howley, former Art Director at Jerome Gray, hasn’t left the P.S.F.S. He’s still there, having moved in on Julian McKinney. Incidentally, McKinney’s daughter is now in circulation as a professional—fashion drawings, and doing nicely, thanks. Wanamaker’s, Bonwit-Teller’s, and Strawbridge & Clothier’s are on her “so-far” list. She’s taken a studio on Sansom St. with Bob Limber and Wilson Ramage.</p>
<p>Barney Moore, New York freelance and Academy alumnus dropped in town recently on his way to Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>George Brophy, New York art broker, came also and visited the local agencies to see some of his clients.</p>
<p><hi rend="font-weight:bold">CLOVER DAY</hi></p>
<p>Betty Bolden Jaxon, who draws all the latest fashions for Strawbridge and Clothier, spent several weeks in Florida looking at people wearing all the latest fashions . . . Lyle Justice came over from New York to deliver a drawing to Paul Segui, A. D. of the Strawbridge and Clothier store. You saw the drawing in the S. & C. news ad for Washington’s Birthday . . . And Ed Hohlfield, assistant to Segui won a medal in the Model Home Contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Record.</p>
<p>The current issue of Popular Photography gives both the Hood Studios and the John Falkner Arndt Agency a nice piece of publicity. A highly informative article details the development of an advertisement from the layout man’s rough, through the usual series of revisions, down to the finished proof. The ad features a dramatic photograph of a lighthouse on a rocky headland, and describes the methods used by Hood Studios in creating a fine piece of advertising photography.</p>
<p><hi rend="font-weight:bold">DIS AND DATA</hi></p>
<p>Don’t forget to see the Illustration Show at the Print Club. Most interesting to a commercial artist would be Peter Helck’s prize winner and his other entry, and gouaches by Atherton and George Fawcett. Everett Henry has an interesting original for a Ford ad and Henry Pitz shows several of the corking illustrations he did for the Post . . . Gene Klebe and “Rube” Baer are recent benedicts . . . We saw Johnny Obold pause in front of the Art Alliance on a depressing, murky day last week. He purchased a bright yellow flower from a vendor on the corner, placed it firmly in his buttonhole, and walked off in the gloom, chin up. A passing old dowager shed a tear through her lorgnette.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-28">
<head>PAINTINGS TO BE AUCTIONED</head>
<p>A group of valuable oil paintings of the American, English, French, and Italian Schools will be put up at auction, <date when="--03-07">March 7</date> and 8, at 2:00 P.M. by Samuel T. Freeman & Co. These canvases, from the estates of several prominent Philadelphia collectors, among them those of the late Margaret S. Milne and the Honorable James Gay Gordon, include landscape, portraiture, and genre.</p>
<p>A number of famous American painters are represented in these collections. Frederic J. Waugh’s “The Breakers off the Maine Coast”, George Inness’ “Sunset in Montclair”, and John R. Chapin’s “The Battle of Princeton” are among the pictures to be sold. The total group of over one hundred pieces will be on exhibition in the art galleries at 1808–10 Chestnut St., from <date when="--03-03">March 3</date> to the day of sale.</p>
<p>PHONE: KINGSLEY 2746 KEYSTONE: MAIN 7074</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-29">
<head>AGENCY LISTINGS</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> C<hi rend="small-caps">HARLES</hi> M. B<hi rend="small-caps">OLAND</hi></byline>
<p>Last issue we gave you the first of our series of Agency Listings, seven agencies, alphabetically arranged, as an illustration of what to expect from subsequent columns.</p>
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<head>ACME ADDRESSING AND MULTIGRAPHING CO.</head>
<p>This is located in a building at 12th and Cherry. While listed under advtsg., they are essentially printers. The only art-work entailed is the making of stencils. Mr. Porreca handles this.</p>
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<head>ACME PROGRAM PUBLISHING CO.</head>
<p>Real Estate Trust Building houses this one, but they use very little, if any, art work.</p>
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<head>EARLY W. ADAMS CO.</head>
<p>This one uses no art work that we know of, but it’s at 1001 Chestnut St. if you’re interested.</p>
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<head>AITKIN-RYNETT CO.</head>
<p>You’ll find it at 1400 So. Penn Square (Girard Trust Co. Bldg.) 13th floor. Wade Lane is the Art Director. Better telephone first. A. King Aitkin and H. H. Kynett, listed separately in the phone book under advertising, are here, in case you’re listing them by buildings.</p>
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<head>JOHN S. ALLEVA</head>
