Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1941-03-13
JuryWeighs Paintings
For Biennial Exhibit
AfCorcoran Gallery
Choice Of Judges Assures
Representation of Euch
Type Of Artistry

For hour upon hour during the
past few days, a tall, lean man sat
IN q second-f1oor gallery of the
Corcoran Gallery of Art and, after
looking inquiringly at four other
men, uttered one or the other of
two ultra brief sentences in a calm
but authoritative voice Each time
he spoke, another painting was held
before the little group by a work.
man and another hope of an Amer
lean artist was either fulfilled or
dashed.
tits in" signified approval; Its
out" meant discard.
The man of few words was Frank
lin c. Watkins of Philadelphia,
chairman of the combined Jury and
Hanging Committee of the Seven
tenth Biennial Exhibition of Con-
temporary American Oil Paintings
His associates we're the other men,
bers, Guy Pene du Bots and Russell
Cowles of New York. Alexander r.
James of Dublin, N. H., and Francis
Chaplin of Chicago. Mr.. Watkins,
winner of first honors in competi-
ton for the w. A. Clark Prize
Awards at the last biennial" was
supervising selection from $500 en-
tries of works to be hung in this
years exhibition.
Continues Work Today.
The jury continued at work to-
day, for choice of the pictures to
be displayed constituted only the
first part of its task. Award of the
four w. A. Clark prizes and ar
rangement of the hundreds of paint
ings selected remained to be done.
Prior to meeting in the Capital,
the Jury had passed on approximate
" 1000 works sent to agents of the
gallery in New York City. They
met here Monday and promptly sat
down in a large bare-walled room
from which paintings of the GAL
lery's permanent collection had been
removed to make way for the "bi-
ennial" choices.
Taking the position artists are
best qualified to pass on the merit
Of paintings, gallery officials strove
for representation of various Sec
tons of the country and various
styles of work when they selected
the jury Each artist entering pic
lures, therefore, was assured his
efforts had received a fair, con-
scientiouS appraisal before Mr.. Wat
kins said, Its in" or It's out
After the first look at all the
entries, those which had received
some support from the jury but
not q clear decision we're called
back for review. If they received
three of the five votes, they were
"tn."
Re-examine Selections.
The judging did not end there,
however, for the jurors re-eXamined
the entire array of choices after
sitting the "doubtfuls" and discarded
q few more with which they felt
they had been too generous.
AS the five prominent artists
turned to the selection of Clark
winners and hanging of the pic
lures, every type of contemporary
American artistic thought was rep
resented in the group decided upon
for the eXhibition-from abstrac-
tons to the most conservative of
portraits.
Meanwhile, C. Powell Minneger-
ode, director of the gallery, was en-
gagged in project fraught with sur
prises for those who have not visited
Corcoran for several months-a
general redecoration to add to the
pleasure Of art lovers coming for
the biennial" which will open with
O private showing the night of
March % and will be available to
the public from March % through
May 4.
Painting, new wall coverings,
simulated stone flooring in several
basement rooms and new arrange
ments of popular items in the gall
lery's permanent collection are fea-
lures of the refurbishing, which is
proceeding with dispatch.