Evening Star Newspaper, March 2, 1930, Page 103

-— — O NOTABLE exhibition of paintings by cotemporary Canadian artists will open with a private view and reception in the Corcoran Gallery of Art next Saturday evening. This exhibition is sponsored by the American Fed- eration of Arts, under the auspices of which it is to be sent on a museum circuit. It was assembled by Eugene Savage of New York, representing the American Federation of Arts, from the artists’ studios in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal] and from public galleries and private collections. Mr. Savage began his artistic career as a student in the Corcoran School of Art, since which time, however, he has gone far and won high distinction. From 1912 to 1915 he was one of the fellowship holders of the American Academy in Rome. He has been head of the department of painting at Yale University for some time and is not only himself an excellent painter, but possesses an exceptionally fine critical sense. In assembling the exhibition the American Federation of Arts has had the generous co- operation of the Canadian Minister, Vincent Massey; the directors and curators of the Na- tional Gallery of Canada, at Ottawa, and the Art Gallery of Toronto. Loans have been made by both of these institutions and by Hart House of the University of Toronto and the Woman'’s Art Association of Sarnia. There will be about 60 paintings in this exhibition, all, with but one exception, by liv- ing Canadian artists. The collection as a whole, it is understood, represents for the most part the younger school, and will comprise works which have essentially a nationalistic flavor. The exhibition will be on view to the public in the Corcoran Gallery of Art from March 9 to 30, inclusive, after which it will be shown in the museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; the Baltimore Museum of Art, the City Art Museum, St. Louis, and in other cities. The fact that the circuit begins at Washington and that the exhibition will be opened here with a certain amount of ceremony gives reason for local pride and satisfaction. ’I'HE collection of etchings by Frank W. Ben- g son, now on view at the Arts Club, must charm and delight not only every lover of the graphic arts, but also lovers of nature—those who delight in outdoor life. Mr. Benson made his first etching in 1882, when he was 20, but he did not produce another plate for 30 years. Meanwhile he had studied in Paris at Julien’s, under Lefebvre and Boulan- ger; had exhibited in Paris and London and in the leading American exhibitions and had at- tained to the highest distinction as a painter of portraits and figures, especially figures out of doors. In 1912 he produced a dozen etched plates. The following year brought forth an- other dozen. In 1913 the crop consisted of 11. Mr. Benson has been continuously etching ever since, and it would be difficult to say in which branch of art at the present time he stands highest in the esteem of his confreres and of connoisseurs. Mr. Benson's first etching, that made in 1882, was of Salem Harbor. He was born in Salem and still makes his home there. But since 1912 his etchings have been almost en- tirely of wild birds and fowl, of life in the open. He is himself an enthusiastic sportsman, but he is quite as enthusiastic in the use of the etcher’s needle as of the huntsman’s gun. There are a number of etchers now who do wild geese, ducks, water fowl on the wing, and do them well, but Mr. Benson was the first, and none has ever quite equaled his sensitive and amazingly accurate transcriptions. The Japanese and the Chinese have sup- posedly led in keen perception and accurate record of the flight of birds. Mr. Benson has not borrowed his method from these Eastern masters, but he has arrived at an equally satis- factory result. There is, moreover, in his etch- ings of birds in flight a sense of relation to environment, an understanding of the beauty of motion, a sense of the infinite. In the year 1915 Mr. Benson produced no less than 52 plates, and as the number in- creased so did the skill of the etcher. The product of that year, according to Malcolm C. Salaman, one of the leading British authori- ties on prints, “testified to the advent of a master etcher with something to say which had never been said upon the copper plate.” Be- fore another year had passed Mr. Benson's reputation as an etcher in the esteem of con- noisseurs was firmly established. Mr. Benson has not confined himself to the etching of wild birds. To again quote Mr. Salaman: “He is as quick to see the beauty of a boat salling before the wind as of a wild bird on the wing, and when the boat is a factor in the joy of his sport he draws it with a true and a loving hand.” And again, “Open-air man as Frank Benson is, his riparian hunting ground seems rarely to interest him from the point of view of landscape, but when the scene reveals its form and character in a mood to which his own mood is responsive he can interpret its expression with a pictorial poetry of enchant- ing appeal. * * * When a rare mood allows his vision to linger with the landscape he looks to the sky for his pictorial motives, and finds them in the transient effects of light. For him the living touch of nature makes the poetry of evening fully expressive, and his etched inter- pretation is irresistible.” Mr. Benson's etchings are indeed, from first to last, just as Mr. S8alaman has said, irresisti- ble, the result of consummate artistry, a knowl- edge of what to say and what to leave unsaid, and at the same time full of the beauty of nature, with all of its magnificent aloofness, so consoling, uplifting and satisfying to the human soul vexed by the multiplicity of littlenesses in everyday life. Mr. Benson has made invaluable contribution, THE SUNDAY AD AL STAR, - WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 2, 1930. AND AKX » LHLA MECHLIN Work of Canadian Artists Placed on View. Benson Etchings at the Arts Club—Other Exhibitions in the Capital. A Portrait of Howard Sutherland, Alien Property Custodian, by Grace E. McKinstry both as a painter and as an etcher, in the field of American art. UCH interest attaches to the exhibition of paintings by Mary Nicholena MacCord which is being shown at the Arts Club con- currently with the etchings by Mr. Benson, not only on account of the charm of the works included, but by reason of the fact that it marks the opening of