<p>Mr. Alleva is in the Real Estate Trust Building, but buys no art work AMERICAN ART WORKS</p>
<p>At 1504 Arch St., and J. S. Jordan buys the art work. Mostly display work.</p>
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<head>JOHN FALKNER-ARNDT</head>
<p>Lewis Tower houses this one and Mr. Kaplan will see you, but only mornings.</p>
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<head>THE ARTSMEN</head>
<p>Located at 1206 Sansom, this is mostly engraving but they do handle art work. Pretty slow right now, though.</p>
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<head>ATLAS ADVERTISING NOVELTY CO.</head>
<p>Commercial Trust Building. Little if any art work used.</p>
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<head>N. W. AYER & SON</head>
<p>The big white building on Washington Square West; you can’t miss it. Mr. Coiner will see you by appointment only; but Mr. Wilbur is also handy and he’ll look through your work too. Listed separately under advertising are H. A. Batten, W. M. Armistead, Adam Kessler, Jr., Gerald M. Lauck, Carl L. Rieker, and Clarence L. Jordan, all connected with Ayres.</p>
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<head>BARNES AND AARON</head>
<p>Byron Rockey will see you here, and you’ll find this at 1616 Walnut St. Warren S. Barnes, listed separately, is here.</p>
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<head>ADRIAN BAUER CO.</head>
<p>This is in the Architects Bldg., but their art work is handled through W. Reed’s Art Service in the same building. Adrian Bauer, listed separately, is here.</p>
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<head>LEON L. BERKOWITZ</head>
<p>Located at 1343 Arch St. There are two Mr. Berkowitzes. Either one will see you.</p>
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<head>HARVEY BEST CO., Inc.</head>
<p>1606 Walnut is the place to go; better phone first, though. Mr. Petrik or Miss Brown will see you.</p>
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<head>BROWN AND BIGELOW</head>
<p>1616 Walnut, but all the art work is purchased through the St. Paul office. This office handles the sales only.</p>
<p>That’s about all we have room for this issue, so we’ll see you two weeks from now.</p>
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<head>TRICKS OF THE TRADE</head>
<p>Whether you’re a student or professional, you’ll find these little wooden mannequins interesting. They come in sizes from 12 to 24 inches and prices are $3.00 to $15.00 They do all sorts of things and come in just right for faked drawings of any description. Sockets in all the moving portions give them life. They’re really very handy gadgets; a big improvement on the old wire lay figures.</p>
<p>Stopped in at one of the art stores last week and had a look at the Derayco poster and showcard colors they just received. These are excellent for poster work, very brilliant, non-smudging, and intermixable. The big feature is that they WON’T bleed. This is an exclusive Derayco feature developed by Devoe chemists. Reasonable prices add to their desirability.</p>
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<p>While we were there we noted an interesting little booklet put out by Windsor & Newton. Some very helpful color hints. You’ll pick up some useful information in this, and it’s free.</p>
<p>The air-brush, long viewed as a medium used only by advertising artists in poster and display work, is gradually coming into its own in all branches of art. It is used to SPRAY on color instead of the usual brush application, and through it may be used oil, water, or poster color. Adjustments on the nozzle permit it to come down to a hair line or to cover as much as a square foot. Beautiful gradations of color from dark to light are easily obtained. In many cases, only an air-brush can get the smooth application necessary for reproduction. The usual method of supplying air pressure has been hiring of carbonic gas tanks with regulating gauges. Wold Co. of Chicago now has an electric compressor on the market, quiet in operation, adjustable gauge, and makes enough air to keep three small or two medium air-brushes going evenly at one time. It sells for $29.50.</p>
<p>Double action brushes, the best, sell for from $22.00 to $35.00 Single actions, with a set spray capable of only slight adjustment, sell for from $10.00 to $15.00.</p>
<p>Wold and Thayer & Chandler are the two best known makes of brushes. Wold is used generally, Thayer & Chandler for photo-retouching.</p>
<p>And remember, textures of all descriptions can be gotten with an air brush.</p>
<p>Have you seen the new Payon painting crayon sticks? Remind us of the old water color pencils, but are much more practical. If you’re in the mood for a crayon study, help yourself; Payons go on smoothly, blend well, cover each other without peeling or flaking. If its water color you want, simply go over it with water on a brush and there you are. The sticks may be cut up, diluted in water, and you have a wash. 25c and 35c will bring you a box of eight.</p>
