The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-11
Scenes of the Glass
Struggle at ]. r. C.
Exhibit in New York
BY JACK KAINEN

THE John Reed Club artists exhi-
bition in New York has already
been on for a few weeks. The at
tendance has been poor despite the
fact that many fine things are on
the walls. We urge workers organ
izations to make appointments to
come down to 430 Sixth Ave. in a
body weekend afternoons.
One of the most interesting ex-
hibits is the large mural by Chuzo
Tamotzu, done entirely with brush
and ink. One side of the picture
shows the construction of socialism
in the Soviet Union, dominated by
the large figure of Lenjn speaking.
The other section of the mural is
a portrayal Of the class struggle in
the United States, the miners
strikes, the Bonus March, lynchings,
tenement fires, Rockefeller's de-
struction of the Lenin mural, Nor
gan straddling the capitol and other
typical American phenomena. The
dynamic figure Of a proletarian art
ist recording the class struggle
springs from Lenin and the banners
of the Comintern, linking the COM
| position organically together. The
execution is rich and sensitive and
makes this picture alone worth
coming a long way to see.
Hugo Gellert has huge ntho-
graphed mural in several colors. In
the center is a symbolical figure Of
Prometheus the f1re-bringer in
chains; on the left is figure group
composed of Calico, Dante and
Aristotle; on the right the group
comprises John Brown, John Ball
and Tom Mooney. Underneath is
the following legend, They all tried
to bring light to Mankind"
The fine mural panel of Hideo
Noda, previously reviewed in the
Daily worker, is here. The large
easel painting of Eitaro Ishigaki
showing colonial revolt against
British imperialism was exhibited
at the Anti-Imperialist show last
year.
THE honest Autograph drawings OF
l Sara Berman are becoming
feature of j. r. G. exhibitions. The
simple, sincere scenes Of the class
struggle are automatically felt; the
taxi strike. the demonstrations, the
Ambridge Massacre, the Haymarket
martyrs and the other drawings
Sara Berman is a worker artist
whose work is refreshingly free from
stereotyped devices, clever tricks
and current mannerisms and hel
work, though often crude, is sat-
urated with working class feeling
c. Yamasaki is represented by
large water color of a demonstra'
ton, very sensitively executed, 81
tenderly done as to be almost idyllit
in character. Joe Vogel's mono
chrome mural is unfortunatel!
marred by the disproportionate in
fuence of Orozco. Louis Schanker,
gesso panel. while good in sections
fails to hold together as unit. T'hi
weakens it ideologically also. TIL,
mural sketches of Margoles are par
ticularly fine. We should like to se'
more of his work.
There are excellent smaller draw
ings by Gorelik, Siegel, Selma Free
man and others.
The exhibition suffers as a who'll
from lack of homogeneity in tn
character of the exhibits. Every
thing is here from sets Of mura
sketches to eighteen foot murak
Originally, the exhibition was in
tended to be a showing Of mura
sketches. Also, our exhibitions woul'
be so much more enriched if othe
subjects than demonstrations an
police clubbings would be included
Drawings of party unit meetings
proletarian outings, picnics, sports
home life-that is, intimate and sig
nifcant aspects Of working elias
life, would round out and give mar
row and blood to proletarian art.
OPEN FORUM at wE.SL. Post 10,