Evening star., 1936-05-09
ByLeila Mechlin.


n exhibitions are announced for
the next month or more, as If all those
things which had not Ilready had
display were crowding in with the
hope of being seen before hot weather
and holiday exodus put an end to
such urban diversion. At the Public
Library two exhibitions will be set
forth this month instead Of the Gus
tomary one These are of prints pro-
duced by artists working under the
Government art project, Works Prog
ress Administration, and OF cartoons
by Washington cartoonists; the former
now on view, the latter scheduled
from May II to 81. Arrangements
have been made to show at the same
time a selection of The Fifty Books
of the Year" chosen not for content,
but excellence in typographical de-
sign, printing and so forth.
The w. P. A. prints are "a in num-
Der, and for the most part Autographs,
although there are few wood blocks
and two or three etchings. From the
purely technical standpoint the work
is good, but not in single instance
is it outstanding. In fact, from first
to last it is essentially commonplace.
Perhaps this is the stultifying effect of
a relief program Art is strange
flower which flourisheS under adver-
sity, but withers at the touch of cold
hand. To keep art alive it must be
wanted. not merely paid for. But,
obviously. artists must not be left to
starve. Here is the dilemma.
Print-making has greatly increased
in this country in the last 20 years,
and up to five years ago selling kept
pace with production, but gradually
prices have been going down until nov
the outlook is sorry, indeed, for both
those who produce and those who sell.
This explains, perhaps, why among
those working for the w. P. A. art
project are some who have long since
won laurels and acclaim. In the eXhi-
bition at the Public Library there is,
for example, a lithograph by Mabel
Dwight, who is represented by litho-
graphs not only in the permanent
collections of the Metropolitan Mu-
scum of Art, the Cleveland and De-
troit museums, the Art Institute Of
Chicago and the Fogg Museum Cam
bridge, but also in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, London, and the
Bibliotheque NatioEale, Paris. The
names of such other exhibitors as
Emil Ganso, Adolph Dehn. Harry
Sternberg and Yasuo Kuniyoshi are
all well known.
Miss DWights contribution is a sa-
tirical drawing of Mulberry Street
Marionettes," showing a performance
on the stage of an East Side New York
playhouse and few Of those occupy
ing front seats, admirably done.
Harry Sternberg, to whom the only
Guggenheim fellowship in the graphic
arts was awarded this year, is repre-
sented by lithograph Of Builders" 3"
two drillers on the steel skeleton of a
skyscraper seen at work, against a
backdrop of Manhattan, a circular
composition very well rendered, but
not especially vital or spontaneous.
George Schreiber's Animal Pa
rade" is also confined in a circle,
illustrative and amusing, or more
nearly so than anything else shown,
for even the "Trapeze Girl" that
Kuniyoshi represents in swinging mo-
tion is, it would seem, making Sc
rieus business of life. Honore Gull
beau's "Acrobatic Lesson" is a rather
lifeless study of repetition in arms
and legs. Kalman Kubinyis THE
Sixth Year" pictures a man seated
in utter detection on a city roof, head
bowed, body bent. Nan Lurie shows a
Negro woman in a House of Deten-
ton" morosely gazing down into a
street. THE Corn Field" by Arnold
Blanch, sets forth a devastated region
as viewed by Negro riding a mule
no blade of grass growing, trees stunt
ed, lifeless, broken.
Charles r. Hardner'S Laying the
Cable an etching, and Theodore
Wahls Midtown Tunnel Construc-
ton" are both good pictures of con-
temporary construction. work and
Philip Cheney's Second Avenue" well
illustrates East Side sidewalk shop
ping in New York, but there is moth
ing here to stir the emotions to ex-
cite admiration, to engender desire
for possession, such as one finds in
the slightest sketch of the master
regardless of subject or theme. And
that's the pity of it! Good drawing
and clever technique are not enough
to arouse longing for possession.
Yet who shall say that these artists
are not faithfully recording life as
they see it. AS such memento, it may
have future value. But certainly it
does not fortify or cheer the average
onlooker.
EtchingS By Seymour -Haden
in the Corcoran Gallery.
TN AN interval between special ex-
hibitions, the Corcoran Gallery of
Art has placed on view in cases in its
by Seymour -Haden, which Is of rare
interest and value. Among the great
est etchers the world has known, Sir
Francis Seymour Haden is, by COM
mon consent, numbered; and yet, re-
markable as it may seem, he was
always the amateur. As Malcolm Sal
aman has said: Surgery was the
business of his long life, while etch-
ing was the medium through which
his innate artistic faculty found its
inevitable expression. But, eminent
as he became in his profession, 1t is
in his amateur capacity that fame
signalized his name"
Haden took up drawing as an aid
to surgery, studying in a Paris art
school while he was pursuing his pro-
fession. His first plates were etched
while travelling in Italy with an artist
friend, but nothing came of it and IA
years elapsed before he etched again
or showed any special interest in the
matter. BY then he had established
himself in London as a surgeon and
had married Whistler's sister. Un-
doubtedly it was through Whistler that
his interest in etching was revived.
A,-sA