<p>A written request or a phone call will bring you the name of the advertiser carrying the above items. You might mention the Art News when patronizing any of our advertisers. Helps both of us check results.</p>
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<head><pb n="7" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-09-7.jpg"/>PHOTOGRAPHERS EXHIBIT HERE</head>
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<head>“POTTER’S BENCH” by Freeman P. Taylor</head>
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<p>Amateur and professional photographers from all over country, including a large group of Philadelphians, contributed favorite prints to reveal a cross-section of contemporary American camera work in the Fourth Annual Zeiss Ikon Photographic Exhibition, held at the Bellevue-Stratford, <date when="--02-17">February 17</date> to 19.</p>
<p>With over three hundred prints to see, each holding some special interest, it is difficult to make sweeping generalities. Few, if any qualities can be said to be typical of the show as a whole. One characteristic of the modern photographer, however, is outstanding—his capacity to find artistic possibilities in all subjects. John K. Zielinsky’s portrait of apple-paring; H. J. Phillips’ still-life showing a compact balancing of masses and volumes in a platter, a compote of fruit, and a brass figurine; action shots of wrestling and boxing by H. Crowell Pepper; a study in the texture of roof-shingles made by F. S. Lincoln; Paul Darrow’s circus-pictures; these constitute but a fraction of the subjects investigated and presented in artistic form.</p>
<p>Many techniques and points of view were employed in this show, suggesting that the modern photographer is almost as free in interpreting his vision as is the painter. The surrealistic movement in painting is echoed in Ralph E. Day’s striking photograph of two gloves, posed as if they were clasped hands. With dramatic realism Margaret Bourke-White records southern tenant farmers. The juxtaposition of repeated mass and line in Freeman P. Taylor’s camera-study of a Georgia pottery suggests the volume patterns of the Cubists. F. Seymour Hersey’s flowerpiece two tulips, employs the discriminating selection and simplicity of a Japanese print. The photographer does not, of course, slavishly follow the modes of the painter, but he does reflect predominant currents in contemporary art.</p>
<p>Philadelphians who showed included A. Gurtcheff, Gilbert S. Simonski, A. Molind, Paul W. Darrow, George Cavendish, H. Crowell Pepper, Freeman P. Taylor, Dale Vallance, James Harvey, Albert S. Meyers, Thomas R. Nelson, Jr., A. W. Mosley, John H. Wood, Joseph R. Pollins, C. L. Sheppard, and Richard Schmisckler.</p>
<p>After leaving Philadelphia, the Zeiss Exhibition started on a nation wide tour which will include Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-32">
<head>CAMERA CONTEST</head>
<p>Strawbridge & Clothier’s Old York Road Store, Jenkintown, announces a Photographic Salon to be held <date when="--03-09">March 9</date> to 17. Open to all amateur and professional photographers of the Old York Road district, the aim of the Salon is to exhibit technically excellent photographs of originality and artistic interest. The Salon Committee is composed of Edward P. Goodell, Jr., Alfred Scott, and Ralph M. Bair, while Richard T. Dooner, J. Frank Copeland, and George Cavendish will make up the Jury of Selection.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-33">
<head>ON THE SPOT</head>
<head type="sub">THE SAGA OF A CAMERATEER</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> C<hi rend="small-caps">HARLES</hi> O<hi rend="small-caps">GLE</hi></byline>
<div>
<head>V</head>
<p>Upon arriving home I was greeted with cable orders from New York to cover the sea rescue of the British tanker Antinoë by the S. S. President Roosevelt in the Irish Sea. Pausing long enough to reload my plateholders, and grabbing a toothbrush, I hied me off to London town. Seven-fifteen P.M. found me at Victoria station with ample time to catch the seven-fifty-five at Paddington Station for Queenstown, Ireland. The rattler was crowded and overflowing with newspapermen, movie men, and still-cameramen from all over Europe. Needless to say gaiety prevailed on that trip. The first thing I did after arrival next morning at Queenstown, now called Cobh by all good Irishmen, was to treat myself to a bath, and a haircut and shave by an Irish barber. The Roosevelt was due off shore sometime that night so there was plenty of time to kill. I took a jaunting car and surveyed the town. At lunchtime I queried some of the boys about how they were going to send