The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-05-25
ARTISTS FORGED
 TO "WAR" PRICES
 FOR THEIR WORKS

The Hague, Netherlands, May 25.- The war has hit the artists and art dealers of Holland so severely that fine paintings are selling as low as $20. In these days of enforced re- trenchment, there is little spare money for the purchase of pictures and the usual inflow of tourists from the United States, England and Ger many whose arrival every spring was the signal for the Dutch art dealers to put up their prices, has been checked by war. Several dealers in The Hague and Amsterdam have been forced to seek a. livelihood in other lines. One of the leading dealers of The Hague has closed his shop, while another has gone into the pubnca- ton Of Illustrated books, largely on subjects germane to the war, for which there is still a market.
 To make matters worse, the Dutch government has withdrawn it's annual fixed credit at the disposition of the state museums for the purchase of works Of art. The poor artists, there fore, have not even the recourse to be open in ordinary times. sDr. Hof- stede de Groot,. late. director of the print room of the Royal Museum at Amsterdam, and an art expert well known in the United States, regrets l this step taken by the Netherlands 1 government.
 1 /'tNeyer in my memory" he told the Associated Press, "has there been 1 such extraordinary opportunities to secure valuable a. paintings at low l prices as now, individuals cannot afford to do so, perhaps; but the gov- 1 ernmeIlt can. An art book or a paint ing worth purchasing for one of the 1 Royal Museums will probably be bought sooner or later. anyhow. The thing is that most of them can be I bought for less money now than I later"
 The artists themselves have under l taken the relief of the more needy l among their fraternity number of 1 these organizations have exhibition I and sales rooms attached to their I club houses, and have arranged to have sales exhib bitions of paintings of ! the members, offered at fixed max imum price, generally far below what l the exhibitors might normally expect I to receive for their work. The I Pulchrf studio, for example. has had two such sales, the first with the maximum price set att twenty dollars, l atSwhich 180s pictures were so1d.t The second has just been held; the prices i were fixed between twenty and forty I dollars at which figures 21O paint I ings were disposed of. The Queen of the Netherlands bought twelve, the 1 Prince Consort eight and the Queen
 Mother also eight. All the purchas-
 
 of the Pulchri studio consists of rec T ognized, established artists, the Dutch
 found the occasion thus offered too
 good to let slip. Tne artists asso- I citations are employing. also their
 available relief funds to purchase the II pictures of artists hard pressed to
 dispose of their work. These will
 be held by the societies and sold at
 auction after the war when it is
 hoped that times will be better. Any thing. received over the price paid by the society is to go to the artist, when the final sale Is made. The fund em-
 p1oyed for these purchases is con
 stantly being increased by the sale of paintings by artists of means who can afford to and do present their works to the societies to be sold, the
 proceeds going to the relief fund.
 teries with pictures for prizes, 10 per-
 ist, 10 per cent to the relief of work
 CTS in the industrial arts, and the re- mafnder to the Royal National Relief Fund for the assistance of war suf- ferers
 While the artists are thus united tc care for their brotherFcraftsmen the } dealers in pictures are without relief ,t One Hague dealer specializing in en- i cravings and etchings told the Associ- | ated- Press that he had not sold ar , etching for eight months. Prices are : cut in half, but to no avaiT. There is . less sympathy for dealers, however
 as it is felt that theirs is purely 2 commercial risk which they mus
 stand, together with the many other
 businesses injured by the war.