Evening star., 1924-01-06
PROTEST CIVIL WAR
VI PORTRAIT HANGING
Patriotic Bodies Join Art Lovers
IF in Demand for Better National
tit Gallery Space.
BECK GROUP IN BASEMENT
Splendid Collection of Canvases
Held Hard to Find.

Patriotic organizations are joining
with lovers of art and students or
American history in protesting be-
cause the portraiture of the civil
war, which constitutes an important
collection in the National Gallery of
Art, are for the most part crowded
into dark corridors in the basement
OF the National Museum building, in
accessible to the public and to the
thousands of school children who
might draw patriotic inspiration from
them.
The protest is particularly pro-
voked at this time because the Wal
ter Beck collection of portraits of the
SURVIVORS of the civil war, fifty years
after the battle Of Appomattox, which
constitutes the most important arr,
tistic memorial of the civil war in
existence. has been broken up to find
any place in which to hang it, and
what is kept together is most in
appropriately located in a lobby OF
the basement.
DR.. William II. Holmes, director OF
the National Gallery of Art. in re-
nlying to these protests. admits that
they are justified. but declares him
self helpless to remedy the situation,
before more fitting> space cannot be
provided. and in fact, other, impor-
tant collections have had to be
showed aside to give even this lobby
display of a most artistic, historic
and valuable gift to the government.
Building Sorely Needed.
All Of this emphasizes the great
need for q building in the Smith
Sonian group which will be specially
designed for and devoted to the best
examples of art that this country Of
fers, which need the American Fed
Grafton of Arts is striving to bring
TO the attention of the people of the
country that Congress was be per-
suaded to authorize the erection of
such a national home for art.
There are more than seventy por
traits in the Beck collection. These
are done in pastel and are a series
of life-sized groups of Union and
Confederate veterans of the civil war,
painted from life.
Mr.. Beck was born near Dayton,
Ohio, nearly sixty years ago. AS
boy he played with the veterans of
the civil war in the Soldiers Home at
Dayton. where his father was land
scape gardener. He was shown many
of the pictorial publications which
immediately followed the civil war,
by the veterans in the home who
often held him on their knees and
told him stories of their experiences
while they were fresh in mind.
His first drawing was an illustra-
tion of one of these stories, which
was sent to a Cincinnati paper and
published. Determined to become
an artist, he made up his mind that
when he learned how he would make
d series of paintings as a memorial
of the men of the civil war-both
north and south-who had been his
first teachers. On the fiftieth ami
versary of AppomattoX he began the
tremendous task of making a series
of groups, life-size actual portraits of
men then living he could find and get
to sit for him
Paintings From Life.
All of the portraits in the Beck
collection are painted from life. Col.
John S. Mosby, since deceased, went
from Washington to New York three
times to sit for Mr.. Beck, and his men.
under orders from him, all went To
New York for sittings.
These are illustrations of the hu-
man interest and historic accuracy
that these pictures preserve for the
American people. Just a word about
the artists peculiar talent. BY ma
ture he is kecnly sensitive to the
rhythms and harmonies in line and
color which are valuable because
they express and convey the great
human emotions, which were nowhere
so pronounced as in the tragic drama
of the fratricidal war between the
states.