their stuff to America. They were planning on staying with the ship to Southampton or Cherbourg, sending their pictures from that French port the day after arrival there, aboard a French liner. We studied our steamship schedules. They were our bibles. So I wandered about town visiting steamship offices, and discovered that two slower boats left this port the next day. One made sixteen knots an hour and the other eighteen. But with good weather they would reach the good old U.S.A. ahead of the fast Cherbourg boat because of their three day start. I went to one of the local Irish papers and hired a man to come aboard the Roosevelt with me that night and return to Cobh with the lighter. He was to put whatever I gave him aboard the two boats leaving the next morning.</p>
<p>It was late that night when our lighter picked up the Roosevelt and the Irish sea was still kicking up pretty rough. There was a grand free-for-all trying to get up the narrow tossing companion ladder first. I went right for the ship’s photographer.</p>
<p>“Got any pictures?” I asked breathlessly.</p>
<p>He had. He showed me a beaut. Many good amateur photographers among the passengers had shot plenty of good pictures showing the Antinoë foundering, with her decks awash and lined with her half-naked crew, but they might have been enlarged from a pinpoint, whereas this picture showed a portion of the Roosevelt deck in the foreground, thus graphically illustrating the closeness of those two boats in the mountainous sea. Topside on deck they were buying undeveloped rolls of films from passengers for one hundred pounds a roll. Taking a chance.</p>
<p>“How many prints have you got?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Four.”</p>
<p>“I’ll give you sixty pounds.”</p>
<p>“Sold.” He didn’t know the market above decks.</p>
<p>“Give me the plate.” I demanded.</p>
<p>He gave it to me. I smashed it beneath my heel to prevent further duplication falling into rival hands, paid him off, and snatching the four precious prints ran up on deck.</p>
<p>—To be continued—</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-34">
<head>SCULPTURE IN PHOTOGRAPHY</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> C<hi rend="small-caps">HARLES</hi> O<hi rend="small-caps">GLE</hi></byline>
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<p>Photography is necessarily two dimensional.</p>
<p>Form has three dimensions.</p>
<p>The third dimension can be effected in pictures when the inner form is first realized. The importance of this inner structure cannot be overstressed. It is the essence of all the outward subtleties, reflecting and revealing the real meanings of the structural foundation beneath, upon and from which all else is built. Expressing and interpreting both the action and solidity of form is far more important than achieving a mere surface map.</p>
<p>Finish is craftsmanship.</p>
<p>Inner structure is creation.</p>
<p>Skeleton is soul.</p>
<p>The Miniature Camera Club held a regular meeting <date when="--02-17">February 17</date> at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. Dinner was served at 6:30 P.M. in the Coral Room, and was followed by a viewing of color slides made by various members of the club.</p>
<p>Conrad Roland’s bird paintings at Sessler’s have evoked unusual interest. One collector bought nine, others made purchases, and one commissioned a set of five new drawings.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-35">
<head>TAKE A WALK</head>
<p>The Home Show, which closed <date when="--02-26">February 26</date>, provided only a mediocre opportunity for display men to show their skill. There were several well done displays, but as usual in such shows, merchandise was centered, the art of display being only secondary.</p>
<p>One of the best displays was the Hajoca exhibit, designed by Karl Brecht and constructed by A. Sadly, both employed by Hajoca. The exhibit occupied 3600 square feet and featured a revolving stage, large, yet capable of being moved by one man.</p>
<p>The Evening Bulletin had a moving exhibit showing the business side of the paper and the homes into which it went.</p>
<p>In the central arcade, the American Forestry Association had a layout of shrubs, while off to one side an unusual atmosphere was provided by a setting of trees, paths, and underbrush laid out by Donald Woodward and S. Kendrick Lichty of the Department of Forests and Waters, U. S. Government.</p>
<p>In the model homes exhibit, all were fair, but few were outstanding. Three houses in a modern motif were done by Clarence Lynch, Broomall; John Magyor, Valley Forge; and H. A. Whitcock, Berwyn.</p>
<p>Theodore Taylor did an excellent display for U. G. I., light and airy in color.</p>
<p>Speaking of U. G. I., their building at Broad and Arch has a fine group of windows built around a “Finger of Light” theme, also by Taylor.</p>
