Radio Talk over WJZ - Jan. 25th - 1937 - 5 to 5.30
Let's Talk It Over - with Anne Hard - Mrs. William Hard.

Mrs. Hard:

Here in New York last week there was a showing at The Museum of Modern Art of the work of Modern Abstract painters. In an adjacent room there were hung some pictures by children and what we call insane people. Among the distinguished Modernists whose works were exhibited, was Katherine S. Dreier - who also loaned some works by other Modernist from the collection of The Societe Anonyme, whose president she is.

Miss Dreier was so outraged that she withdrew all eight items and thereby stepped into last week's news.

Known as a realistic painter before the war, author of a book called - Western Art and the New Era - Miss Dreier became even more widely known as one of the founders of the Société Anonyme along with her friend Duchamp (who you remember painted the Nude Descending the Stairs) and as a constant exhibitor and collector on her own account. She is one of four painters whose works are now being shown at Wells College, going to Phillips at Andover, the Chicago Arts Club and San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, during the coming months.

So now having stepped into the news, Miss Dreier consented also to step into the Studio so that we can ask her what this Abstract Art is all about.

Hard: You were just saying to me Miss Dreier, something about the laws of art. Are there such things?

Dreier:

Yes indeed. I should say there were three major laws - Balance - the adjustment of color and rhythm. But all art of all schools - is the expression of the relationship of form in space.

Hard:

But you Abstract painters take color and make forms in space that seems pretty wild and crazy to a good many people. What is the difference between a sketch by an Ultra Modernist and one by an insane person?

Dreier:

Pictures painted by an unbalanced person are unbalanced pictures. The mad are not adjusted and the pictures of the mad are not adjusted. And show it.

There must be conscious co-ordination between the hand and brain. The mad may produce the fantastic but they cannot produce art.

Hard: You have seen many pictures by the Insane?

Dreier:

Yes indeed. I went into the subject extensively with Dr. Prinzhorn in Germany - a specialist in the field - and I reached the conclusion that art is conscious co-ordination of the hand and brain based on the laws of art.

Imagination and fantasy may produce a picture but they alone

D.16

cannot produce art.

Hard:

But if you just saw some pictures hanging on the wall - could
you tell the difference?

Dreier:

I am sure I could. Perhaps the average person couldn't.
That is why the whole Modern Movement is so strange to them

Hard: Well how should we look at pictures of your school?

Take that canvas of yours with a question mark in one corner
and a lightening in another - -

Dreier: Ah! You have seen that in a private collection. All students
of chemistry are impressed by that picture.

The difference between Modern Art and the past - is - that
the Past made definite statements - precise and complete -
whereas we play with the imagination of the beholder.

Hard: An expression of our Times?

Dreier:

I believe that our whole group whose art grew during the War
when International Bounderies were closed, proved that it was
an expression of our Times. For example the widest international
exhibition ever held was brought by us to the Brooklyn Museum
in 1926 - representing the works from 23 countries.

Just as Giotto in the 13th Century broke with the traditions
of the Byzantine Art, because he had to express the growing
love of Humanity, so we have broken with the past out of our
consciousness of our own day.

But as we continue to value Byzantine Art, so we value this
so called art of the early primitives up to our Times.

They all have a place and we think that we have a place too
Our place is a much closer drawing together of the Arts of
Painting and Music. Just as we no longer expect to hear natural
sounds in music but enjoy a combination of sounds with intervals
so a growing number of people enjoy the combination of color
as well as the intervals of forms in space.

Hard: And simply keeping on looking will help me to understand it?

Dreier:

Absolutely that is why I am saddened by anything which may drive
people away from studying new forms in Art.

Hard: But these Abstract things - I seem to get them at a glance!

Dreier:

That is a wrong conception, based perhaps on the fact that this
is a new language. Just as tourists in China think that all
Chinese look alike!

Hard:

But those empty canvases - there is nothing to look at!

Dreier:

That is something of a bombshell! For we think that there is

P.18

Dreier continues:

a great deal to look at. For the first time in the history
of painting color is an inherent part of the picture. The
old masters painted color within outline of a form.

Hard: Oh! A thought! You mean that color became something in
itself aside from form?

Dreier:

Yes. Exactly like sound.

