OPENING AT THE PLACOTHECA, 20 WEST 88TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY, RECENT PAINTINGS BY DAN HARRIS, FEBRUARY 19 TO MARCH 10, 1945.

DAN HARRIS is having his third one-man show in as many successive years at this gallery. The current exhibition attempts to combine elements predominant in each of its predecessors - pure abstraction as in the first and as in "Canaries in a Lemon Tree", where the artist gave himself over to a somewhat representational and lyrical handling of variations of that joyous theme.

In this, his third exhibition, entitled "My Enchanted House", the painter has to do with man's inner workings. The theme is a psychological figure of speech. Each of the titles tries to convey more than casual interpretation and is a sub-division of the general theme.

Mr. Harris finds himself at home anywhere and everywhere in his world and is stimulated along his journeyies by even the minutest expressions and manifestations of life about him. His "Enchanted House" is the entire of the universe, and his dwelling he carries with him always and is protected by sturdy walls thru which, oddly, may pass avenues, elements and beings, yet here he finds solitude and comfort.

"Soul Extension" evokes aspiring, religious-like emotional response, achieved thru a syncopated rhythm in color and form; another painting has a dreamlike quality of mind evoked by music and poetry. Moods are created through subtle texture, quality, color applied flatly and covering a wide range of patterns and tonal values.

There will also be exhibited a group of small paintings by the artist which are uncatalogued because they have no bearing on the theme. Many of these are concerned with beauty for its own sake and may be enjoyed for that quality alone, though lack that "inner" eye and each is a masterly work.

THE ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE OF NEW YORK

February 15, 1945

Mr. Henry McBride
New York Sun
280 Broadway
New York City

Dear Mr. McBride:

I would greatly appreciate it if you will cover the first of our
sculpture exhibitions to be held in 1945 at the Architectural
League.

It is our purpose to show the various contemporary trends in the
fields of sculpture starting with this exhibition next week and
lasting until February 26.

If you wish to cover the exhibition before February 15, you may
do so starting Monday February 12.

Attached you will find an announcement of the dinner, and names
of sculptors taking part in this exhibition.

Thanking you for past favors and trusting you will be able to be
with us, I remain

ONE FIFTEEN EAST FORTIETH STREET • NEW YORK 16, N. Y. • TELEPHONE CALEDONIA 5-8400

that knew was much in the artist's confidence in regard to her projects for painting nor knew her processes in achieving them. The pictures were shown only when finished, but when finished they were apt to be shown triumphantly in the studio to a few invited guests. The portraits in particular usually had parties given for their "debuts", the sitters being permitted to invite their own guests for this unveiling and steeling themselves in advance not only against the badinage of the portrait but also of the "assistance"; the sum total of this badinage always being considerable. The sitters, I should hastily add, never actually sat for their portraits were imaginative portrayals and sometimes exceedingly whimsical. I suppose I came nearer to sitting than most of the others for my portrait originated during a house-party given by the Stettheimers in a Seabright cottage many years ago and one evening I detected the artist over in one corner of the salon furtively jotting down presumably some of my lineaments but I was not permitted to see what hieroglyphics she had acquired nor how many - but they must have been few. At the time of this house-party the Seabright Tennis tournament was in progress and as I was, in those days, something of a player, and mad about the game, I went over each afternoon to what the sensational new Frenchmen, Borotra, and LaCoste among them) were doing. When my portrait made it's debut the next winter I was as much astonished as anybody else to find myself standing, in the picture against the background of a tennis tournament in full progress. Above, in the sky and elsewhere, were references to my aesthetic preoccupations, such as the celebrated palm-tree watercolor by Winslow Homer, the statue of "Woman by Gaston Lachaise, a watercolor by John Marin, and so on; but the heavy emphasis upon tennis in the picture was something that I had to explain away to many critics. I have scarcely yet lived that down. The heavy emphasis in Carl van Vechten's portrait was laid, properly enough, upon books, for those who knew Mr Van Vechten in the days when he lived on Fifty-fifth street, agreed that the floor-to-ceiling array of books in his library was as handsome as a tapestry and it was something of that quality that Miss Stettheimer captured for her background. For whimsy, the portrait of Marcel Duchamp was, also, properly enou

THE RIVERSIDE MUSEUM

VERNON C. PORTER, Director

MASTER INSTITUTE OF UNITED ARTS, INC.

310 RIVERSIDE DRIVE, NEW YORK CITY

ACademy 2-9180

ACademy 4-1700

EXHIBITION NOTICE

The Riverside Museum announces a change in the opening date for the exhibition by THE AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS Group from March 4 to March 11. The closing date remains April 15.

The exhibition will be open for review by art critics Monday, March 12, from 10 AM to 4 PM; thereafter, regular Museum hours, 1 to 5.

The final exhibition of the season will open April 29 and close May 27, comprising the selected work by members of the ARTISTS LEAGUE OF AMERICA. It will be a small exhibition of 100 oil paintings and 30 pieces of sculpture.

The Museum is open 1 to 5 daily. Closed Mondays. Admission is always free.

enough, "tops". Marcel, in real life, is pure fantasy. If you were to study his paintings, and particularly his art constructions, and then try to conjure up his physical appearance, you could not fail to "guess" him, for he is his own best creation, and exactly what you thought. In the portrait he is something of a Gogh. Pierrot perched aloft upon a Jack-in-Box contraption which he prods with his toe to gain greater height for his apotheosis. Among the "outside" portraits this is the best from the point of view of pure painting and this probably happened because he, more than any of the others, could be reduced to simple, paintable terms. I call them "outside" portraits for thou Miss Stettheimer did witty, colorful andkremerzy acutely observed portraits of Louis Bouche, Baron de Meyer, Joseph Hergesheimer and Virgil Thomson, she lavished much the best of her work on delineations of her own family. She did them all, her sisters, her mother and herself, many times.

The security of her home life released all her powers. Knowing herself to be immune from criticism in that quarter she dared everything in the way of technique and rounded out the highly personal method of painting that now gives her a clear claim to general attention. No other woman-painter in America, with the possible exception of Georgia O'Keeffe, has achieved so distinct a style; and in France there is Marie Laurencin; those three stand out definitely from the throng, but hailing from different planets are not to be classed together. The Stettheimer way of painting, as I have said, can only be imagined as I never saw it being done. I confess to looking at some of the new pictures years ago with skepticism for there were all sorts of unusual doing's in them not to be observed in other artists' work, and which looked impermanent. But they have lasted. In the twenty years or so that I have known them I have seen no discoloration of the pigments nor any fading; which is more than I can say for most of our American impressionist works of the same period. What disquieted me most were the thin tones washed over heavily, built-up foundations of Chinese white, and other areas of paint which looked occasionally as though they had been "poured" upon the canvas rather than brushed. But as I have said - these things have lasted - and I was needlessly

Miss Ettei Stettheimer
30 West 54 street
New York city.

Hotel Dorset.

Miss Etter Stettheimer
Hotel Dorset.
30 West 54 st.
New York city.