Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-10-08
Exhibition of Latin American Prints
At the Corcoran Gallery of Art

present collection from Is Contra,
and South American countries, i.
that of Argentina, comprising Il
prints. The fame of that nations
artists has been augmented in the
last four years by such shows az
that brought to the United States
for the New York Worlds Fair, anC
later sent on q national circuit by
the American Federation of Arts
and the collection of about 40 Ar
gentine prints shown at the Metro
politan Museum of Art, New York
City, last year.
The present Argentine group Is
about evenly divided between work
on wood and copper, ranging from
conservative to radical, with con-
siderable technical variety. 1t in
cludes etchings by such well-known
artists as Alfredo Guido and Maui
ricio Lasansky, who had compre-
hensive one-man exhibition at the
Whyte Gallery last July. It has
Pompeyo Audivert's abstract wood
cut ''Pieta," and Gustavo Cochet's
conservative little etching of an
Indian farm. Sergio Sergi,s "Cata-
logue," a woodcut caricature, is the
only markedly humorous subject in
the entire exhibition; it has hint
of Daumier.
Brazil's representation, the second
largest, comprising II prints, also
ranges from traditional to modern
ist work, with such appealing ex-
amples in the first category as Os-
waldo Teixeira's "Old Street." a soft
ground etching, and Carlos Oswald,
beautiful color aquatint "Icaray
Beach" and his de1icately handled
"Pierrot," subtly revealed In shad-
ows. Percy Lau's little etchings Of
women washing clothes and a Negro
fisherman are clean cut and
sprightly. Candida Portinari, a lead
ing Brazilian modernist, does not
show up very well in comparison
with his fellow artists; his compost
lions are rather spotty in effect.
Mexican Work Good
The Mexicans are impressive in
the third largest group, of 10 prints
8 of which are Autographs. The
two most beautiful prints from Mex
leo, however, are a mezzotint portrait
of nun by Dolores Velasquez Cueto
and a wood engraving (reproduced)
by Abelardo Avila. One can 60 q
long way into this richly cut scene
of barren, brooding mountains under
q somber sky, which dwarf the in
trepid little procession of pilgrims
climbing to an unknown destination
Mexico leads Latin America In
contemporary TYPOGRAPHY. Two OF
her best-known artists, Diego Rivera
and Jose Clemente Orozco, are rep
resented in the ''75," the former with
Fruits Of Labor" done in 1882, and
familiar from frequent reproduction;
the latter by Group Of Women" q
more recent work, and not on a par
Gin, the writer's opinion) with his
strong works of the late 192Os. Raul
Anguiano has made an effective de-
sign of two bare-legged laborers in
Leaders" Francisco Dosamantes'
woman Potter" constitutes a salts
flying pyramidal composition, seated
on the ground with her wares around
her. Jose Chavez Morado has $50
cial conscious" theme In sTor the
Public Debt" handled in . tradi-
tional manner.
Six of Peru's seven prints are
woodcuts, and most of them deal
with single heads or figures. These
range from the comparatively nat
uralistic "Innkeeper" of Huanta, by
Jose Sabogal, to the styled figure
of Julia Codesido's musician. John
Taylor Arms, In his foreword to the
catalogue, which is an excellent
critique of the exhibition, said that
Latin American graphic art Of to-
day seems, as whole, stronger In
woodcut than in any other medium. y
The present exhibition confirms this
statement.
The entire collections Of Uruguay
and Ecuador are woodcuts. Uru-
guay's Carlos Gonzalez has q carica-
tured group, Discussing the Horse