Evening Star Newspaper, April 20, 1930, Page 91

N f N exhibition of paintings, sculpture and works of applied arts by cotem- porary Hungarian artists will be opened with a private view in the National Gallery of Art, National Mu- seum, Wednesday afternoon, April 23, This .exhibition was assembled by the Hun- gariar National Council of Fine Arts and is shown in this country under the joint auspices of the American Federation of Arts, the Ameri- can Hungarian Foundation and the Hungarian National Council. Among the patrons of the exhibition are Count Stephen Bethlen, prime minister of Hungary; Lewis Walko, minister of foreign affairs, Hungary; Count Kuno Kle- belsberg, minister of education, Hungary; Count Laszlo Szechenyi, minister from Hungary to the United States, and J. Butler Wright, Minister from the United States to Hungary. The exhibition comes to us here in the na- ture of an international exchange, an exhibition of American paintings and small bronzes as- sembled by the American Federation of Arts through the co-operation of the American-Hun- garian Foundation having been shown in the Nemzeti Salon, Budapest, under equally dis=" tinguished patronage in February. The purpose of these international exchanges in art is not only to extend the fame of the artists whose works are included. but to bring those of the exhibiting nations into closer sympathy and better understanding. Hungarian art has been as little known up to the present time in the United States as American art has been in Hungary. The exhibition opening this week is, therefore, calculated to extend pleasurably our acquaintance, Hungary is an old country, with a thousand years of cultural development as a background. The tides which, ebbing and flowing, have con- stituted the history of art have each left their mark in the way of buildings and treasure. The present era of growth and development began with the re-establishment of self-government in Hungary, in 1867, when Budapest was en- tirely rebuilt and became the center of Hun- garian culture. In architecture, in painting, in sculpture, and perhaps especially in the industria] arts, Hun- garians have invariably manifested marked na- tional characteristics. “Among all the fine arts,” says Erwin Ybl, “painting stands nearest to the Hungarian soul, and the Hungarian artistic spirit has attained its most characteristic development in this field.” The name of Munkacsy is world-famous, But Munkacsy belonged to the last century and his followers and artistic descendants have traveled far since he laid down the brush. A Hungarian painter is said to have been the first to produce a picture in the style of the French impressionist school, and that production was before this school came into existence. Today there are modernists in Hungary, but for the most part the Hungarian painters and sculptors have proved themselves independent of mind, have made their own traditions rather than fol- lowed traditions made by others. Obviously, they have sat at the feet of the great masters, regardless of nationality. In most instances they have traveled widely, have observed closely. but have returned home to paint, to model and to design in their own way rather than in the way of others. When our American exhibition was shown in Budapest much surprise was expressed by the Hungarian critics that it was so traditional, so in the spirit of the art of their own nation. The same comment may be made in regard to this Hungarian exhibition. But it should be remembered that, after all, the same principles underlie all art, and American artists as well as Hungarian have in most instances gone to the same source for inspiration. But one will find in this Hungarian collection - works essentially Hungarian in character— paintings of Hungarian life and landscape, sig- nificant not only because of their artistic merit, but subjective individuality. One of the most interesting and important canvases in this exhibition will be a portrait of Nicholas Horthy, Governor of Hungary, by Bartholoniew Karlovszky, born in Hungary in 1885 and a pupil of Munkacsy—a powerful in- terpretation of character, a work of pronounced dignity. There will also be a portrait of Count Robert Zselanszky, by Edward Ballo, one of the older school of painters, who has had many illus- trious persons among his sitters and who is now professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, one of the promoters of the National Salon. An engaging picture to be exhibited is “Gyp- sies,” by Ethelbert Ivanyi Grunwald, to which a gold medal was recently awarded in the ex- position at Barcelona—a fanciful theme sug- gesting a little the work of our own Gifford Beal. “Carpet-Weaving Woman,” by Peter Kalman, and “Peasant Seamstress,” by Isaac Perlmutter, figure compositions, will be found very nationalistic in style and vigorously ren- dered. Extremely individualistic is the work of Count Julius Batthyany, one of the younger school, whose work is included. He is illustrator as well as painter and designer of decorative panels. The majority of the paintings in this ex- hibition have been sent directly from Europe, but six or more have been added by Hungarian artists traveling or residing in the United States. Prominent among these are the De Hel- lenbrath sisters, who exhibited at the Yorke Gallery earlier this season; Arthur L. Hami, the distinguished and brilliant painter, who will show his portrait of the Countess Szechenyi and her daughter, lent by the Minister of Hungary, and also a portrait of Miss Cochrane of Youngstown; Julius Glatter, whose portrait of Count Szechenyi will be shown; Louis Mark and Willy Pogany, the latter now claimed by both Hungary and America. Mr. Pogany has llustrated over a hundred books and produced mural paintings for the Niagara Falls Power