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AN.
Mr. Wheeler, I've seen a good deal in the papers lately about a new exhibition called "Twentieth-Century Portraits" that opened at the Museum of Modern Art last week. Is it true that this is the largest exhibition of contemporary portraits ever assembled?

MW
As far as we know, it is the largest. It includes 270 XXXXX paintings, sculptures and drawings, and it occupies fourteen galleries of the Museum.

AN.
Now could you tell us, Mr. Wheeler, what your object was in assembling this exhibition?

MW
Well, we have thought for a long time that there would be more good portraiture if people understood better what the problems of portraiture are, so we made this a comparative survey of what has been done so far in the twentieth century.

AN.
What do you mean by "comparative"?

MW
I mean that in numerous cases we show more than one portrait of the same person, done in different media, such as painting, sculpture, drawing and so forth, by different artists. There are comparative groups like this of Katharine Cornell, Lawrence of Arabia, Professor Einstein, John Dewey and many others. In some cases, we have several paintings of the same subject done by the same artist at different times, such as three by Picasso of his friend Fernande Olivier.

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AN. That's interesting. Are those portraits of many people whom I would know?

MW There are. You'll find portraits of James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, John Masefield, D. H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Anne Lindbergh, the John D. Rockefeller family, Mrs. John Hay Whitney, Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and Harpo Marx, as well as many great portraits of painters themselves, from Renoir to Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Rockwell Kent.

AN. That's a very impressive array. Who painted all these people?

MW Well, in the first place, they are not all paintings. There are portraits in marble, bronze, mosaic, tapestry; and drawings and lithographs and even photographs.

AN. Photographs! I thought this was an art exhibition.

MW But the Museum of Modern Art has always considered photography to be one of the modern arts. And in this case we have included photographs as points of reference so that the visitor to the exhibition can judge for himself to what extent the artist has attained likeness or deviated from it for reasons of his own.

AN. But what reasons could he have for not wanting to make a perfect likeness if he is painting a portrait?

MW The artist does want to make a perfect likeness, but what seems a likeness to him may seem cruelly unjust and unflattering to you. His real concern is to make a fine picture, as well as a likeness, and also to dramatize the character of the sitter in form and color. And, as he does this, the artist's personality enters into the

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picture, too.

As a matter of fact, every good portrait is a blend
of the personality of the sitter and the personality of
the painter. For this reason, portraiture must be a
kind of collaboration, with responsibility for the
results equally divided between the subject and the
artist.

AN. What do you expect the sitter to do besides sit still?

MW Physically, he can do no more than sit still. But it is his mental attitude toward the artist that affects the portrait. If he is genuinely enthusiastic about the artist's work in general, and if he is more eager to have a good work of art than a corroboration of what he sees in the mirror, the result is bound to be more successful. This sympathetic point of view on his part liberates the artist's skill and imagination, so that he feels free to design and compose an honest and personal portrayal of his subject.

I think the surest way for a sitter to ruin a portrait
is to cling to some preconceived notion of his appearance.
The truth is that another person can often see in us
aspects of our personality and character which we ourselves
never see. We never really know how we look to others.

AN. Maybe that's a good thing.

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MW

It probably is. But I can tell you a story of how an important portrait of a president of the United States disappeared forever because of a conventional preconception of what it should have been. In 1877 the Union League of Philadelphia commissioned Thomas Eakins, one of our very greatest American painters, to paint a portrait of the then President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes. It was midsummer, so Eakins moved his easel into the presidential office and painted President Hayes as he sat working at his desk in his shirt sleeves. When the members of the Union League saw the picture, they were disappointed and shocked by its informality. They refused to hang the portrait in their clubrooms, and eventually it was destroyed or lost. Fifteen years after Hayes' death, people realized what an important work of art had been lost, and Eakins was asked to re-paint him from memory. He attempted to do so, but the work was naturally a failure.

I know one important American artist -- Arshile Gorky -- who ceased to paint portraits for years because he was so shocked by something that a sitter said. He was painting a portrait of a beautiful young lady. After he had spent several sittings working out the composition and was about to begin on the head, the young lady suddenly said to him, "Now when you come to the mouth, I want you to let me do it, because I do it every morning and know just how it's got to be." Gorky was so horrified by this proposal that he could not finish the portrait and painted only abstractions for several years.

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Curiously enough, many artists have told me that people seem to be vainest about their mouths, and the expression of the mouth comes in for more criticism than any other feature. Indeed, the great American painter, John Singer Sargent, who is represented in our exhibition of Twentieth-Century Portraits by the fine portrait of Mrs. Fiske Warren and her daughter, once told one of his friends that he would like to have engraved on his tombstone five words which he had heard from almost everyone he ever painted, and which were probably going to cause his death: "There's something about the mouth."

My idea of the perfect sitter for a portrait-painter is W. Somerset Maugham, whose portrait by Joseph Hirsch was finished just in time to be included in the exhibition. Maugham told Hirsch that he did not want a dull, conventional portrait, and that he was free to do whatever he liked. The result is extraordinarily fine, and though it is far from a photographic likeness, it is a character portrayal of great skill and brilliance.

AN.

Is Mr. Hirsch a professional portrait painter?

MW

No, he is not. Most of his paintings are landscapes and generalized figures.

AN.

Well, do you mean that it is not necessary for an artist to be a portrait-painter in order to paint a good portrait?

