The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 18, 1925, Page 14

The Mexican Paintings of Maurice Becker AURICE BECKER has _ for past ten years been one of Am- erican labor’s foremost cartoonists. his water color and paintings at the the | Neumann galleries, East 57th street, New Yotk City. T always does a lot of good to one who is interested both in art and He began his work as an artist on the} revomtion, and finds it hard to disen- old Masses, that landmark in the revo.| tangle these two creative activities lutionary literature of America. Beck-}in his imnd, to visit an exhibition er contributed some of his most] such as Maurice Becker's. For here smashing and brilliant cartoons to that magazine, and he also served for a period on the New York Call, and for several years was the chief car- toonist of the I. W. W. periodicals in Chicago. IS cartoons are remembered for} er spent the last two years, their boldness, their swift, pow- erful lines, and for their whole-hearted | revolutionary fervor and understand- ing. They ranked with the best work of Robert Minor.and Boardman Rob- inson, and that is saying a great deal; in fact, it is like saying that Maurice Becker was not only in the first rank one finds that the discipline, the pas- sion and the social vision that made Maurice Becker a. labor cartoonist have helped him also in being a great artist. The paintings and water colors were all done in Mexico, where Beck- A soph- isticated Greenwich Village artist, with a contempt for workers and peasants and the strong, simple real- ities of life, could’ not have caught the spirit of Mexico as has Maurice Becker. ITH a broad human warmth he paints the faces and forms of ofthe revolution in America, but he}]the Mexican peon men and women. was also in the first rank among ‘car-| They are naive people, close to the toonists. earth and the sun, but Becker does For the past few years few car-| not regard them as merely quaint or toons have appeared from the pen of | picturesque; he is not that kind of Maurice Becker. One wondered what] an artist. He regards them as he he was doing, and now the answerf{once regarded workers in his car- comes in the form of an exhibition of] toons, as forces of nature, as human és r Rapa Machine Rhythms Featured in a Dance Satire By ESTHER LOWELL. Against a silhouetted factory back- beings, as equals. He understands these’ Mexican peons—their strength and their weakness, their childishness and maturity. He does not prettify them or sentimentalize them; he does not perfume them or pin pink ribbons on them; these are not the well- dressed poster-people in the Zulouoga paintings, for instance, but crude, sweaty, primitive folk—workers, not artists’ models. HERE has been much talk in re- cent years of proletarian art and bourgeois art. What I feel, however, is that such work as Maurice Becker’s falls somehow into the category of proletarian art. It has the glamor and solidity of truth, and it presents a whole race of peasants and workers with the simple understanding of one who is a worker and revolutionary worker himself. T is fine, massive work. Becker has learned how to make paint and brush do what he wants them to do. He has not made the mistake of so many proletarian artists of believing that technique is unimportant, -and that the spirit of a thing only mat- ters. Becker’s spirit is still proletar- ian, but he has learned the tools of his art. In some of his paintings one gets the impression of a bold young ment. Crystalline workers are shown at work against a moving light back- sround projected by the clavilux, a color organ. which projects colored lights in various evolving forms. The workers are tested for their vibrations before being permitted to attend their evening pleasures, which are mainly ground and with great cogged wheel by radio. sounds of taxis, whirring machines, designs overhead, street cars, The preliminary dance interlude of the! the evening is a medieval scene in factory girl puppets with their gray) which a group of strolling players masked faces move in the work admirably presents a miracle play in rhythms of the machine age in Soon- which King David and the Virgin er or Later, a dance satire by Irene Lewigobn., which the Neighborhood Mary themselves participate in per- son, ‘This bill of thé Neighborhood Playkoiise is producing in New York. Players, whose playhouse is in the A traffic puppet policeman motions on} iower eastside working class district one side and a puppet tailor gesticu-| ,* New York, is one of its most inter- lates. A taxi puppet droops and runs| sting The 2,000 year old Hindu his toy machine alternately. A jazz play, The Little Clay Cart, was also couple of puppets shimmy across the very attractive. James Joyce's play stage. And after the whistle blows of intellectuals in Dublin (or any- they go to their relaxation; a very| where) showed the dramatic power of much gilded revue. The peasant girls a purely mental struggle on the stage wear red, white and blue striped|;, their presentation. dresses that flash gold. This is To- day. 6 The past's rhythms are shown in a scene of a wild tribe praying and per- forming a ritual around the heads- man. The tribal workmen and women bring their offerings of work done to the headsman and dance again. The Skopp, Fine Musician But Lacks Experience to Put Concert Over Charles Skopp, the young violinist future is shown as a crystalline age,| who played a recital at Kimball Hall the result of the present highly me-|presented a far from unfamiliar pic- The Walden Book Shop 307 Plymouth Court (Between State and Dearborn Just South of Jackson) CHICAGO SRR ESS TSS SS F545 4444444 cnanical and scientific age’s develop-iture—that of the sincere, well-schooled LEARN ESPERANTO. The International Language % The following booklets are received The Esperanto Manuall...cssssusrgeseme dS First Steps in Esperanto.....ccresen2de The Esperanto Teacher... eegeove gece! Esperanto for Young Beginners........ 