Evening Star Newspaper, December 14, 1930, Page 111

NI Calendar of Exhibitions CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Seventeenth street and New York avenue. Twelfth Biennial Exhibition Contemporary Amer- ican Oil Paintings. November 30 to January 11. PHILLIPS MEMORIAL GALLERY, 1600 Twenty-first street north- west. Modern Art and Iis Sources. Inaugural Exhibition, New Building. October 5 to January 5. NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, Tenth and B streets northwest. Permanent Collection. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Tenth and B streets southwest. Book Plates from Collection of Mrs. William S. Corby. Decem- ber 1 to January 4. FREER GALLERY OF ART, Twelfth and B streets southwest. Perma- nent Collection. Recent Acqui- gitions. ARTS CLUB OF WASHINGTON, 2017 1 street. Pictorial photo- graphs by Clara E. Sipprell of New York; paintings by Alice Judson of New York. December 14 to 27. TEXTILE MUSEUM, 2330 S street northwest. Rugs, Tapestiries and other textiles of the Near and Far East. Admission by card obtainable at the office of G. H. Myers, 1508 H street northwest. GORDON DUNTHORNE GALLERY, 1726 Connecticut avenue north- west. Special exhibition Etich- ings by Alfred Hutty, Water Col- ors by Rockwell Kent and cthers. PUBLIC LIBRARY, Eighth and K streets morthwest. Art Depart- ment. Group of paintings leni by the Phillips Memorial Gallery. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, First and East Capitol streets south- east. Exhibition of Historical Prints from the Mabel Brady Garvan Institute of American Arts, Yale University. UNITED STATES NATIONAL MU- SEUM, ARTS AND INDUSTRIES BUILDING, Ninth and B streets southwest. Pictorial pihotographs by Julius Aschauer of Vienna, Austria. December 1 to 31. MOUNT PLEASANT BRANCH, PUBLIC LIBRARY, Sirteenth and Lamont streets mnorthwest. Ezhibition of Paintings by Mem- bers of the Landscape Club. De- cember 1 to 31. N ORDER that busy people may have opportunity to visit and enjoy the Twelfth Biennial Exhibition of Contem- porary American Oil Paintings now in progress, the trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art are opening the gallery free to the public on four Thursday evenings from 8 t0 10:30 o'clock. The first of these openings took place December 4, when there were about 400 in attendance; the second, December 11, The two remaining are to be Thursday of this week, December 18, and three weeks hence, on the evening of January 8. It is earnestly hoped that the attendance on both these occasions will be large, in order to show an appreciation of the action of the trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and to inSure fifriher privilege. As a rule the Corcoran Gallery closes at 4:30 o'clock on week days, just the time when Gov- ernment employes and others are leavlpg their offices. Thorefore, the only cpportunity that the large portion of the population of Washing- ton has to enjoy the works of art in the Cor- coran Gallery, including the Clark Wing, is on Sunday afternoons when the galieries are in- varizbly crowded and when many are not free, Elihu Root said once that the greatest happi- ness comes not from those things which money can buy but rather from the things which are free, the things of the spirit, music, literature, art. And he declared at the same time that probzbly one of the greatest obligations of those who appreciate this fact is to make these things free to all. It may be that a good deal of the present unrest in contemporary life comes from a lack of use of these resources-of pleasure and lack of understanding of their true value. For this very reason, the opening of art galleries to the public at a time that working people, wage earners, can profit by them is of the utmost importance both to us in the present time and to our national life in the future. NO EXHIBITION that the Corcoran Gallery has ever set forth has created quite as widespread interest and called forth such varied comment as the present Twelfth Biennial Critics of the leading newspapers of Philadel- phia. New York and other citi~s have come to Washington to see this exhibition and have commented upon it at length. Edward Alden Jewell, in the New York Times last Sunday, said: “Taken all in all, it is the best big group show of contemporary American painting that the present writer has ever secen. Walking through the several rooms in which these 395 canvaces have been hung, one experiences a genial warming of heart: confesses a very defi- nit> sense of encouragement. * * * An exhibi- tion such as this gives welcome impetus to the persuasion that American artists have already accomplished fine things and to the persuasion lik-wise that, given an opportunity to bring forth our best, we need not in the least adopt & deprecatory tone in recommending the work of native artists to the attention ef the world at Jarge.” Mr. Jewell finds. furthermore, in this exhibition *“a general air of vitality, of exuber- THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 14, 1930. AD N\H = AND y LTELA~ MECHLIN Corcoran Gallery Will Be Open on Certain Evenings— Notes on the Twelfth Biennial. Other Local Exhibitions. “A Friendly Encounter,” by E. Martin Henning, a member of the Taos Seciety of Artists. Conmtained in the Twelfth Biennial Exhibition. ant living effort, that offers itself, often with the clearest and most convincing articulation, for the visitor’s initial inventory.” OP SPECIAL INTEREST in this particular exhibition, as in most of the exhibitions of contemporary American art held during the last 10 years, are the works of a group of artists whopump:rtunotanottheyeulnm, New Mexico. Taos lies north of Santa Fe about 40 miles and it §s nearly twice this distance from the nearest railroad station. It is surrounded by mountains, an old Indian settlement with the Indian pueblo still one of its chief features. The life and surroundings of Taos are essen- tially picturesque, and it is this life and these surroundings which for the most part members of the Taos Society of Artists have interpreted. By some, their works are considered illustra- tive, but the greatest paintings of all time have been of this character. And it is interesting to note that in most instances the Taos artists have