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MW Yes, I do. I think that in general it is true that any really good artist can paint a good portrait if he is sufficiently interested in the personality of the sitter. As you will see in our exhibition, almost all of the significant artists of our time are represented by portraits, most of which are of their own families and close friends. This bears out again the importance of compatibility between the artist and his subject.

AN. Now, Mr. Wheeler, suppose I wanted to have my portrait painted by a good modern artist; how would I go about it?

MW Well, first I would have to ask you a question: do you want a flattering likeness that will increase your own self-esteem, or do you want an interesting work of art based on sincere character portrayal?

AN. Suppose I say I want both?

MW I think I can assure you that you are very unlikely to get both.

AN. In that case, I suppose I'd better take the interesting work of art.

MW I think you would be wise to do so, because time shows us that flattering portraits do not wear very well. And it also shows us that portraits which did not seem flattering to the sitters at the time they were made have come to be considered wonderfully fine after the subject and his friends have had time to appreciate the extent of the artist's penetration and the fidelity with which he has recorded certain fundamental characteristics.

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AN. How should I select my artist?

MW
My advice would be to go to the artist you most admire,
make friends with him if you can, and convince him of
the fact that you like his work so much that you would
be delighted to have a portrait done in his particular
manner. Then, when he paints your picture, he will not
be inhibited by constant fear that you will not like what
he is doing. The other thing that you can contribute is
patience. Gertrude Stein sat to Picasso ninety times
for one portrait, and it was well worth it.

AN. Have you any portraits by Picasso in your exhibition?

MW
Yes, we have nine, ranging from a portrait painted in
what is called his blue period, through a cubist portrait
classic
of Henry Kahnweiler painted in 1910, a portrait of
his wife painted in 1923, and an extremely distorted
portrait of his friend Dora Maar painted in 1937.

AN. And now, Mr. Wheeler, many of us will be visiting your
portrait exhibition. Won't you mention some of the pictures
that you think we should look for?

MW
Well, there are beautiful Renoir portraits of Madame Tilla
Durieux and Frau Thurneyssen, and a portrait by Renoir of
Frau Thurneyssen's son as a Greek shepherd. Then there
is a brilliant portrait of Duret by Vuillard, which hangs
beside a painting of the same man done thirty years
earlier by Whistler. There is also John Sloan's
celebrated painting of John Butler Yeats at the Petitpas
Restaurant with a number of his friends, including

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Mr. Van Wyck Brooks, the author of *THE FLOWERING OF NEW ENGLAND*, and Alan Seegar, the author of *I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH*. Matisse is represented by eight works, including a magnificent stylized portrait of Mlle. Yvonne Landsberg. You will find Rousseau's unforgettable portrait of Joseph Brummer; two family portraits by Marcel Duchamp which have never been shown in New York before; Chagall's great portrait of the Rabbi of Vitebsk, from the Art Institute of Chicago, and his amusing portrait of himself balanced rather precariously on the shoulders of his wife; also Grant Wood's famous "American Gothic," which is a portrait of his sister and his dentist. There is also a group of three self-portraits in pencil, crayon and bronze, of the tragic Kaethe Kollwitz. There are, too, fine works by two very important but little-known American artists, Alfred Maurer and Florine Stettheimer. Two other fine paintings are by Franklin Watkins, a Philadelphia painter who is certainly one of the best living portraitists. There are two strong, original portraits by Marsden Hartley, and three heads of Hartley himself by the great French sculptor, Jacques Lipchitz.

AN,

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for pointing out the high spots. What impression do you think one should carry away from this exhibition as a whole?

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MW
I don't think anyone can leave the exhibition without feeling that portraiture today is tremendously exciting, and that there is no dearth of artists who can do wonderful portraits of us all if they are properly approached.

AN.
ARE there any other exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art that can be seen now?

MW
Yes -- four of them -- in addition to our daily film program. You can see over 200 original war posters which are the result of a great national competition sponsored by Artists for Victory, the Council for Democracy, USA the Museum of Modern Art, the Office of Civilian Defense, and the Office of War Information. The O W I has asked all visitors to this exhibition to cast ballots for the posters that make them want to do more to help win the war. Then the Museum's Department of Industrial Design has an exhibition called "Useful Objects in Wartime" which is a selection of well designed modern objects selling for ten dollars or less. This is especially prepared for people who want guidance in their Christmas shopping, and there are special sections devoted to gifts that soldiers and sailors have asked for.

On our third floor you will find not only the Museum's great permanent collection, but a special, continuous holiday festival of children's art, where children are encouraged to paint, draw, play games, solve puzzles etc. Under special supervision. I think we can guarantee you an exciting afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art for people of any age from three years up.

AN. How can our listeners find out what movies you will show on any particular day?

Our programs are listed in CUE and THE NEW YORKER and also in the motion picture columns of the daily papers. And we shall be very glad to send anyone who writes in to this station the entire printed schedule of our programs. Just send us a postcard and you will receive this schedule, around October 1st. Also if you have any questions about the Museum which you would like answered on succeeding programs, please write them in either to this station or to the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York.

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AN. Our listeners sometimes want copies of a broadcast. Is there any way they can get them?

Yes. We shall be glad to send any interested listener a mimeographed copy of this broadcast if they will send us 10 cents to cover costs. Members of the Museum, however, may obtain a copy of the broadcast free.