Another thing, the tragedy of the average American is that
he - or - she - is not interested in humor in art - or does
not expect it when looking at the new forms and at a
juxtaposition of planes and forms. Humor is so far from
their minds when they look at modern art that there is no
response. Take the new phase of Maris, for example now being
shown at An American Place. Stieglitz tells me that few
understand it. Or Picasso - who gets little response from
Americans for his paintings that contain humor. The French
understand quickly - -

Hard: The French are better?

Dreier: The French are Art-Conscious -- the most of any people in
the Western World. I think that we should emphasize how
little Art Conscious we are as a Nation! We are only
beginning to be picture conscious - -

Hard: I am going to try again, Miss Dreier! You have helped me
and you have certainly stimulated me - to look at pictures
of Abstract Art with a whole series of question marks and
an open - if not a vacant mind!!

The Société Anonyme was organized in 1920 to establish a center
who intelligently stood for Modern Art and to preserve the new
forms of XX Beauty appearing in Art and to foster a general
understanding regarding them.

You can only do this if you have a deep and profound love for
these new forms appearing in art.

The whole movement is far too new to already present it from an
historical angle as is constantly being done at The Museum of
Modern Art - 1929.

But what I am most conscious of in connection with the Museum

WJZ

LET'S TALK IT OVER

( )( )
5:00 - 5:30 P.M.

JANUARY 25, 1937

MONDAY

(SIGNATURE)

KITCHELL: Let's Talk It Over! We missed our usual parley last week, but we're back today with a prize-award announcement as fresh as a new penny leaving the mint, a bit of reminiscence from the past, and our usual summary of world events.

The announcement concerns the winners of the 14 Prize Awards of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors and will be made by Mrs. Thelma Cudlip Grosvenor Whitman, wife of the former Governor of New York State; Allan Ross MacDougall, a true Scotsman, has ferreted out for us some interesting data about that immortal poet of Scotland, Bobbie Burns; and, of course, the clear-sighted, sagacious Anne Hard is our commentator.

May I now present Mrs. Thelma Cudlip Grosvenor Whitman, herself an artist, who will tell you about the annual exhibition of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors and for the first time reveal the names of the fourteen prize winners.

Mrs. Whitman.

-2-

MRS. WHITMAN: There's a stimulating treat in store for those of you who live near New York, and can visit the 46th Annual Exhibition of our National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors at the American Fine Arts Building, 215 West 57th Street. The collection of paintings in oil and water color, the black and white or graphic section and the works of the sculptors will make you proud to be a woman. This Exhibition of art was selected by a jury chosen from our membership which includes artists from forty-four states of the union, from Canada, Mexico, Germany and England.

While the work of women artists is no longer excluded from the important art events of the country, we continue to show once a year as a group, in order to further stimulate interest in and raise the standards of art. We believe that the interest of the artists and the public is heightened by the awarding of prizes for each of the classified media - oil, water color, graphic and sculpture. This year there have been fourteen prizes donated, and we want to thank those who so generously offered these awards.

There are three prizes for sculpture; The first, second and third Anna Hyatt Huntington Prizes of $250, $150, and $100 each.

I take great pleasure in announcing that:

ANNOUNCER: The first ANNA HYATT HUNTINGTON PRIZE of $250 for Sculpture has been awarded to:

MRS. WHITMAN: SYLVIA KODIBANOFF of Wilton, Connecticut, for "END OF SUMMER".

-3-

ANNOUNCER: The second ANNA HYATT HUNTINGTON PRIZE for Sculpture of $150 goes to:

MRS. WHITMAN: MARION SANFORD of Warren, Pennsylvania, for "DIANA".

ANNOUNCER: The third ANNA HYATT HUNTINGTON PRIZE for Sculpture of $100 goes to:

MRS. WHITMAN: LILLIAN SWANN, of New York City, for "LIONS".

ANNOUNCER: Congratulations to the sculptors, and now for the prizes for painting.

The MARY HILLS GOODWIN PRIZE of $200 has been awarded to:

MRS. WHITMAN: RUTH STARR ROSE of Caldwell, New Jersey, for "THE TWILIGHT QUARTETTE".

ANNOUNCER: The CELINE BAEKELAND PRIZE of $150 for American Landscape has been given to:

MRS. WHITMAN: MIRIAM MCKINNIE of Edwardsville, Illinois, for "THE CIDER PRESS".