<p>Strawbridge’s is featuring two house-ware windows approached from a new angle, quite different from the old kitchen scene or chef motif. They have the usual display of kitchenware, but a light, pastellish background gives the spring idea. It’s a relief from the time worn “young bride preparing dinner” idea. Bill Sparks did the backgrounds and some of the decorations in the fifth floor houseware department. Rittenhouse Art Service is responsible for the rest of the fifth floor display where spring triumphs throughout.</p>
<p>Bonwit’s is running a series of sophisticated windows featuring a navy blue theme. Cellophane is used to advantage.</p>
<p>C. B.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-36">
<head><pb n="8" facs="http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/teibp/content/images/upl-scan-issue-09-8.jpg"/>T SQUARE CORNER</head>
<p>Lloyd Malkus is architect to the committee responsible for the Exhibition of Design for Mass Production now at the Art Alliance. The Show is of particular interest to architects because an entirely new approach has been evolved. The excellent results may easily have a lasting influence on the structure of future small exhibitions.</p>
<p>Tom Michener is with Heacock & Hokanson and is also teaching drawing at the Germantown Boys Club.</p>
<p>John Applegate is once more with Horace Castor.</p>
<p>Mr. Walter H. Thomas, head of the Philadelphia Housing Authority will address an open meeting at the T Square Club, 1522 Cherry Street, on Tuesday evening, <date when="--03-01">March 1st</date>. His subject will be “The Housing Situation”.</p>
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<div xml:id="issue-09-chapter-37">
<head>RE: COFFEE BILL</head>
<p>Dear Mr. Taylor:</p>
<p>Repeated visits to the magnificent Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925 convinced me of the need of governmental representation in art in all of its forms.</p>
<p>Those handsome presentations from almost all countries of their finest decorative arts were an unanswerable argument for some sort of machinery in this country which would enable such displays, not only to be planned for long ahead, but to be assembled with dignity.</p>
<p>When I asked why the United States was not represented, I was told that an invitation had been extended, but was unaccepted because we had no governmental department to organize a representative exhibition.</p>
<p>The only other great power absent was Germany, who had not been invited.</p>
<p>Even small countries like Iceland and Poland and a tiny principality like Monaco could send an inspiring display of their best decorative work, housed in an original and charming building, however small.</p>
<p>This country has been powerfully influenced in all of its decorative arts, display, sculpture, interior decoration, etc., by the ideas of artists and designers shown at that exhibition.</p>
<p>In 1931, the United States participated in the French Colonial Exhibition by sending an inevitable replica of Mt. Vernon.</p>
<p>Among the great variety of artists and designers in this country, there is certainly enough imagination and originality, which, if co-ordinated, should result in a display somewhat more striking and novel than a replica of Mt. Vernon.</p>
<p>Paris has a school called, I think, “L’Ecole de la ville de Paris”, which is the means for developing their highest type of artist-craftsmen. The requirements for entrance are quite high, and the results, seen in their magnificent craftsmanship are an equally unanswerable argument for a high standard of ability as a prerequisite for governmental or municipal backing in the arts.</p>
<p>FRANCES LICHTEN.</p>
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<p>“I heartily endorse the changes you have outlined for the new draft of the Coffee Bill (Federal Arts Act H. R.-8239). Not only do I endorse them but I consider them vitally necessary. Better no Federal Arts Act at all than the Act as first drafted. It could only result in a merry failure.</p>
<p>Yet a well thought out Federal Arts Act would greatly benefit the country and the artist as well, would add dignity to the status of the latter, who has been baited and booted about, largely through lack of recognized backing. The artist would also (as well as his country) have official representation abroad and an exchange of art and ideas with other countries.”</p>
<p>KATHERINE MILHOUS.</p>
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<head>ART IN PRINT</head>
<byline><emph>By</emph> J<hi rend="small-caps">ANE</hi> R<hi rend="small-caps">IGHTER</hi></byline>
<p>“This book has grown out of my gradual realization of the extent to which the history of art constitutes a most vivid, enlightening commentary on the history of literature. Through a personal experience . . . I have come to see how a knowledge of one supplements a knowledge of the other, and intensifies the response which the individual is able to give to both.”</p>
