Evening star., 1935-12-01

ANSPA ouuSVAolLo VI lolIiOuo Jd1ltlilSS.
the world. For Elizabeth Arden, Clara |
Fargo Thomas has executed a mural |
painting in IA panels, setting forth |
"A Pageant of Beauty" in a parade |
of fair women from the days of |
Pharaohs, in ancient Egypt, to the
present day. Her material she has
derived from examples In the mu.,
seums of New York, London, Paris, |
Berlin, Naples and Rome, and the use
to which she has put it Is unique and
engaging.
Ralph Flint, in a monograph on
this serial painting. says: THE artist
has created not only strikingly orig
inal decoration, but a social docu-
ment, as well. While most of the
detail in this portable mural Is
frankly based on extensive research
among the crowded archives of the
past, it has been the intention from
the start to let freshness of vision AMI
freedom Of pictorial approach char
acterize the work. The simplest OF
colors have been employed, in a clear
tempera binding in order that the
lustrous texture of the white holly
(wood) panels might not be i'm
paired"
The novel form of this wall paint
ing enables it to be shown in various
cities and centers. 1t will be shown
here in the Little Theater" at Jel-
leff's, this week, beginning tomorrow
with private view. Clara Fargo
Thomas, the artist, has painted murals
entitled Trees to Tribunes," in the
News Building, New York, and for
the Tribune Building, Chicago, one
entitled Freedom of the Press"
Mural painting is certainly occupying
front stage today in the theater of
art.
IN THE Arts Club Of Washington
there will open this afternoon, with
the usual private view and tea, exhi-
bitions of paintings by Garnet W.
Jex, and of pictorial photographs by
William Howard Gardiner. Mr.. Jex's
paintings will occupy the gallery and
Mr. GARDENERS prints will be exhibited
in the drawing room.
Garnet w. Jex Is a Washington
painter, vice president of the Land
scape Club, member of the Society Of
Washington Artists, and of the staff
Of Nature Magazine. He will show
about 38 paintings, recent works, suf-
fciently varied in character to lend
intereSt to the collection as a whole.
Many of the subjects will be local.
Not enough, this painter believes, do
we see and interpret the beauty which
back-door yards"-but quite num-
Der will be from the mountain regions
of Virginia and West Virginia, which
up to the present time have been
comparatively little painted.
For four successive seasons in two
small cars, Mr.. Jex and three or more
of his colleagues have made excur-
sions into this high country, camped
out, and painted to their hearts
content, without interruption or dis
turbance. The native people In the
small settlements, many Of whom
never saw a picture painted before,
or in fact an original work Of art,
are, these painters report, keenly in
terested and friendly. In choosing a
camping ground the itinerant artists
look for combination of high noun
tains, swift streams and interesting
native settlements; not hard to find,
guided by United States Geological
Y0rNuidal ie iv,er
to risk bad roads. Mr.. Jex and others
CT his group-Messrs. Horsfall, Turner
and Rittase-feel that in seeking
subject matter in this part of the
country they are turning attention to
potential new fields, South rather
than North, where, because of high
attitudes, the climatic conditions are
good and the material Is incomparably
fine.
While academic in training and
practice, Mr.. Jex is one Of the
painters still keenly sensitive to
beauty in nature, and eager to mani
fest it in his work-modest, sincere,
with an accurate color sense and ex-
cellent feeling for form and effect
one always in pursuit of adventure in
the hope that the next, and the next,
will ever be better and better. That
Is what the game Of art really is
and its fascination.
WILLIAM HOWARD GARDENERS
w photographs, placed on view at
the Arts Club this afternoon for a
three-week period, will surprise many
as the exhibitor is best known here
as past president Of the Navy
League working long and persistently
for the Navy's upbuilding to treaty
terms, as is now being done. Mr..
Gardeners term Of Office was during
the Coolidge and Hoover administra-
tions after which Ill health enforced
retirement. It is since then that he
took up photography and brought it
to exceptional perfection as an art.
During the last year he has had over
100 pictorial photographs hung in
competitive exhibitions in Europe as
well as this country.
AL of the pictures in the Arts
Club exhibition were made in italy,
Greece and the Aegean Islands, Syria
and Palestine. Included in the Greek
group is series made on the Aero
polls at Athens. One of these Is not
only q prize picture but was repro
duced by the Royal Photographic
Society Of London in its well known
AwtA