the club’s new exhibi- tion gallery. This gallery, which is entered from the downstairs parlor as well as from the street, occupies the entire first floor of the adjoining house lately acquired by the Arts Club. It will be used not only as an additional exhibition room, but alg¢o for lectures, concerts and other similar activities of the club. Miss MacCord’s paintings constitute a most attractive inaugural exhibition, bringing into this new gallery the beauty of the outdoor world, the charm of nature in her most joyous moods. All of the 16 paintings shown are landscapes. These have been painted at home and abroad, and show a wide range of subject, from the rugged hills of Ireland and the smiling villages of France, to our own New England farm houses and sail-bedecked harbors. Especially interesting among the last named are two canvasses, “Looking Toward the Sea” and “The Sea From a Hill,” showing the same stretch of coast and water painted from practically “Birches Near the Bay,” a Painting by Mary Nicholena MarCorci the same point, but at different hours of the day, and with quite different effect. Two of the pzaintings, “September Moonlight” and “Lights Across the Bay,” are nocturnes, beauti- fully rendered, with equal strength and delicacy of touch, recalling not a little similar works by Willard Metcalf. A place of homor in the gallery has been given to a painting, “Cloud Shadows on Irish Hills,” showing one of the most striking of all nature's presentations—the contrast of distant blue mountain and nearer green hills, of blue cky and passing clouds. But in a showing such as this it is not easy to discriminate, to pick and choose, so uniformly pleasing are the subjects, so competent their handling. For the most part Miss MacCord paints hfi the style of the impressionists, using pure color applied in short strokes to produce the effect of brilliant sunlight, as in “Pergola in Cocumella” and “Street Steps—Gloucester.” In a few instances, however, such as the two paint- ings of Irish hill country, she has reverted to the mixed palette and the more accustomed method of broad, sweeping brush strokes and flat surfaces. But whatever the method em- ployed, her works are invariably fresh, colorful, alive. They are the kind of paintings with which one would like to live. ISS GRACE E. McKINSTRY, formerly of Minneapolis and now of Washington, was honor guest at a mesting of the Minneapolis State Society here Friday evening at the Wash- ington Hotel. Miss McKinstry’s distinction is as a painter of portraits, and among her most recent works is a portrait of Howard Sutherland, alien property custodian, formerly United States Senator from West Virginia. Miss McKinstry has also painted of late a portrait of Capt. A, T. Abbott for the Abbott Memorial Tower, at Shattuck Military School, Minn., and a portrait of Charles W. Newhall, head master of Shattuck School. The latter, it will be remembered, was included in the Society of Washington Artists’ recent exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art Another portrait by Miss McKinstry is of a former mayor of Minneapolis, Williatn Henry Eustis, philanthropist, painted for the University of Minnesota. T Miss McKinstry was born in Fredonia, N. Y. She studied at the Art Students’ League of New York, at the Art Institute of Chicago and in Paris at the Julian and Colarossi Academies and under Raphael Collin. She is a member of the American Artists’ Professional League, the National Arts Club and the San Francisco So- ciety of Woman Painters, also of the Pen and Brush Club, as well as an honorary member of the League of American Pen Women. Her portraits hang in the Minnesota State Capitol, at St. Paul; Carleton College, Northfield, Minn.; Beloit College, Wisconsin; Pomona Col California; Lake Erie College, Painesville, O the Woman’s Club of Minneapolis and the Army and Navy Club of this city. ATtthunuwmeGallerytherehmon view an exhibition of portraits, crayon drawings and pastels, by Alice Acheson (Mrs. Dean Gooderham Acheson) of Georgetown, These are for the most part portraits of chil- dren, though a few are of young women, and two are of men. Few mediums are better adapted to child portraiture than crayon. Its successful use implies a certain simplicity and directness which most truly represent the spirit of youth— of childhood years. Mrs. Acheson has captured this spirit. Her portraits are natural presenta- tions—wistful or gay, as the case may be—bii¢ always appealing. She has achieved particu~ larly happy result in her, portraits in red chalk, among them those of little Miss Lorraine Daniels and Miss Virginia Hall. Two heads of models in this medium are strong and char- acterful. Three of the drawings in this collection are of youthful members of the artist’s own family, Misses Jane and Mary Acheson and Master David Acheson. Among other children intere estingly portrayed are Miss Susan Oulahan, Miss Cicily Page, Miss Sharman Douglas, Mas- ter John Dickinson and Master Richard Lee, Among Mrs. Acheson’s most successful por- traits of women is that of Mrs. F. Trubee Davie son. Others included in this group are of Mrs, Lewis Dauglas, Mrs. Prentiss Gilbert, Mrs. Con= rad Babcock, Mrs. Gardner Platt, Mrs. Samuel Cross and Mr. George Stanley. All of the seven pastels shown are of chil- dren—sunny interpretations of childish forms in colorful dress, with, in many instances, back- grounds of contrasting color, which is repeated in a narrow line in the mat. Of these a pory- trait of a little mulatto girl, “Magnolia,” in tones of brown, holds special charm. IN the little gallery of the Phillips Memorial Gallery the group of works by lyric painters is the chief present attraction. This group in- cludes fifteen works, six in water color, eight in oil and one in tempera, by artists of the new school. Included among the oils is a very charming still life by Mrs. Phillips, “Marigolds,” a bunch of gay-colored flowers in a white paper cornu- copia laid on a table, keenly observed, sympa- thetically rendered. Among the more elaborate works in oil are “The Newspaper,” by Vuillard, an exceedingly interesting French interior. Here are two by Bonnard, Vuillard’s friend and cotemporary, “A Little River” and “Strawberries.” Among the water colors are two by John Marin, one entitled “PFishing Smacks,” other, “Franconia,” loosely rendered, without the least intention.of setting forth facts, but Continued on Twenty-first Page -