Evening star., 1940-12-08
Contemporary Water Colors Are Shown
At Wilson and Western High Schools
Many Landscapes
In Group on View
All This Week
BY Florence s. Bergman.

fldCu 1O4 AVo IiS btb"OtAA
ern and Woodrow Wilson High
Schools, is one of the National Art
Week displays held over for longer
period. 1t will remain throughout
the coming week. This exhibition
was selected by Dorothy Crafty,
art critic of the Philadelphia Rec
ord, on invitation of the American
Federation of Arts. and its present
showing is its first, after which it
will go on tour.
The exhibition is truly Eastern"
in scope, representing artists of New
Englands six States, New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Many
of these waters colorists have won
recent honors for their work. Fur
thermore, the work is of the East
ern States, by virtue of more than
the artists addresses. Yet it is diff
cult to understand how sectional
character can be retained in our
civilization. In view of the fact
that Americans come from many
racial stocks and move around more
frequently than any other people
Gn normal times one is surprised
that there should be noticeable diff
ferences between the art of group
of Eastern artists Excluding New
York City, and those of the South,
the Middle West and the Pacific
Coast.
Landscapes Numerous.
These Eastern water colors have
a tendency toward the conservative
or traditional character. They re-
veal marked technical facility Of
the artists and also attractive SUBJ
ject matter. The painters have ap-
parently found the United States a
good place in which to live and have
chosen to record its beauty, vitality
and health rather than its depress-
ing aspects.
Nearly half of the artists repre-
sented are residents of Philadelphia.
Boston, Brooklyn, New York and
Providence. but landscapes are the
most numerous subjects. Snow
scenes comprise one-fourth of the
whole exhibition, but they vary
greatly. One by Walter Emerson
Baum, for instance. with brilliant
sunlight and ice-free stream, hints
of early spring, while another, by
Andrew Wyeth, has sky that looks
like November rather than March.
Snow in Brooklyn" by M. Lois
Murphy, is a warm, humid snow
which. one feels, has just ceased
to fall and will quickly melt. while
the hard-packed snow in Paul Sam
pies painting of Western mountain
scenery, where a hunter and his dog
watch passing freight train against
| the mountains, appears able to last
! for months
But if one feels chilly after seeing
these and other snowscapes, one
can turn quickly to the tropics,
/ glimpsed in Thornton Oakley's TO
bago,' a fruit of his recent sojourn
in the West Indies. Even the shad-
ows under the palm trees are full
/ Of light and warm color. Howard
Giles Red Rock Country, Arizona"
is a study in tones of earth red,
and the color subtly sets an at
/ mosphere of dry heat which is char
acteristic of much of that State.
Garden Sentinels," by Francis JOS
eph Gyra large urns in a formal
! design has a touch of the Old
Worlds former elegance. which af-
fects one sadly at present.
| Eliot O'Hara. one of Washington S
outstanding watercolorists. repre-
sents Maine in the present exhibi-
ton. with striking study of "Gulls
at Sea (motion and sequences in
blue and gray. He is we'll ac-
! quainted with seacoast subject mat
| ter; his summer cottage at Goose
Rocks Beach. Me. (where he oon-
ducts summer school of painting)
is only a few yards from the ocean.
/ Stanley Woodward also paints sea-
gulls in his Days End" but they
are subordinated to man and a
rowboat, Illuminated by a splendid
sunset sky. Henry Pitz' Late Sun"
casts its glow over cypress swamp,
while Loran F. Wilford has con-
tributed still another landscape,
After Sundown," over an inland
lake.
One European Subject.
Charles Hopkinson, eminent Bos-
| ton painter, famed both as a por-
trait painter and watercolorist, is
responsible for a superb seacoast
study, Rock and Pool" Washing
| tonlans who recall his one-man
show of watercolors at the Corcoran
Gallery a few years ago will find
that this has the same tremendous
carrying quality and achieves
startling reality when seen from a
distance.
Beautiful and picturesque views Of
Europe seem destined to disappear
from exhibitions by contemporary
American painters. There is only
one subject from abroad in the pres
ent show, view of The Thames,
London" by Carolyn John. This
does not depict the stretch of river
familiar to tourists, but an indus
trial scene, with incisive thrusts of
chimneys and masts.
Paul Froelich's painting of horses
and jockeys at the start of a race
and William Starkweathers Daisies
on the Old Track" are the onlv
exhibits in the present show in
which animals and flowers, re-
spectively, play major roles.
There is considerable variety ia
the figure paintings. One by Hilda
Belcher is straightforward por-
trait. Gertrude Schweitzer has sent
delicate study of Three Nudes"
in the sunlight. Page Carey's
Turkey Auction" is an amusing
transcription of a very timely scene.
the plucked birds hanging high in
row, and illuminated by a pale
greenish light, are arousing lively
bids from the crowd below them.
Another figure painting, -Four and
Twenty Elders" by Marguerite
Gaudin, is the sole work in a re-.
ligious category. 1t has the SYM.
bollsm and rich, glowing colors Of
stained glass.
This exhibition is open to the