Evening star., 1948-02-15

Wnlcn Cne FnlllpS MeIHOfltl Sdilei9 }
of Picasso's Autographs, to remain
only through February %.
There have been four major one
man shows of his paintings within
the past 13 months in New York
City. One in November broke all
previous attendance records at
Knoedler Galleries; during the first
three weeks, 10000 people paid ad-
mission fees to see 1t (beneflting
the Public Education Association) .
Picasso's behavior during the war
aroused widespread admiration when
he was found unharmed after the
liberation. He had remained In his
beloved Paris, had refused any con-
cessions to the Nazis, which might
have brought him some luxuries and
comforts, and had instead continued
working indefatigably in his un-
heated studio or at his engraver's,
turning out prodigious quantity OF
paintings, drawings and prints.
Many of the 26 Autographs IN the
Phillips Gallery's print rooms are
dated 1947. They are not nearly so
controversial as his recent paintings
and it ought to be fairly simple for
the average visitor to identify the
subject matter in nearly all Of them.
Indeed, one print comprising several
studies of q rams head, Is tradi-
tional enough to suit the most con-
servative taste. On the other hand,
a lithograph of a bull is Simplif1ed
to the point of being Photograph.
The exhibition has several themes
with variations, in which progress
sive simplification and distortion
can be studied. Four changes have
been rung on the theme of an owl
on gatepost near, barn. There is
also a baroque court scene of foot
washing, which offers changes, some
startling, others subtle, in several
versions. There are women's heads,
all staring straight at the beholder,
one or two of them with the intent
gaze of the faces on Gracco-Egypt-
ian coffin lids, others stressing the
design of arcs, still others as appar-
emily simple as children's drawings.
One lithograph, a still life with a
skull and pitcher, repeats a theme
used in whole series of paintings
during the war years, and in
terpreted as rejecting the poverty,
hunger and death of that period.
Picasso's infinite variety" is re-
vealed in other Autographs, quite
different from the rest of the ex-
hibition: One of satyrs and lady
centaur, containing some passages
of gusty naturalism ESQ far as these
mythical creatures could be nat
uraI); and a circus and bull fight
with little figures resembling those
in South African rock paintings.
X X X
Natural History
The National Geographic Society
will open tomorrow in Explorers
Hall, Sixteenth and M streets NV.
an exhibition of natural history
paintings lent by the Travellers In
surance Co. of Hartford, Conn. The
40 in this collection were selected
from nearly three times that num-
Der which have been reproduced In
colors in the firms advertisements
in the National Geographic Maya
zine during nearly four decades.
If the color reproductions, good
as they are, could be exhibited
alongside the original oils and
water colors, they would demonstrate
vividly the great superiority of the
latter. One often hears these days
that color printing is so nearly per-
feet it rivals paintings, with the
great advantage Of being much
cheaper How fallacious this con-
tention is, one can see by COM
pairing these paintings with their
reflections" in various numbers of