Evening star., 1953-12-20

Inc most interesting aspect
to me of the eighth annual
area exhibition at the Cor
coran Gallery of Art is the
marked divergence of judgment
between Messrs. Cikovsky and
Grosz and the resulting de-
feat of a gallery objective in
instituting this jury procedure.
These artists selected 1913 oil
paintings from 788 entries.
Each judged the entries irde-
pendently of each other, and
a favorable vote by either
automatically put a painting
into the show.
Hermann Warner Williams,
director of the Corcoran Gal.
lery. says in the foreword to
the exhibition catalog that
this procedure was lin the ma
ture of a test of the validity
of the jury system. For :.
if definite objective standards
for selecting paintings were the
criteria for judgment, the
jurors. despite their independ-
ence would theoretically
be in agreement on a very high
percentage of the entries"
It seems to me that it is
hardly a test of the validity
of the jury system" unless the
gallery could have gotten jurors
of demonstrated agreement of
tastes as to what constitutes
good painting. Painting in
our time has struck out in so
many directions, that practice
of the medium is an uncharted
sea. There are no concrete
standards in contemporary
painting as there were in the
Middle Ages, Renaissance and
later periods, when artists
guilds had methods of judging
which at least worked, what
ever their drawbacks.
Double Blessing
AS it turned out at the Cor
coran, only 20 per cent of the
eighth annual area shows oil
paintings on view were joint
selections at which both Jurors
arrived independently. If one
studies these 26 works with
their double blessing, in the
light of the jurors other Sc
lections, respectively, con-
fusion is worse confounded.
I revisited the oil section, and
tabulated each jurors choices
under such headings as con-
temporary idiomS, conserva-
tive, primitive and middle-of-
the-road. The results l got
confirmed my initial impress
sion that Mr.. Cikovsky's
choices were the better. He
selected almost equal numbers
of modern" or contemporary
idiom paintings, and conserva-
tive. Furthermore, his mod
ern" choices impress me as
better than Mr.. Grosz', who Sc
lected some 38 avant-garde
works as against eight con-
servative. each tapped an
equal number of primitives.)
Joint Selections
But any trends I discerned
in studying Messrs. Cikov-
sky's and Grosz' separate Sc
lections had to be discarded
when attempting to assess
their joint selections. These
range from such fine sound
conservative painting as Mary
Coyle's Girl With White
Gloves" and Margaret Gates
Empty Chairs" through Omar
Carrington's romantic st.
Lawrence Day." John Chap
man Lewis "Harbor Cranes"
and Leonard Maurer's pat
termed Port" all of them ad-
mirable, to a number of out
size, drab abstract and express
sionist paintings. 1t is sur
prising that one who approved
the former identified paint
ings, would also approve the
latter class and vice versa.
The 35 award winners open
up still another avenue of con-
lecture.
AS regards the validity of
the jury system" I remain
convinced that "'tis best to
bear the ills we have" than to
go back to the chaos and con-
fusion which reigned in the
old independent shows, where
every one with a fee could hang
his painting. and good things
were submerged in a welter of
Indifferent works and hopeless
daubs. The Corcoran (and
tn er interested galleries.
should continue to experiment
with jury procedures until
they hit on a foolproof
scheme, if such thing is pos