Evening star., 1946-05-05
BY Florence S. Berrymon

Inc Library OF Congress opened
last Wednesday the Fourth National
Joseph and E. R. Pennell Exhibition
OF Prints, an outstanding event in
> the graphic arts field. The show is
somewhat smaller than its predeces-
sors, having but 348 prints by 296
artists. The first annual, 1943, had
467 prints by 366 artists, the third,
last year, had dwindled to 375 prints.
But the present edition is large in
numbers as we'll as scope. To see it,
the average visitor can spend plea
surably at least an hour.
The comprehensiveness of the
fourth annual is remarkable, con-
sidering that it was selected by a
jury of three noted printmakers, all
affiliated with the National Acad-
emy: Eugene Higgins and Thomas
Mason, members, and Charles Locke,
associate. Besides prints in the
tradition of naturalism, technically
we'll executed, which one would ex-
pect them to consider meritorious,
they included siZable proportion of
abstract and nonobjective prints, as
well as many modern variations in
between the extremes, not all of
which impress one for technical
adroitness. However, the general
impact of the show is conservative
rather than radical.
The exhibition does not claim to
present all of the Nations best print
makers. For example, there are
three outstanding omissions among
the artists who served the show in
one capacity or another: Mr.. Locke,
mentioned above; John Taylor Arms
and Stow Wengenroth, who with
Alice Lee Parker, acting chief of the
division of prints and photographs,
Library of Congress, constitute the
standing committee for the purchase
of prints of the Pennell Fund.
However, one will meet many fam
Gus names and old friends in the
current show; artists whose work
has long impressed one, those re-
membered from former national
Pennell exhibitions, or who have
been introduced to Washington
recently by our National Museum S
Division of Graphic Arts, or the
Society of Washington Etchers, or
some other local gallery or profess
sional organization. On the other
hand, new artists are certainly made
welcome. Judging from the work of
some of these unfamiliar names, they
doubtless have important reputa-
tions in their own localities. But
more than half of them rang no
bells in my memory.
Thirty Purchase Prizes
Awarded to Exhibitors
The standing committee awarded
80 purchase prizes in the present
annual, amounting to a total of
s1,430-flve first prizes of s10O each,
nine second of $50 each and Is third
of $50 each. It will be noted that
the prizes are substantially larger
than the prices regularly asked by
the artists for their prints. The
objectives of the prizes are "to stim-
ulate an interest in the graphic
arts on the part of the public, and to
further the encouragement of the
artists" as we'll as to build up the
Pennell collection in the Library of
Congress by the addition of all
prints which receive awards. Among
the 80 new additions, there are not
more than two or three in contem-
porary idioms, and none estheticaIly
radical.
Not few of these prize winning
prints are puzzle pictures, in a sense,
for in an exhibition of this size, most
art lovers will find many others just
as well done technically, some of
them more beautiful or interesting
or unusual.
OF the five prints which received
first purchase prizes, Ernest Fiene' S