The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-08-20
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An Organization which has done
much, and promises to do great deal
more for the advancement of art in
I Kansas is THE Smoky Hill Art club"
Bethany college and a landscape
] painter of international prominence, is
president of the club.
THE Smoky Hill Art club" has
/ been in existence for several years,
and with such powerful factors for its
advancement as Professor Sandzen
and Carl Smalley of Mcpherson, its
remarkable growth and influence in
an apparently unpromiSing territory is
rot to be wondered at.
The club owns a very good small
art collection which it is constantly
endeavoring to enlarge and improve.
| One of its aims is to eventually erect
. permanent art museum and general
headquarters, but its chief mission is
the advancement of the art of the
middle west.
Because of the board scope of the
clubs aims, membership is not linn
tied to the people of Lfndsborg and it's
surrounding territory. An urgent in
vitation is extended to all persons in
Kansas who are interested in the ad-
vancement of art. 1t is hoped and
hoped confidently, to increase the
membership to five thousand during
| the coming season.
The dues are 81 year and each
( member receives an original signed
print upon the payment of his annual
dues. This year a Sandzen original
signed woodcut is given. Besides the
regular membership there is a student
membership of so cents a year. The
student members also receive the
woodcut or print.
The officers and members of 1.-THE
Smoky Hill Art Club" earnestly hope
and feel that city of the size and
Importance of Topeka should furnish
several hundred members to the or
gantzation, especially wher the
breadth and scope of the clubs chief
mission is considered.
The Kansas City Post of August 5,
published two-column cut of the
design for an American Legion me-
moral drinking fountain which is to
be erected at Ninth and Main streets
at cost of $1,000. Robert Merrell
Gage formerly of Topeka, is the de-
signer
The memorial will be solid, simple,
and severe of aspect. 1t will consist
from the center of which rises a
gently tapering shaft on the four sides
OF which are spaces for inscriptions
or memorial tablets. Around the top
of the shaft are four winged griffin
like figures carved in the stone. The
apex of the shaft is dome-shaped.
Gage is said to have received the
commission for another memorial to
be erected in Kansas City but the
writer of this column has SO far failed
to get anything definite as to its ma
ture or design.
One of the best features of the art
department of the Topeka Free State
Fair this year, will be a large travel
ing exhibition of colored prints and
photographs which are copies of the
works of the best American artists or
Of paintings owned by American
museums or citizens. This exhibition
is sent out by the American Fedora
ton of Art.
The primary object of the exhibition
is. to enighten the general American
public as to the large number of really
good prints of the best class of art al
exceedingly modest prices
A secondary object is to encourage
the print makers of the United States
to make reproductions of suitable sub
jects at reasonable prices thru creating
market for their goods by bringing
the general public in contact with the |
kind of work they should produce
The efforts of the American Fedora
ton of Art are directed toward emil
couraSing our artists to design and our
print makers to produce prints similar
in quality and relative in price to those
which may readily be obtained in
Europe, and which make such excel
lent pictures for home and school
decoration.
Another object OF the federation is
to make the average citizen acquainted
with the best art of the world, so that
he may know what kind of pictures to
select for his home.
These prints will be exhibited in a
set of swinging, hinged frames which
the Topeka State Fair association has
purchased for it's art department. In
these frames the pictures will be under
glass where they will be thoroly secure
from dirt and damage. but at the same
time be available for the closest in
spection.