The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-01-28

The Gerritt A. Beneker- exhibition
of paintings at the city. library was the
center of attraction in local art cir
cles during the latter part of last week,
and up to Friday evening of this week,
when it was shipped to Wichita.
Quite as much interest in the ex-
hibit was shown by the general public
as by local artists and art patrons
This was partly due no doubt, to the
original and appealing nature of much
of the subject matter of the paintings
The city library reading room was
kept open Sunday afternoon on ac-
count of the exhibition and George M
Stone gave a short, but interesting
and instructive, talk on Beneker and
his work. The attendance on this Oc-
casion was encouragingly large
The reading room was also kept
open beyond it's regular closing time
on Tuesday evening, and Mrs. L. D.
Whittemore, of the Washburn college
fine arts department, gave a talk on
the pictures.
Gerritt A Beneker is a compare
lively young man. He was born in the
he decided to study art, and after u
hard struggle to make a living, earned
enough money to attend the Chicago
Art Institute at which school he was
a student for several years. Later he
went to New York to study.
w ME III New L Oh IlG WdS IluCI
interested in the working men whom
he saw every day putting up the frame
work of sky scraperS or tOiling in the
factories, and was moved with a
strong desire to paint these men en-
gagged a their tasks, or as individual
types, believing that by so doing he
could establish a point of sympathetic
contact between the industrial classes
and the field of art. If one expects
the average man or woman to look
with interest at a picture, the subject
of that picture must be something that
the person looking understands and
appreciates.
During the world, war, Beneker
painted many powerful and COM
polling posters in which the American
working man was the center of inter-
est
At the close of the war he went TO
Cleveland, Ohio, where he found en-
ployment with the Hydraulic Steel Co.
to draw and paint typical scenes in
that companys mills and to make pOr-
traits of typical steel workers and
other members Of the large force of
employees, the pictures to be repro
duced on the covers of 1.-The Hydraulic
Press a magazine published by the
Hydraulic Steel Co. for the benefit of
it's employees.
He was provided with a studio in
the works and was empowered to call
he might desire to paint.
Beneker is also much interested IN
landscape painting and has spent con-
siderable time at ProvincetoWn.
Massa chusetts, depicting the quain.
and picturesque scenery in and around
that old Cape Cod fishing town.
All of the pictures shown in To
peka were painted either in the Hv-
draulic Steel company's works or at
Provincetown.
Another exhibition of FIND paintings
will open to the public next We'd
nesday morning at Boswell Hall,
Washburn college. under auspices of
the Topeka Art Guild.
This exhibition will consist of 35
landscape. marine, and oil paintings
by Americas foremost landscape AMI
portrait painters of the present day.
Among the exhibitors are John w
Bentley. Louis Belts, George W. Bel
lows. Howard Russell Butler, John =.
Carlson, Ben Foster. Frederick FrieG-
secke, Childe Hassam. Robert Henri,
Charles w. Hawthorne, Mrs. John
Johansen, Chauncey. +. Ryder and
Frederic J Waugh.
A no more brilliant and thoroly rep
resentative group of stars in the
American art armament could be
brought together or imagined, and To :
pekanS are exceedingly fortunate il
having the opportunity of viewing the
work of such masters. The work of
some of these people is already IA
miliar to us thru previous exhibitions
of their pictures here.
It might be argued by some that the
bringing to Topeka of another big ex-
hibitiOn directly on the heels of the
Beneker exhibit is not exactly wise.
But this collection of pictures hap
pened to be touring the middle west
at this particular time, and the Topeka