Evening Star Newspaper, April 27, 1930, Page 99

- K NE of the most notable exhibitions held in New York during the past season was a memorial exhibition of the works of Arthur B. Davies at the Metropolitan Museum from February 17 to March 30. It is gratifying to be able to announce that this exhibition is coming to Washington and will be shown here during the month of May in the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washingtonians have made acquaintance with Arthur B. Davies through paintings ex- hibited from time to time in the Corcoran Gal- lery’s biennial exhibitions and through im- portant examples included in the Phillips Memorial Gallery’s permanent collection. But at no time has so comprehensive a showing of his works been seen in this city; in fact, such a comprehensive collection was not assembled during the artist’s lifetime. For the privilege shortly to be enjoyed by Washingtonians we are indebted not only to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, but to Mrs. Arthur B. Davies, the artist’s widow, who herself has made the arrangements, in conference and co-operation with Mr. Min- nigerode, director of the Corcoran Gallery. The collection will consist of paintings in oil and water color, etchings and lithographs, and pos- sibly certain works in applied art, such as de- signs for tapestries and rugs and the woven fabrics themselves. Arthur B. Davies is perhaps the only artist ardently admired by both traditionalists and modernists, though he belonged to neither school. He was a poet and dreamer, always in search of beauty, absolutely individualistic in his expression. A most interesting and excellent book on Davies was issued a few years ago by the Phil- lips Memorial Gallery, containing appreciative essays by Duncan Phillips, Royal Cortissoz, Frank Jewett Mather, jr.; Edward W. Root and others—a magnificent tribute to the artist’s genius. MUCH interest attaches io the excellent por- trait of the late Chief Justice Taft by Emest L. Ipsen, which was placed on view in the Corcoran Gallery recently and may still be seen there. This portrait was painted from sittings last Autumn and was shown first in New York, prior to Justice Taft's death, at the Century Club. It was painted as a commission from one of Chief Justice Taft’s old neighbors and ardent admirers in New Haven, who prefers to remain nameless, and is purposed as a gift and permanent memorial for the United States Supreme Court. It is undoubtedly one of the most satisfactory portraits of the former President and Chief Justice that has been painted, and the artist seems to have obtained a most characteristic expression. Mr. Taft is represented in his legal robes, standing beside a column, presumably in the Supreme Court room, with a document in his left hand, his eyeglasses in his right hand. The impression produced is that he has paused on the instant, removed his glasses and is about to speak. It is a simple, straightfor- ward piece of painting, the artist suppressing his own personality in it that the personality of his distinguished sitter may be dominant. But those who know cannot fail to recognize in this work the hand of the master painter, the intelligence of the discerning eye, Mr. Ipsen is undoubtedly one of our leading American portrait painters today. He has had many distinguished sitters. Among his best known works are his portraits of Otis Skinner as Mister Antonio, Dr. John Bates Clark for the Carnegic Endowment for International Peace, Elihu Root for the Century Association, New York; Edwin Howland Blashfield for the National Academy of Design, Dr. Henry Van Dyke for the Princeton Club of New York and George A. Plimpton for Amherst College. Mr. Ipsen was represented in the exhibition shown in Budapest last Winter, under the auspices of the American Federation of Arts, by an engaging portrait of Capt. Robert A. Bartlett, navigator and explorer. He paints women as well as men, interpreting feminine grace with the utmost charm. Born in Malden, Mass,, in 1869, he studied at the Boston Museum School and at the Royal Academy at Copenhagen. In 1924 he was made THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL AL AL 27, 1930. AND 7 LEILA MECHLIN The Davies Exhibition to Be Placed in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in May—Excellent Portrait of the Late Chief Justice Taft. Portrait of the late Chief Justice William Howard Taft, painted by Ernest L. Ipsen. The work is now on view at the Corcoran Gallery. a National Academician. He is a life member of the National Arts Club, a member of the Salmagundi Club, the Century Association, the American Pederation of Arts and other pro- fessional organizations. He has been awarded the Proctor prize and the Isaac N. Maynard prize by the N. A. D, and is represented in the permanent collections of the Chicago Art Institute, the Art Institute of Youngstown and other public institutions. His studio is at the National Arts Club, New York. THE Corcoran Gallery of Art has recently re- hung a number of its galleries and the walls of the upper atrium. The occasion for this was the replacement of wall covering. The new arrangement is attractive and doubtless advantageous, but those familiar with the old hanging will be somewhat at a loss, at first, to locate old favorites. ‘The semi-circular gallery, wherein for a num- ber of years transient exhibitions were shown, is now given over exclusively to the display of works by early American painters and those of the so-called Hudson River School. Adjacent to this is a gallery now devoted entirely to portraits by early American painters, beauti- fully spaced and grouped. From here on the collection has been hung chronologically and in accordance with the new mode of ample spacing. It is a long step from