5¢ Textbooks of Esperanto in foreign languages, literature in Esperanto. 100 titles. WORKERS’ ESPERANTO ASSN., 525 7th St., Rockford, Il. GET A SUB AND GIVE ONE! 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Following was a long and fairly dry set of finger exercises by Bach, called a sonata but really a suite in four movements. It was unaccompanied, as are many of the Bach violin works. The unaccompanied solo is undoubted- ly the most satisfactory sort of solo, viewed from all angles, and, after Skopp had conquered his nervousness during the first movement of the son- ata, he carried it off in fine shape. The compositions that followed, all of them of less pretentious size than the first two, gave the soloist a chance to show the purity of his tone, and the light, fast touch of his. fingers and bow. He was especially good in the ballet music of Schubert’s “Rosa munde,” the chorus of dervishes in Beethoven’s “Ruins of Athens,” and encore called “The Bee.” When he grows the hardboiled shell of the experienced concertizer, Skop will be a splendid violinist. Furnishings LADIES’ MEN’S INFANTS’ Trade Where Your Money Buys the Most Martin’s 651 West North Avenue East of Halsted St. IN DETROIT. N. STOYANOFF PHARMACY 11142 Kercheval St. An Experienced Druggist Who can advise the proper remedy for results. VISIT THIS DRUGGIST If you are in a hurry, call: ; HICKORY 0892. 7 Let the DAILY WORKER make your arguments every day. Send in a Sub for your shop mates, master, slashing his way thru difficul- ties and speaking with sureness and vigor. In other paintings,.such as that of three peon figures, there is a deep emotion that comes from the roots of the tree of life. The static eternal nature of the Mexican land and the Mexican Indian have been felt here and caught in paint. IS water colors were a surprise to me. There is plways about Becker’s paintings a heavy richness, like that which steams from fresh upturned loam. But these water col- ors are full of air and delicacy; they are like the light, frangrant wind which plays above the newly polughed earth in spring. They are bright and happy in color; .the paintings glow like rich “Oriental carpets, but the water, colors’ sparkle like (morning dew. 5 * . we | AM not a ‘professional att critic, but Maurice Becker’s work always _ gives me deep emotional satisfaction, p36 I know that others find the same emotion roused in them by these deep, sincere paintings of the artist. Is that not a test of great art? What a lot of hypocrisy there is in art, and how much fake emotion a professional art critic has to pump up in the course of a year’s exhibitions! But no critic has had to perform this for Maurice Becker—his work has the appeal of all sincere and natural things—it grew in the sunlight and primitive valleys of Mexico, and those who do not like it are those who are not fond of sunlight and clean air. Maurice Becker ought to receive the congratulations of his labor friends. He has arrived as an artist, but he has lost none of the human sincerity and passion that made him a revolu- tionist. How rare that is in- America! Michael Gold. The Mass Lock-Out in Sweden — (Continued from page 1) pation of the factories, which however is disregarded by the masses. The workers wish to take up the struggle now, while the government, with the approval of the trade union bureaucrats, wishes to evade the struggle. This objective and even direct help to the capitalists and their state will destroy the democratic il- lusions of the working class., Every act of the bourgeoisie will tend to increase the influence of the Commun- ist Party of Sweden upon the masses. The.approaching struggles in Sweden and the present position of the work- ers and small peasants confronts the Communist Party of Sweden with: great tasks. The splitting off of the Hoeglund sect with its petty bour-. geois and pseudo-revolutionary phra* seology was the first step towards the: bolshevizing of the party. The strug- gles which are approaching will be a fiery test for it. The bourgeoisie and their lackeys fear the spectre of bolshevism, but the workers will re- cognize more clearly that the Com- munist Party of Sweden is their party and will fight for its slogans. ss -+ @ R. I. L. U. Send Greetings, .. ~ Moscow, March 23, 1925. . The Red International of Labor Unions has sent the following’ tele- gram into the locked-out workers of Sweden: The capitalists, strong thru their class solidarity and class conscious- ness, have declared war on you. It is the duty of every labor organization to render help to their class comrades who are being attacked by capital. The ~ Red International of Labor Unions and the General Council of the Trade Unions of the Soviet Union send you their fraternal greetings and are ready to support you to the utmost of their powers. ‘ We hope that, thanks to the disci- pline and the fighting spirit of the bloc of the Scandinavian workers, the attack of the bloc of the employers will be shattered. ; Up with the united front against the ‘attack of capital! ; Up with the unity of the trade union movement! OO RA itt ENE BERET A ABS