THE NEW YORKER

THE ART GALLERIES

Shame, Shame, Shame,
tan What Is What in Art

Brooklyn Shows Manhattan What Is in Art
—A Flock of Offerings

T HAT LONG-
promised trek
to the Brooklyn
Museum, to see the
international ex-
hibition of modern
art, took place last
week. And it will be our great re-
gret if our delay caused our reader to
be tardy. But he will go sometime if
he cares anything at all about life, as
opposed to dead matter, and its mani-
festations through genius.

We are well aware that we can not
persuade any one to see this show un-
less he is of that faith. Yet somehow
we wish there was a law. In a week
in which we waded through the latest
Academy show we were forced to
cross the river to see that this was the
year 1926. We thought for a while
of dropping pamphlets from an air-
plane, that might break through the
skylight of the Academy, informing
the beleaguered that over Brooklyn
Bridge lies hope. But alas, we fear
that would do no good. And maybe a
mummy prefers to sleep.

But if you have children, for God's
sake, take them to the show of modern
art. It will teach them that art does
not have to be a cow in a meadow or a
man on a cross; that in art, as in life,
the horizons of life may touch in-
finity.

We did not see the Armory show.
This must be as good. Perhaps bet-
ter, there being a score more years.
Nearly all countries are represented, a
little less than half the works being
from the United States. It is a whirl-
ing, thrilling, exciting sort of thing.
There is nothing we can say about it in
the way of wordy description. We can
say that some of the canvases are not
square, that some seem to have a
fourth dimension. None of the sculp-
ture is what you have seen in gardens
or standing on golden oak stands in
the bay window. We can beg you
again to see this show if you see no
other for years. We can implore you
with the utter necessity of opening
your eyes to stirring of the new yeast
in the world. Especially if you are
a coward, have inhibitions, or have
been to an art school.

An easy road to a less abrupt jump
into the amazing show, might be to
find first the things of our own Marin,

THE NEW YORKER

Dove, Demuth, O'Keeffe, Dickinson.
Take Demuth's "Packet Boat" or
Dickinson's "Industry." These are
things of great strength, but of enough
mundane material to grasp. From them
work your way up to the Dutch—to
Gris, to Dottori, Hoerle and a dozen
others. Go back again if you do not
make it the first time. We wager you
cannot go through the show unscathed.
Not that any one care, but we were
enamored of Metzinger's "Port" and
Miro's "Study in Blue" among some
hundred others. There are enough
schools in the exhibit to satisfy any
ambition. We marvel that one me-
dium of life, so long considered an
atom, has divided and sub-divided it-
self into so many million electrons.

AFTER THE Whitney show of
flowers comes the baby show at
Knoedler of "Childhood in Art."
There are two score pictures, most of
them museum pieces, running from
Goya and Gainsborough to Whistler.
Another one of the philanthropist
shows; it is a loan exhibition and put
on evidently for the tired New
Yorker who wants his classics near at
hand. Personally we liked to study the
"Wood Gatherers" of Gainsborough
and from there jumped for a remi-
niscent kick to Greuze—he being the
idol of our mauve decade. We hope
you do not have the luck we did—
followed a young girls' school around,
headed by a gabby teacher who had
known all these artists personally, one
gathered from her remarks. Except
Goya, and he, alas, was the one artist
she would have liked to have met.

THERE IS not much use in our
reporting the winter exhibition of
the National Academy of Design. It
is just like last winter's, and the one
before that. The prizes, though, are
rotated, the one this year going to a
man who paints swell cigar-smoke.

If some flicker of genius burns in that
vast array, it would take a better de-
tector than ours to ferret it out. Hung
cheek by jowl with shining ineptitude
and repetitious sterility, the canvas of
worth would be cast into the general
gloom. As it is a matter of the spirit,
we suppose it will continue as long as
there are artists who wear gray van-
dykes and the letters N.A. mislead yo-

A S A propa-
gandist we
are one hundred
per cent. About
a year ago we
started a big thing.
We had the idea,
the typewriter and
kindly printers who brought our mes-
sage to a waiting world. We came
down early next morning to get a
good start on the mail. But there
were no letters from Otto Kahn, none
from Mr. Heckscher. And as far
as we know, that ended the great drive
for a gallery of modern art in New
York. The magnificent Brooklyn show
brings the thing out into the open
again. We have given up all hope
of letters with checks but we wonder,
in our mild way, if something can't
be done about it.

The death of John Quinn brought
a fine plan to a close. It had been
Quinn's purpose to leave his whole
collection in a gallery for the world
to see. There seem to have been no
giants since Quinn. Or they are in-
terested in giving houses to cold spar-
rows, food to Armenians or medals to
Boy Scouts. People may not like or
believe in airplanes, but every night
they fly westward with important mail
for the movie folk in Hollywood. And
we doubt very much if you can stop
a development in art by merely saying
you like the old kind. The new gen-
eration will see to that. If New York
has any sort of collective conscience
it should be ashamed that it provides
no public place for modern art to lay
its head. If Mr. Bach ever is in line
of succession at the Metropolitan, he
would be the man to recognize new
stuff. But as the supply of octogena-
rians seems exhaustless, that avenue is
closed. Katherine S. Dreier, she who
runs the Brooklyn show, is the only
hope.

The top floor of the Public Library
could be used. The chromos hanging
there could be stored for a few months
and the big room turned over to the
fireworks. Thousands pass through
there daily. The next best bet would
be the lobby of a movie palace. But
the last such gesture by the proud
movie folks was heartbreaking and we

tremble violently at that suggestion.

New Yorker
NEW YORK CITY

DEC 18 1926

THE ART
GALLERIES

Our Little Group's
Neediest Case