<p>With these sentences B. Sprague Allen opens his two volumes, “Tides in English Taste,” (Harvard University Press, 1937.) Although it is primarily a work for students of literature as the subtitle “A Background for the Study of Literature,” indicates, it nevertheless provides much of vital interest for the art student. Here are presented by means of detailed examples, the prevailing art trends in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.</p>
<p>Taking architecture, gardening, and the arts that are most closely allied to them as the reflecting agents, Dr. Allen traces the ebb and flow, the surge and resurgence of classicism and romanticism during these decades. And in so doing he presents us with a new evaluation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—as centuries of artistic complexity.</p>
<p>It has been the fashion as well as the convenience to consider the eighteenth century as wholly dominated by the classic wit and rational brilliance of a Pope. The appearance of a Blake, revealing so unmistakably influences from Gothic architecture and sculpture, has been regarded as a complete aberration from type. Dr. Allen, however, makes us realize that such Gothic tendencies were not spasmodic superficialities. Indeed, one might almost say that the elements of gothicism or romanticism were as deeply a part of the aggregate eighteenth century mind as were those of classicism. As early as 1656, at the very time when Palladianism was beginning on its long curve of favor, there appeared Dugdale’s “Antiquities of Warwickshire”, a book which was to stimulate enthusiasm in many persons for all traces of the Saxon, Norman, and Gothic periods in England. Again, even while Evelyn and Wren were drawing up classically disciplined plans for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire, there were many who lamented the passing of the steep-gabled, top-heavy outlines of medieval architecture. The two forces, classicism and gothicism, were equally interwoven into the pattern of eighteenth century taste.</p>
<p>Among the little explored influences on the art of those times are the currents which came from the east—from Japan, India, and especially from China. In literature those influences took the form of plots, settings, characters; in art, of architecture, furniture, and general decoration. In the chapter “The Invasion of England by Oriental Art,” Dr. Allen discusses the effect of these new tides of design, showing how the “chinoiserie” with its exoticism, its different conceptions of pattern, its new color combinations, substantially altered the trend of English artistry.</p>
<p>These two volumes, amply illustrated by photographs of buildings, textiles, gardens, and architectural plans showing the reflections of these two main forces, classicism and romanticism, should be of more than usual interest to anyone who wishes a cultural and a social approach to the art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England.</p>
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<head>DOES THE ARTIST WANT TO SELL? GALLERY CHAIRMAN LAMENTS IMPRACTICAL VIEWPOINT</head>
<p>In a recent letter to the Philadelphia Art News, Miss Elizabeth Taylor, Acting Chairman of the Scranton Lending Gallery, expressed her impatience with the artist’s inability to act as his own salesman, saying that he “distrusts almost any civic movement that attempts to familiarize his fellow-men with art.”</p>
<p>Although the Scranton Lending Gallery has arranged many sales and made a whole community “art-conscious in terms of living artists,” Miss Taylor claims that these facts “seem to ESCAPE artistic notice;” that the artist “objects to his art serving life,” “attaches fabulous prices to his work that no average lawyer or doctor could meet,” and is unable to accept criticism, thinking “mere mortals have no right to freedom of the press where art is concerned.”</p>
<p>Of the Federal Art Show at the Museum, Miss Taylor says, “Here is an almost even theme of economic vagrancy. I wonder why these artists, subsidized by the people’s money, (i.e., not F.D.R.’s or the government’s) can’t see beyond into the clear light of life where the heroes or gods if you please earn their bread, and sometimes their butter, direct from the people. I wonder when the artists will go human, nurture their canvases with the juice of life itself.”</p>
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<head>REJECTION SLIP TO MERION CONTRIBUTOR</head>
<p>Your latest offering which you request we publish has been found unsuitable. Since you failed to enclose postage for its return, this material has been discarded. This is an Art paper. Something about Art would be more in our line, should you care to try again.</p>
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