The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-11-25

Afterwards, the President rec marked that 1t was lone of the most interesting exhibits" he had ever seen, and that 1t reflected the spirit of the average Ameri- can. The President is an art lover and genuinely felt what he said.
 But that was not the real rea- son he attended the exhibit. Real reason was because he wanted to boost his friend Ned Bruce and Bruce's work of carrying the spirit of the New Deal to forgotten ar- lists.
 Not many people besides the President know 1t, but Bruce's resignation is on the desk of W. E. Reynolds, director of the Pro- curement Division, in which Bruce has done an outstanding job of selecting art for federal buildings.
 Behind this is e story of red tape, personal jealousy, and the heroic struggle of one man. ART VERSUS TAPE
 The Procurement Division builds all federal buildings, and is headed by Q clique of old-tiiners who burn daily incense on the altar of bureaucracy. For years, the decorating of federal buildings was sort Of racket. Art costs some- times ran Up to s and 6 per cent Of the total building cost. and favored artists were given the jobs of their Procurement pals.
 Then Ned Bruce came along and upset the red tape, favoritism and ali.
 Ned Bruce b the type of man you'd never expect to see in the government. He is e New York CT, son of c preacher, and once belonged to e powerful Wall Street law firm. Later he went to the Far East, bought an interest in the Manila Times, at that time edited by Sir Willmott Lewis, now of the London Times; and once operated an extensive develop fnent company in China, the South Sea Islands and French Indo- China.
 Out in the Orient Bruce cole lected Chinese art, particularly landscapes. Then suddenly he got tired of accommodating money, of which he had plenty, and de- cided he woull learn to paint. Ber- nard Barensor, famous art critic saw some of his paintings in New York and pronounced him Q "real painter.
 Don't pull my Ieg," replied Bruce.
 "Iri pull anything want about anything except paint ing" said Barenson, land I repeat, that is the work of real painter"
 ART IN ITALY
 This was in 1923. Shortly there- after, Bruce and his wife, the for- mer Peggy Stow of San Francisco, sailed for Italy, where he spent eight hours c day steadily paint ing. When he came back in 1929. his exhibit in New York put him in the first rank of American landscape painters.
 His best known work, "PanO. rama of San Francisco, hangs in San Francisco stock exchange, and other paintings are on display in galleries fin New York. Washing ton and West Coast cities.
 Bruce came back to Washington just before the New Deal as a lobbyist for his Philippine friends to secure favorable action on the Philippine Independence Bill.
 Ned is 2 natural lobbyist, con- vivial, gay, handsome, a con- vincing speaker. He attracted New Dealers, particularly Sena- tor Key Pittman of Nevada, who took him to the London Economic Conference. There, because of his knowledge of siI- yer in the Far East, Bruce was largely responsible for the one tangible achievement of the conference - the silver agree- ment.
 However, Bruce's chief love was art. He became an adviser on fine arts to the Treasury De- partment, and finally persuaded the President and Secretary Mor- genthau to assign him one per cent of federal building costs for decorating. This was less than the average spent before. but with it. Bruce set out to bring painting and sculpture into every small