ANNOUNCER: The LARKIN PRIZE of $100 has been awarded to:

MRS. WHITMAN: BIANCA TODD of New York City, for "CLARINETS".

ANNOUNCER: The MARCIA BRADY TUCKER PRIZE of $100 has been given to:

MRS. WHITMAN: LENA CURR of New York City, for "SNOWY VISTAS".

ANNOUNCER: The DE FOREST PRIZE for Decorative Painting of $100. has been awarded to:

MRS. WHITMAN: IDA TEN EYCK O'KEEFFE of Wisconsin, now of New York City, for "MY TABLE."

ANNOUNCER: The COOPER PRIZE of $100 goes to:

MRS. WHITMAN: BEATRICE EDGERLY of Trenton, New Jersey, for "SUNSHADE AND SUNFLOWERS".

ANNOUNCER: The MARJORIE R. LEIDY MEMORIAL PRIZE of $100 for Water color has been awarded to:

-4-

MRS. WHITMAN: FRANCES FAILING of Indianapolis, Indiana, for "LLAMBERIS PASS, WALES."

ANNOUNCER: The EDITH PENMAN MEMORIAL PRIZE of $50 for Flower Painting has been awarded to:

MRS. WHITMAN: MARGARET HUNTINGTON of New York City for "STILL LIFE."

ANNOUNCER: The LINDSEY MORRIS STERLING PRIZE of $50. for Water color goes to:

MRS. WHITMAN: MARY AUBREY KEATING of San Antonio, Texas, for "LAUNDRY".

ANNOUNCER: The OLIVE NOBLE PRIZE of $50 for Miniature has been awarded to:

MRS. WHITMAN: ALMA H. BLISS of New York City for "IN PENSIVE MOOD".

ANNOUNCER: The POPULAR VOTE PRIZE of $15. has been awarded to:

MRS. WHITMAN: __________ of __________ for __________.

Congratulations to you, my artist confreres! You are not eligible to receive the same prize next year, but you may receive a prize of another class. Good afternoon, and good luck!

-5-

KITCHELL: Before introducing Allen Ross MacDougall, whom we have asked to speak about Robert Burns, the Ploughboy Poet of Scotland whose birthday we celebrate today, I would like to sing for you a song that Burns wrote about himself - "Rantin' Rovin' Robin".

(SONG: KITCHELL "RANTIN' ROVIN' ROBIN")

KITCHELL: Mr. MacDougall told me, when we spoke of this program that it's women who should pay particular tribute to Robert Burns. This remark piqued my curiosity, as it probably does yours. I'll let Mr. MacDougall tell you why he said what he did. Mr. MacDougall.

-7-

MACDOUGALL: (Cont'd)

Or the same blade turning up the nest of a field mouse
could inspire Burns to write the heart-breaking poem
whose lines about "the best-laid schemes of mice and
men" you all know. He could write of a haggis or a
louse. The streams and burns; the flowering fields and
wooded hills of his native land and the procession of
the seasons are all celebrated in his lilting verse. At
the age of fifteen he fell in love and wrote his first
love-poem. And from that time, on through the next
two decades of his brief life span His Muse never
deserted him; Poetry poured forth with joy and sorrow,
love and laughter; during the long back-breaking hours
of heavy farm labour or in his lighter duties as Excise
officer. With his Muse he forgot all else. It is
told of him that when he was composing one of his poems
--Tam O'Shanter, I think -- he walked along the river
in Dumfries passing his wife and children without
seeing them, "his brow flushed and his eyes shining".
"I wish you could have seen him," said his wife; "he
was in such ecstacy that the tears were happin doon
his cheeks".

And if we are ever tempted to dwell too long
on his few missteps we should remember rather that
ecstacy and the pure poetry it brought forth, Let us
remember the "Cottar's Saturday Night" The songs to
"Highland Mary" -- "Thou lingering star of lessing ray
that loves to greet the early morn....." (MORE)

-8-

MACDOUGALL: (Cont'd)

"Tam O' Shanter" "Auld Lang Syne" "The Jolly Beggers" and all the others. Let us recall all the simple folk-songs which having come from the poet's heart wing right into ours.