the days of the old gallery on the corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Seventeenth street, where the principal works in the permanent collection were assem- bled in one huge room and hung not only frame to frame but in two or three rows, and the present day, when almost as much attention is paid to placement as to acquisition. The art of display has indeed, in this later era, made great advance. Perhaps most notable in the “Four O’clock Ladies,” & painting by Arthur B. Davies. T his painting is contained in the exhibition which will be placed in the Corcoran Gallery in May. A . AK new arrangement of paintings at the Corcoran Gallery is the placement in the atrium of paint- * ings produced between 1870 and 1900. But these for the most part are subject pictures, or pictures painted with realistic intent, and there- fore bear close inspection, while at the same time being effective at a distance. For this reason they lend themselves to exhibition in the atrium better than the more modern works., Another change that visitors may note is the removal of the seated statue of Napoleon from the center ot the upper atrium to the center of the northwest sculpture room on the first floor, and its replacement by a work in bropze by a cotemporary American artist. This "Was done not from lack of appreciation of the artistic merit of the Napoleon, but in order to follow definite classification, this statue of Napoleon being the work of Vincenzo Vela, an Italian sculptor born in 1822, who studied in Switzerland. It is perhaps interesting to know that this statue once belonged to John Taylor Johnston of New York, the first president of the Metro- politan Museum of Art and one of the first Americans to assemble a notable private collec= tion. It was purchased for the Corcoran Gal- lery at the John Taylor Johnston sale, as was also, by the way, the beautiful painting of Niagara Falls by F. E. Church. AT the Arts Club there opened last Sunday, to continue until May 3, exhibitions of paintings by Mary G. Riley of this city, Gladys Brannigan, formerly of Washington, and Ale- thea Platt of New York. Miss Riley’s paintings occupy the lounge and dining room. Mrs, Brannigan and Alethea Platt share the as- sembly room. Miss Riley's exhibits, all works in oil, are 13 in number—Ilandscapes and still life, the former predominating. They are all frank, straightforward paintings, good in color, virile and sincere, conveying to the observer an ime pression of not only competence, but insight on the part of the painter. Among the most interesting are Spanish and Portuguese themes —pictures, strangely enough, of a country not unlike that which the Spaniards discovered and claimed, Mexico and our own Southwest—ex- tremely picturesque, essentially paintable. But Miss Riley has painted in this country also, and she shows no less characteristic in- terpretations of the Vermont hills, a “New England Village”; “Old Bruton Church at Wile liamsburg, Va.” and “Dorset Hollow.” A de- lightfully varied, but uniformily good showing. Mrs. Brannigan and Miss Platt paint in such entirely different manner that their works agreeably complement one another. Mrs. Bran- nigan uses a full brush, strong color and crisp accent. Miss Platt paints with considerable reserve and gives her work a rather lyrical quale ity. A number of her exhibits are subject pice - tures, in which figures are nicely placed. Her still life studies are exceptionally engaging, Mrs. Brannigan is at her best in landscape, and among her most interesting contributions to this showing is “Lane in Spring,” though each of her contributions suggests keen insight and delight in nature. IN addition to the exhibitions by these three woman artists, announced previously in these columns and also in the Arts Club Bul- letin, a special exhibition has been arranged in the assembly room, on the second floor of the club, of studies of fish by a French artist, M. Elie Cheverlange, who is at present resi- dent in Washington, while engaged in making illustrations in color and black and white for one of the scientific publications to be issued by the Smithsonian Institution. He was born in Limoges, France, in 1876, the son of a painter on porcelain. After the usual schooling he studied at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs of Limoges, and himself became a porcelain painter. In 1895 he went to Paris and took up poster design and illustration. Later he went to England, where he obtained employment in a lithographic house. In 1900 he came to America and worked for several commercial lithographers. Eventually he found himself in San Prancisco, and from there drifted to Japan and China. In Shanghai he worked for a French newspaper as a cartoonist. In Indo-China he served as draftsman for a surveyng party in the Yunnan Province. There he contracted jungle fever, to rid himself of which he returned by way of India, Java and Australasia to Europe. Since that time he has served in the war, receiving a Croix de Guerre with three citations and various other awards, Since the war he has lived in the South Seas, mostly in Tahiti, studying artistically and scientifically, ocean life. -, His paintings have apparently met with the approval of both scientists and artists, and the descriptive texts which he has supplied for the present exhibits, as well as a brief essay in praise of the subject, are extremely illuminating. This is a unique exhibit. TH‘E regional meeting held by the American Federation of Arts in Santa Fe, N. Mex., April 16, 17 and 18 proved exceptionally inter- esting. There was a wide attendance from States as far west as California, as far north Continued on Twenty-first Page THE ABBOTT SCHOOL OF FINE & COMMERCIAL ART LANDSCAPE Summer Classes s 1624 H St. N.W. Nat. 8054