Evening star., 1936-01-05
Bv Leila Mechlin.

York, and the instrumentality
4 of distinguished local COM
nittee headed by Mrs. Roosevelt, with
Mrs. McCook Knox as chairman, two
exhibitions of modern art will open
simultaneously this afternoon with
private views. One, consisting Of Is
paintings by nine modern artists, will
be in Studio House, 1914 Twenty-flrst
street; the other, comprising II works.
q head and small figure each, by six
modern sculptors, will be in the Junior
Leagues new headquarters, Massa-
chusetts avenue at Twentieth street,
which, by the way, is an extremely
modern type of architectural design.
The paintings, with one exception,
have come from the collection as
sembled by the late Miss Lille P. Bliss
of New York and by her bequeathed
to the Museum of Modern Art, of
which, in 1929, she was a founder as
we'll as for subsequent years first vice
president. The sculpture was bor-
rowed from private collectors for this
particular exhibition.
The names of all the artists repre-
sented in these twin exhibitions loom
large; they are those of the great
insurgents, revolutionaries, but also
makers of history. The painters whose
canvases will be shown are Gauguin,
Matisse. Degas, Derain, Redon, Rous-
seau, WILLARD. all French; PicasSo, a
Spaniard and Modigliani, Italian.
The sculptors represented will be
Maillol, Kobe, Despiau, Barlach, Ep-
stein and Lachaise, the last two of
whom have American affiliations
Epstein having grown up in New York
and Lachaise having done most Of his
work in that city.
The Corcoran Gallery Of Art owns
portrait head by Epstein and in the
Philadelphia Memorial Gallery are
three examples of the work of
Lachaise. Also works by the majority
Of these painters are included in the
Phillips collection. SO the art-loving
public of Washington Is not totally
unprepared for what may await in
these interesting loan exhibitions from
New York.
The so-called "ModernistS" were all
innovators, they upset, if they did not
completely discard. tradition, but they
were neither without background nor
artistic endowment. There is an old
saying that only those who know con-
vention can safely venture to set it
aside, and this is quite as true in art
as in society. Undoubtedly the great
mass of inferior and extravagantly
bizarre production in painting and
sculpture that one sees today is by
those who have no knowledge of fun
Iamentals, little or no background of
tradition and but limited gifts and
therefore mistake mere mannerism
for style and set superficial inventive
ness in the place of originality. Great
emotions rise only from unfathomed
depths; shadows do not produce them.
The more one sees of the works of
the leaders of modernism the better
one can judge of the significance of
the movement and Of the quality of
current production.
Modernism in art was practically
unknown in this country up to 1918,
when the "Armory Exhibition" was
it had been in vogue in Paris. The
majority of those who visited the
Armory Show thought it huge joke
and laughed heartily over Duchamp's
Nude Descending Stair" Matisse's
"Le Madras Rouge" Lehmbruch's
"Kneeling Woman" and other works
out of the ordinary; but it was no
laughing matter; strong influences
were at work which were destined to
affect the entire stream of art and
turn it into new channels.
Those whose youthful years fell
within the gay nineties" look back
to that much derided period as a dis
tinctly pleasant time and one of
security and continuity. Little was
1t thought that even then the stage
was being set for revolutionary changes
in art, music, literature and prac-
tically every phase of life But so it
was. The sands had run through; the
glass must be reversed. 1t was then
that Gauguin set sail for the South
Sea Islands, stating that normal
life" had become "insupportable" to
him, and that his intention was to
be simple and naive as a child"
Before he left Tahiti, some years later,
and returned to France, he concluded
that the trouble was the disease of
civilization" Artists" he wrote,
''having lost their savagery, have no
longer the strength to create"
To tell the truth, there was not
anything very savage in Gauguin's
paintings even after he made this
discovery. Those done in the South
Sea Islands are for the most part
of natives-"old gold girls" La Fargo
called them because of the color of
their skin-but it is plain that it
was color. design, pattern, that inter-
ested hin-not savagery. Be that
as 1t may, Gauguin seems to have
turned attention in that direction,
and from the match he dropped in
the dry grass of the nineties has come
trail of fire which threatens today
to become confiagration. There is
plenty Of savagery today in both
painting and sculpture-we cannot
deny it.
Along with this desire for naivete
and savagery has come dominating
interest in the arts Of primitive people
and especially that of African Negroes.
This is felt most strongly in modern
sculpture. Epstein has been influenced
by 1t, but also by the ancient art of
Egypt, Assyria, the Sumerians. He
has background and he holds that
he is law unto himself. In Epstein's
sculpture one sees, as In the paintings
Of Van Gogh, evidence Of tempes-
tuous emotion. Both have been "pos-
bessed" by their genius.
But this seems not to have been
enough. To revive an art which had
become supine, cubism came into
being and was carried by Picasso to
such lengths that to the average
onlooker it became nonsense. His
naintinrs have little nr M relation