It is an unhappy thought to recall that the poet's career was so brief. Weakened by a life of constant toil and strain, made feeble by disease he took to his deathbed in his little house in the Wee Vennel in Dumfries on July 21st, 1796 -- thirty-five years after he had been born in the village of Alloway near Ayr. A hundred years after his death they raised an elaborate mausoleum to him in Dumfries. The poets of the world paid him tribute at that time and the Earl of Roseberry made a speech whose words may serve to end this brief tribute now:

> His death revived the flagging interest that
> had been felt for him. As usual men began to realize
> what they had lost when it was too late. When it was
> known that he was dying the townspeople had shown
> anxiety and distress. They recalled his fame and forgot
> his fall....The district set itself to prepare a public
> funeral for the poet who died penniless among them.
> A vast concourse followed him to his grave. And while
> the procession wended its gloomy way, as if no element
> of tragedy were to be wanting, his widow's hour of
> travail arrived, and she gave birth to the hapless
> child that had caused the father so much misgiving. In
> this place and on this day it all seems present to us --
> the house of anguish, the thronged churchyard, the
> weeping neighbors. (MORE)

(MUSIC OVER
THIS -----
SCOTCH
MEDLEY)

-9-

MACDOUGALL: (Cont'd)

(MUSIC OVER
THIS------
SCOTCH
MEDLEY)

We feel ourselves part of the mourning crowd. We hear
those dropping volleys and the muffled drum; we bow
our heads as the coffin passes, and acknowledge with
tears the inevitable doom. Pass, heavy hearse, with
thy weary freight of shattered hopes and exhausted
frame: pass with thy simple pomp of fatherless bairns
and sad, moralizing friends; pass with the sting of
death to the victory of the grave; pass with the
perishable, and leave us the eternal.........

KITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Macdougall for that lovely tribute to Robert Burns. And of all his homely verse and lilting songs surely there is none better fashioned for eternity than the supreme love song, MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE.

-10-

(SONG: "MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED RED ROSE"--KITCHELL)

KITCHELL: As always, we are glad to say "Here is Anne Hard" - today with a guest, who has had a place in the news recently - but I won't tell you about that. Mrs. Hard will introduce her later.

-11-

MRS. HARD:

News is in the making over this week-end --- all observers agree, in the "private and personal" visit of Mr. Walter Runciman, the head of the British Board of Trade, to the White House. Not a Cabinet Member, energetic, two-fisted Mr. Runciman is nevertheless one of the most important public men in the British Isles and he was among those called into the private parleys of the Cabinet anent the ticklish business of the Royal Marriage in December. Such "private and personal" visits at the White House have in the past been followed by announcements of international importance. Now, observers are waiting to see what this particular news will be.

---

The proposal for a possible embargo upon American exports other than munitions as a means of preserving American neutrality, has aroused a storm of discussion. Many leading students of the subject and advocates of Peace, point out that our experience in the Great War -- before our entrance -- clearly showed that what on the face of it is a mere negation is actually taking sides with one of the belligerants. For the reason that (as Liddell Hart says in his new history of the War,) all modern warfare on a large scale becomes one of attrition so that to prevent imports into a country which is deficient in natural resources is actually to wage war upon that country. (MORE)

-12-

MRS. HARD: (Cont'd)

The effect of blocking imports into Germany in the late
War is the great case in points. Two practical
suggestions are made for another policy -- that of
"Trade at your Own Risk." War time Insurance rates
become high but nevertheless Insurance is carried by
commercial shipping. The Trader in turn receives such
a high price that he can cover that Insurance. If this
new national attitude were sufficiently publicized --
as of course it could and would be -- would it be
possible to arouse the war spirit among us if American
ships happened to be sunk? That is the question and
it is a question which I am very keen indeed to hear
from you about. Won't you tell me what you think?

This is -- if ever there was one -- a woman's
question.

