Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-05-19
MAYAN ART EXPONENT HERE
IN PEACE SHRINE" INTEREST
Mrs. GOLDSMITH Enthusiast
tic Over Developing In
fIuence in Architecture.
Bas-ReIief Frieze for CaIifor-
MIA Exhibition Highly
Praised. ...

AS an exponent of Magyar art and
architectural design, to be adopted as
classic American motif for architec-
tural decoration, Mrs. Jean Beman
Cook Smith, New York sculptress and
artist, recently arrived in Washington,
has attracted considerable interest
among members of her profession as
well as prominent Psychologists
throughout the country.
Mrs. Cook Smith became quite en-
thusiastic over the idea of developing
architectural design showing the Magyar
influence as purely American contri-
button to art after making an extern
tive study of the beautiful sculptorings
and works of art left to posterity by the
vanished race which prospered in Gen.
trail America several thousand years
ago.
A few years ago the artist received a
commission from the American Society
of Archaeology to make a baS-relief
frieze for the California exhibition, held
at San Diego in 1915, depicting the
early civilization of the Magyar people.
She went to Santa Fe, N. Mex, TO
make her first study of the subject
under the direction of several prominent
Psychologists. Later, she returned to
her studio on Long Island, New York,
which were then shipped to San Diego.
1t took Mrs. Goldsmith three years
to complete her frieze, which was IT'S
feet long and which attracted wide
spread comment and admiration by It's
beauty Of design, as well as the inter-
esting glimpses given of the life OF .
long vanished civilization. In the execu-
ton of her design, Mrs. Goldsmith
states that she adhered as strictly as
possible to the same style OF decora-
ton as that found on the old temples
parts of Central America. The Magyar
peoples possessed highly advanced
form of art and one distinctly their
own and 1t is the same style OF decora-
ton as employed by them in the decora-
ton of temples and buildings that Mrs:
Cook Smith would like to see cultivated
and adopted by American architects
and artists.
Student Since Age Of Z.
Mrs. Goldsmith has been a student
of art since she was Z years old. she
studied in art schools Of Chicago ana
New York as well as in the galleries
of Europe. She began her work as
portrait and landscape painter and had
never conceived the idea Of sculptorlng
until she first saw the beautiful WORKS
of Donatello in Italy.
"I had gone to Rome to paint land
scapes," the artist said, when saw
the beautiful bas-reliefs of Donatelio,
and I decided that I could express my
self better through the medium OF sculp-
toring than that Of painting"
Mrs. Cook Smith is now In Washing
ton upon the invitation of certain in
terested groups to place before them
her newly completed design and plans
for the erection of an international
peace shrine" 1.-The idea Of this mon
ument," Mrs. Goldsmith explained, rs
to symbolic the world peace ideal,
purely In the interest of furthering the
stupendous movement that is before the
world today.
THE idea of my monument goes be-
yond the ideals of the Christ OF the
Andes 1t reaches out to the whole
world-a mecca around which all ma
lions seeking world peace can con-
gregate.
If the eyes Of the world could bt
focused on the ideal Of peace and drawn
from the technicalities Of pacts. how
much easier it would be to bind the
hearts of men together"
Mrs. Goldsmith is the wife OF
prominent lawyer of New York and tn:
sister OF S. S. Beman, an architect o.
Chicago, who at the age Of "a designed
the entire town of Pullman. Ill.