Evening star., 1961-10-22

GAoSS 0CdIu III 1870. lie
community center show is
good because it demonstrates
anew that Hartley was a ma
jor American, a fact easily
obscured in the American
art events of the last decade
and a half. More important,
the show can introduce
Hartley to many who were
not, perhaps, much aware of
art at all at the time of the
Phillips memorial exhibition.
Hartley Pictures
The IS pictures offer a
fine survey of the artists
production from about 1907
to the year or so before his
death. This, to be sure, is due
to a stroke of luck. The CEN
ter telephoned Hudson D.
Walker, New York, the key
American Hartley collector,
for some pictures and Mr..
Walker sent 20. Behind the
luck, however, are the brains
to know where the HartleyS
were and the initiative to
ask for them. The extent of
the Walker collection of
Hartleys can be judged from
the fact that a Walker-Hart-
ley show has been touring
Europe for some time under
the auspices of the American
Federation of Arts and the
20 pictures now in Washing
ton were left over from that
enterprise.
Anyhow, the center knew
where the Hartleys were and
did ask for them. You'd be
amazed at how many prime
quality exhibitions could be
had by following the same
simple procedure.
Through November rs
Besides the Walker pic
lures, the show has five
paintings from the Washing
ton collection of Mr.. and
Mrs. Lawrence j. Heller. The
rest are from two New York
galleries. The show will be
at the Center through No
vember 26 and you don't
have to be a member to 60
and see it.
The standard line about
Hartley is that he knocked
about the world of art the
way he knocked about the
world of geography and never
found his own" style until
he got back to his own back
yard-the State Of Maine
just like the song says. In
a way this is true. He was
on to German ExpreSsionism,
for instance. long before
many Americans, or most
Germans for that matter.
And the show at the Center
is full of pictures that, at
first glance, are anything but
what we call today Hart
. leys." These are readily
identifiable as dealing, in the
first place. with the rugged
Maine land or coast, and do
ing so, in the second place,
in a rough manner quite as
rugged as the subject. Yet
, the show also suggests that
we may be limiting the word
, Hartley" too much; that the
proper authority as to what
. constitutes a Hartley ought
to be Hartley, not US.
The Best of Hartley
The show has 10 or more
pictures from the last decade
of the artists life, when the
going, artistically, was good.
Among them is a Water
. fall" that sums up what we
regard as the best Of Hartley.
The dark rocks are brown
and look black; the water
is blue and looks white. The
structure is as solid as a
pyramid, which. in fact, it
loosely resembles. Close to,
the picture looks as if the
artist had discovered how to
make water stand still, had
built a new architecture out
Of the white of flowing
water. From across the room
the water flows like Niagara.
The picture is a masterpiece
and the essence of Hartley.
Out in another room at
at the Center is a smaller
picture of a waterfall, painted
about 1907 and obviously
aware of Fauvism. The col
ors are right out of the set
ting sun and put on in broad,
thick strokes. The waterfall
and the dazzle of autumn
are united in the ribbed
structure of paint.
Not the Maine Scene
Again, the show has a still
life of 1929, in which apples
and pears, resting on a rum
pied cloth, glow with the light
of a summerful of sun.
Again, not a Hartley" in
the Maine sense, but a gor-
geous picture.
There are several of the
fishermen pictures based on
Hartley's stay in Newfound-
land, including the first ver-