- - -

I was reading the latest novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim
last week and at the same time following the news of the
latest Russian Soviet Trial. One by one the most famous
men of the first days of the Russian Revolution -- names
of Lenin's intimates who made the Revolution -- have
been popping into the news for a second's glance as they
went to miserable and execrated death. The newest world-
known name is that of Carl Radek--world famous Soviet
journalist. All are accused of the basest intrigues
with Fascist governments against the very system which
they helped to make. Something is very wrong and very
strange somewhere but you and I have no possible means
of knowing the truth about it all. (MORE)

-13-

MRS. HARD: (Cont'd)

And I -- in trying to get clearly in mind the official statements found myself thinking I was reading the Oppenheim melodrama....It was all pretty confusing. It won't be so funny for Radek--and those sixteen others, however when they meet that death which everyone knows awaits them at the end of this "trial."

Standing before a thousand of the Retail Merchants in annual convention here in New York last week, was a shy, gentle woman who confessed to fifty-one years of age. As she received rounds of applause and first prize for salesmanship, Florence M. Schwartz said: "I love my job!" Hers was simply the publicized story out of thousands of similar cases you and I have heard of since the Depression began, in which women who have never worked outside their home before in their lives, have stepped out into the working world in their late forties or fifties and made good. Mrs. Schwartz began at forty-nine. And her story points up the report just issued by the Woman's Bureau -- a most interesting study of women who are both homemakers and at the same time employed outside their homes. (You can get this report for yourselves by writing the Bureau. It states that about half-a-million women are the *only* wage earners for the family. They are usually older women; very seldom do our women leave young children to work outside but a large number of us do add work inside our homes to our regular domestic duties.)

-14-

MRS. HARD: (Cont'd)

Breath-taking nearly as the event itself is the mere thought of the achievement last week of Howard Hughes in flying from Los Angeles to Newark in slightly less than seven hours and a half. Dr. T.P. Wright, however, Engineer of the Curtis-Wright Corporation, was not affected that way. Hughes' speed, he pointed out, was a mere 333-1/3 miles an hour and he predicted that regular transport planes could soon equal that while racing planes would reach as high as 500 miles an hour, recalling the nearly 424 miles an hour reached last year by the Italian pilot, Francesco Agello.

---

Mahatma Ghandi's spiritual humility now demands that we no longer call him "Mahatma" -- "great-souled" -- but "Scavenger." For some understanding of the loftiness of Indian philosophy, let me commend to you a new book by Mark Channing, entitled "India Mosaics."...The record of a British Army officer who is also a poet, a philosopher and a lover of India. And, speaking of new books, there is one just out which touches us more closely and is in the actual stream of our own events. The author is the well-known lawyer, Morris Ernst -- whom many of you heard over this station the other night. A vivid story of the Supreme Court and the Constitution in the making, full of personality pictures and much besides, -- called "The Ultimate Power." Mr. Ernst is a lively writer--author of "Hold Your Tongue" though he seldom holds his own. (MORE)

-15-

MRS. HARD: (Cont'd)

He is one of the few men who have both solid knowledge and a gay way of telling what he thinks. His hobby is building furniture; he lets his wife work because she likes teaching and he and she and their three children are all expert sailors.

Here in New York, last week, there was a showing at the Museum of Modern Art of the work of Modern "Abstract" painters. In an adjacent room, there were hung some pictures made by children and by what we call "insane" people. Among the distinguished Modernists whose works were exhibited, was Miss Katherine Dreier -- who also loaned some works by other Modernists from her own private collection. Miss Dreier was so outraged that she withdrew all the eight items of her own and other works -- and thereby stepped into last week's news. Known as a realistic painter before the War, author of a book called "Western Art in the New Era" Miss Dreier became even more widely known as one of the founders of the "Societe Anonyme" -- along with her friend Duchamps (who, you remember painted The Nude Descending a Staircase!) and as a constant exhibitor and collector on her own account. She is one of four painters whose works will be seen at Wells College, Phillips Andover, the Chicago Fine Arts and the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum during the coming weeks. So now, having stepped into the news, Miss Dreier consented also to step into the Studio so that we can ask her what this Abstract Art is all about -- (MORE)

-16-

HARD: You were just saying to me, Miss Dreier, something about the "laws of Art." Are there such things?

DREIER: Yes, indeed. I should say there were three major laws--Balance, the adjustment of color, and rhythm. But all Art --of all Schools,--is an expression of the relationship of forms in space.

HARD: But you "abstract painters" takes color and make forms in space that seem pretty wild and crazy to a good many people. What is the difference between a sketch by an Ultra Modernist and one by an insane person?