Co., the Heckscher Theater, New York; the THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. A2, "APRIL20; 1930. A D Al AND AKX 7 LELA MECHILIN Hungarian Art Works to Be Placed on View Next Wednesday—Portrait Studies at Dunthorne’s—A Modernist’s Work. " Portreit o} Nickolas Horthy by Bertholoniew Kerlovesky, Ringling mansion in Florida and other public and sem-public buildings. The sculpture included in this exhibition takes the form of small bronzes, with perhaps one or two works in marble and in wood. These will all be found to be charming, genuinely plastic in conception and rendered with great technical excellence. Among the exhibitors in this section will be Alexis Lux, Francis Sidlo, Sigismund Strobl, who, by the way, shows a statuette of a Hungarian hussar; Stephen Sventgyorgyi and Alexander Finta. There will also be etchings, lithographs, water colors and, possibly of utmost interest to many, an engaging collection of industrial art—beau- tiful embroideries, metal work, exquisite exam- ples of the goldsmith’s art, rounding out and completing, at it were, the cycle of art as it should be—applied arts shown on a common footing with the so-called fine arts. This exhibition will continue until the end of May. A REMARKABLE collection of portrait studies in drypoint by Cadwallader Washburn is now on view at Gordon Dunthorne’s. This col- “Woman W eaving @ Carpet,” by Peter Kalman. Included im exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. lection consists of 15 prints made recently in North Africa and not previously exhibited in this country. They are superb works, rendered with skill of a real master, one who perfectly commands his medium and has a discerning eye. Each is a type. Fer instance, “A Soudan- ese Chief,” “Horse Trader,” “Dock Hand,” “A Fakir,” ‘“Bazaar Merchant,” “Money Lender,” “Tunisian Jew,” “A Gentleman.” Each, too, is a real personality which the etcher has inter- preted for all time. In every instance Mr, Washburn has chosen to portray his subjects with marked contrasts of light and shade, using chiaroscuro with the utmost skill, even to per- fection. When Mr. Washburn held a one-man exhibi- tion in Paris a couple of years ago, Malcolm C. Salaman, one of the leading British authorities on prints, referred to him as “a remarkably intuitive etcher of heads, many masterly,” and outstanding for “special excellence in ethino- graphical and individual character.” “Washe burn,” he continued, “has attained to such masi2ry with his dry-point it is difficult to say wiat he will do. He is certain not to stop still, * * * He may set forth on further travel, seeking new adventure, but wherever it leads the goal must be beauty.” Homely as are the subjects which Mr. Wash- burn has chosen to interpret in the present instance, there is in every one of his works that ‘dominant element of beauty, refliecting deep significance of spirit and the eternal. Cadwallader Washburn comes of a distine guished family. His father was a builder of railroads and a United States Senator; his uncle a State governor and pioneer in Western enter- prise. He graduated from Gallaudet College in 1886, then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he took up architecture, But somehow his interest in beauty side- tracked him and instead of practicing as an architect he entered the Art Students’ League of New York as a student. For a time he worked under Chase. Then he went abroad, traveled and studied. At the time of the Russoe Japanese War he went to Manchuria as wag correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. In 1908 he visited Mexico. He has seldom been long in any one place since and has included in his travels Siam, the South Sea Islands and many other out-of-the-way places. Wherever he goes, his etching needle goes with him, and each new set of etchings that come back aw & result is a little finer, a little more masterly, than those that have preceded them—a splen- did record. N the Little gallery at the Phillips Memorial Gallery is now and until the end of the month fo be seen a group of recent painting§ by Harold Weston, a modernist of marked indie viduality. Twelve paintings in oils constitute this exhie bition and so out of the ordinary are they that the visitor may be disconcerted by a first glance, But one should tarry and become acquainted with these paintings, for acquaintance yields pleasurable result, better understanding. Mr. Weston has a way all his own of inter< preting sunlight, a-way that does not take into consideration contrast of light and shade, depth of shadow. This in itself is an achievement, He has also a pungent way of presenting facts and his color is invariably good. Some of his pictures bring to mind the mosaics of the better class of linoleum; others recall the flash of a bright-colored flower seen from the window of - a rapidly moving train. But there is no doubt that the painter himself knew what he wag about and also that he has a sense of humor, “Cats Fighting,” included in this exhibition, i§ delightfully ferocious, every line—and there are none too many—indicating restrained action, feline fury. His “Grasshoppers” is a grotesque study, undoubtedly produced with the saifve humorous intent, “The New Stove” was presumably painted, not because of its inherent beauty, but the fact that it lent the right note of black to an interpreta« tion of sunlight, an open window. “Paris Wine dow,” “The Melon” and “The Wine Bottle” are all equally interesting and of note. One might Continued on Twenty-first Page Livingstone Academy Commercial Art 1333 F St. Met. 2883 THE ABBOTT SCHOOL 0 FINE & COMMERCIAL ART LANDSCAPE Summer Classes 1624 H St. N.W. Nat. 8054 Yorke Gallery 2000 S St. Exhibition of Paintings by M. G. IGNON French Portrait Painter April 14th to April 26th PETM RS RN |