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THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 4, \© HE Arthur B. Davies memorial exhibi- tion which opened in the Corcoran Gallery of Art last Thursday, to con- tinue until May 25, is of extraordinary interest. In number of exhibits it far undoubtedly never be equaled again. Inecluded in the catalogue of this elaborate showing are 66 oil paintings, about 40 etchings, aguatints and lithographs, about 70 drawings and pas- tels, 45 water colors and ne less than 40 and tapestries woven after designs by Da besides 51 small works in sculpture. Arthur B. Davies is the one traditionalists and modernists ing art museums. He was painter, and his works are of a type which lectors. numerous very beautiful half-tone reproduc- tions. In “A Collection in the Making,” a pre- academician, follows ever the inspiring gleam wheresoever it may lead. * * * An early trip to Italy confirmed the romanticism of his taste and for a while he painted Italianate pic- tures of glowing color like the Venetians and of fantastic imagery like Piero di Cosimo, of all artists the one he most nearly resembles. Later he worshiped at the shrine of ancient Greece and sought in his paintings for impersonal rhythms. In spite of his wide culture and re- sponsiveness to many foreign influences, Davies is thoroughly American and absolutely original. He has captured the charm of American land- scape and in his early peried his poetic pice tures of children at play are made doubly de- lightful by the Hudson River or Sierra Nevada backgrounds. He saw in California’s redwood of prismatic color, projectiens of light as from a magic lantern over the surfaces of his nudes. Although his later esthetic experiments lack work, yet there is distinction in his touch, whether in oil, pastel, water color, lthotint, modeling or wood carving. Technically he was a marvelous draughtsman and a sound and brilliant craftsman who cared enough about material to make his effects permanent. But his chief interest for us is the intensity of his imaginative and inventive mind. Conscious perhaps of his restlessmess and his too ready response to modern movements unrelated to his genius, he cherished a mere rational desire to achieve a sort of esthetic poise like that which Raphael and Poussin sought from Greek sources, In ‘Tissue Parnassian’ (in the Phil- lips Memorial Gallery) he realized this aim in a dream of a balanced physical and mental freshness. But ‘The Unicorns’ remains the most mystical and inevitable symbol of this great Celtic poet-painter and his persistent ideal of ‘beauty touched with strangeness.’ * To understand or to enter into the spirit of the Davies memorial exhibition at the Cor- coran Gallery of Art one should keep these statements of Mr. Phillipe in mind, for Davies’ work is unlike the work of any other, and to understand it one must endeavor to secure the artist’s viewpoint. The oil paintings included in this exhibition are hung in two galleries to the right of the main staircase and include works lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, Martin Ryerson of Chicago, Dr. Herbert Friedenwald and other private collectors, some of whom are lending anonymously. Among the most charming of these works are “Leda and the Dioscuri,” lent by the Art Institute of Chieago; “Maya, Mir- ror of Illusions,” lent by the same institution; “Do Reverence” and “After Rain,” lent anony- mously. Special note should be made, how- ever, of the large “Italian Landscape, the Apen- nines,” in the foreground of which peasants are seen ploughing with white oxen and be- yond a little village rests in the lap of the hills—which is, assuredly, a masterpiece, But for the most part these oil paintings will be less understood by the general public than the water colors, pastels and drawings in another gallery. And why? Because they seem to have arrived less near eompletion, and in them the artist seems to grope for something beyond which he has been unable to seize and make his own. In these oil paintings the imaginative quality of his mind is evidenced, AD AN 4 LEILA MECHLIN AND 1930. A AK Unusual Interest in the Arthur B. Davies Memorial Exhibition—Several Other Exhibitions in the City. “Indian Girl of Sante Fe,” a painting by Vivian Guy. but also its unrest, its dissatisfaction, its half- formulated, half-comprehended visions. To the sensitive onlooker this evidence of futility, of vague visioning, is distressful, even though it may not be completely obvious. Davies was undoubtedly peculiarly sensitive %o color harmonies and to the beat of rhythm, and occasional glimpses of a land all beauty are to be found in his paintings. The Greek spirit of perfection and poetry struggles with the spirit of actuality in “Longshoremen,” ene of the eichings of Gordon Grant which are on exhibition at the Smisksonian. to draftsman, his ability to draw exquisitely and the enormeus study that he gave to drawing the human figure. i 2 TR AL and by M. G. G. La Boure of La Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins. ‘When the exhibition was shown at the Metro= I 11 GARBER is best known as & painter, but in the cases in the upper airium of the Corcoran Gallery of Art are now to be seem & group of etchings and drawings by Mr. Garber which will be of special interest t¢ Continued on Twendy-first —— Yorke Gallery 2000 S Street Exhibition of Paintings by Vivian Guy May 5th to May 17th