DREIER: Pictures painted by an unbalanced person are unbalanced pictures. The Mad are not adjusted and the pictures of the Mad are not adjusted -- and show it. There must be co-ordination between the hand and brain. The Mad may produce the Fantastic -- but they cannot produce Art!

HARD: You've seen many pictures by the Insane?

DREIER: Yes, indeed. I went into the subject extensively with Dr. Prinzhorn in Germany -- a specialist in the field --and I reached the conclusion that Art is *conscious* co-ordination of hand and brain, *Imagination and fantasy* may produce a picture but they can *NOT* make Art.

HARD: But if you just saw some pictures hanging up, could you tell the difference?

DREIER: I am sure I would. Perhaps the average person wouldn't. That's why the whole Modern movement is so strange to them.

-17-

HARD: Well, how _should_ we look at pictures of your school?
Take that canvas of yours with a question mark in one
corner and a zig-zag of lightning in another --

DREIER: (INTERRUPT) Ah! You've seen that private collection.
All students of chemistry are impressed by that picture.
The difference between Modern Art and the Past, is,
that the Past made _definite_ statements -- precise and
complete -- whereas we make merely the suggestion, which
plays with the imagination of the beholder.

HARD: An expression of our Times?

DREIER: I believe that our whole group which grew up during
the War, when international boundaries were closed,
proved that it was an expression of our times. For
example, the widest international exhibition ever held
was that we brought to the Brooklyn Museum in 1926 --
representing the work of twenty-three countries.
Just as Giotto in the thirteenth century broke with the
traditions of Byzantine Art because he had to express
the growing love of Humanity, so we have broken with
the Past out of our consciousness of our own Day.

But as the Past continued to value Byzantine Art, so
we value this Intermediate Art. They all have a place--
and we think we have a place, too. Our place is a much
closer drawing together of the Arts of Painting and
Music. Just as we no longer expect to hear natural
sounds in music but enjoy a combination of sounds with
intervals, so a growing number of people enjoy the
combination of color and the intervals of color and the
intervals of forms in space --

-18-

HARD: And simply keeping-on-looking will help me to understand it --?--

DREIER: (COME IN FAST) Absolutely. That is why I am saddened by anything which may drive people away from studying new forms in Art.

HARD: But these "Abstract" things -- I seem to get them in one glance!

DREIER: That is a wrong conception, based perhaps on the fact that this is a new language. Just as tourists in China think that all Chinese look alike!

HARD: But those empty canvases -- There's nothing to look at!

DREIER: That's something of a bomb-shell! For we think there's a great deal to look at. For the first time in the history of painting, color is an *inherent* part of the picture. The Old painters *simply inserted* color within the outline of a form.

HARD: Oh! A thought! You mean that color becomes something in itself, aside from the form?

DREIER: Yes. Exactly like sound. Another thing, the tragedy of the average American is that he -- or she -- is not interested in humor -- or doesn't expect humor -- when looking at a juxtaposition of planes and forms. Humor is so far from their minds when they look at modern paintings that there is just no response. Take the new phase of Marin, for example. Stieglitz tells me that few understand it. Or Picasso -- who gets little response from America for his paintings that contain humor. The French understand it quickly --

HARD: The French are better?

-19-

DREIER:

(COME IN QUICKLY) The French are Art-Conscious -- the
most so, of any people in the world. I think we should
emphasize how little Art Conscious we are -- as a
Nation! We are beginning to be Picture-Conscious --

HARD:

I am going to try again, Miss Dreier! You have helped
me and you certainly have stimulated me -- to look at
pictures of Abstract Art with a whole series of
question marks and an open -- if not a vacant--mind!

-20-

KITCHELL: Our orchestra under Josef Honti's direction playing:

(ORCHESTRA: "_______________________________")

KITCHELL: It will be a great honor for us to next week : present the Signora Olivia Rossetti Agresti, spokesman and official interpreter for Italy. Margaret Norton, our other guest will help you with your winter vacation problem, if you are fortunate enough to have been able to consider this a problem. Until then, this is Alma Kitchell saying "Au Revoir".

THIS IS THE BLUE NETWORK OF THE NATIONAL BROADCASTING
COMPANY, RCA BUILDING, RADIO CITY.

/nc

1/25/37