profited by those innovations made by modernists, such as sim- plification of design and use of strong color, but have welded these new laws to meet their own needs and purposes. Take, for example, the striking still-life painting, “Zinnias,” by Victor Higgins, which meets the eye of the vis- itor instantly upon arriving at the head of the steps, opposite which it is hung in the atrium. This is a strong, fine painting, done in essen- tally a new way, but with full regard for tra- dition. Or take Herbert Dunton’s “Black Bear,” in the hemicycle, which approaches con- ventionalization and yet is full of the flavor of nature, of the great outdoor, untamed world. Berninghaus of St. Louis, who is one of this same Taos group, shows two extremely inter- esting paintings, “Indian Maid at Taocs,” which hangs in the atrium and is essentially academic but vital, contemporary; and “Late Autumn— Taos,” a transcription of typical New Mexico scenery. Walter Ufer, who is a distinguished member of this group, shows a painting en- titled “Tom and Jim” and another very dif- ferent in type, “The Southwest.” From Blu- menschein have come works in distinctly the modern style, “Aspen Grove” and “Adobe Vil- lage, Winter,” works which emphasize design and get as far as possible away from the literal. E. Martin Hennings shows “A Friendly Encounter,” two Indians on ponies at the edge of an aspen grove, a painting which strikingly recalls certain scenes in Oliver La Farge'’s book, “Laughing Boy.” Catherine Critcher of this city has the distinction of being the only woman member of the Taos group. She is admirably represented by her portrait of an old Indian woman, “The Grandmother.” The more extreme modernists are apt to tarry in Santa Fe rather than go on to Taos, finding subjects there to their liking and a congenial atmosphere. John Sloan, for example, last year forsbok for a time the attractions of lower New York to paint such a picture as that by which he is represented in this exhibition, “Threshing, Santa Fe,” occupying a little adobe studio there for some months, Here, too, An- drew Dasbury undoubtedly did his “Autumn, New Mexico” and his “Ramoncita.” Here, also, Nordfeldt painted his striking portrait of “Mexican Family,” and Randall Davey his ad- mirable portrait of his son, “Bill Davey.” “Beeches,” an etching by Alfred Hutty. Contained in a collection of the artist’s work on view at Dunthorne’s, . AK A former student of the Pennsylvania Acad- emy, following mo special trend, but heeding contemporary currents, Theodore Van Soelen is three times represented in this exhibition— by a figure study of two typical New Mexicans, “Politics,” and two landscape themes, “Goat~ herd” and “Bright Morning.” Mr. Van Soelen went to New Mexico in quest of heaith, and be found K. He has a charming home and studio 6 or 8 miles south of Santa Fe, near one of the great Indian pueblos. Gustave Baumann has for years been well knowan for his woodblock prints in color of Santa Fe and the Southwest. In this exhibition he makes his debut as a painter with a picture entitled “Life and Legend,” a Santa Fe theme treated as a conventionalized design, but 'tt\ excellent suggestion of movement and charme ing color, a very individualistic work. Mr. Baumann lives in Santa Fe, has built himself a fine studio adjacent to his little adobe house, in the yard of which grow those bilossoming fruit trees which his woodblock prints have so exquisitely interpreted. WASH!NGTON is behind almost every other large city in the United States in educa~ tional work in its art muscums. We have here not enough docent service, no lectures or other informative means for those who wish to make a real study of the colloctions, with the excep- tion of that which is now being conducted by the Phillips Memorial Gallery. This shortcom= ing is being atoned for in part by the Public Library, which has iscued at this time: for free distribution a reference reading list, bibliography, on contemporary American paint- ers in the Corcoran Gallery's twelfth biennial exhibition, a booklet of 14 pages well edited and arranged. Also, Ada Rainey, art writer and lecturer, has given one or more talks in the Corcoran Gallery on the biennial exhibition. Passing from the exhibition to the Clark wing, Miss Rainey's talk yesterday was on painters of the Eurepean schools and the exampled of the decorative arts set forth therein. On Decem- berzoshewflllectureinmel"rmfim on Chinese, Japanese and American paintings; whereas on December 27 her lecture will be" ALP'RID HUTTY, an exhibition of whose etchings #8 now on view at Gordon Dun- - thorne’s, has two homes some 800 miles apart —Charleston, 8. C., where he spends his wine _ ters, and Woodstock, N. Y., where invariably his Summers are passed. “This fact,” a well known writer has said, “gives him a vast scope - in the choice of subjects, but in looking a fair collection of his prints one will realize that trees, birches, pines, oaks, mores are the motifs nearest his heart. seems to grasp, to sense the essentials of each; his handling, light and graceful though #t be, fully suffices to convey their individuality ta & manner over which there is much personal charm. Some are typical of his Northern pled a terre, others bear witness of the prolific South, weird old trunks and gnaried branches gar- landed with festoons of moss and climbers. But in them all the artist’s observant study is evidenced and with the skeichiest touches he transmutes singularities of bark and branch and foliage to the copper, a mode of definition full of insinuating appeal.” In America prizes are given to best etchings and as some one remarked, mearly all Huttys trees are prize winners. For instance, one “Pines” in 1924 was chosen as the associate print by the Print Makers’ Society of California; another, “Birches,” was the same year awarded the Frank G. Logan prize and medal at the inter= national exhibition at the Art Institute of Chi- cago; a third, “Windswept,” which is now out of print and almost impossible to obtain, was awarded the Bamuel T. Shaw prize at the Sal« magundi Club. Mr. Hutty’s trees are not only living and vital, whether they are leafless or in full foliage, but have their roots well set in the ground. There is probably none other, with the exception of the late Sir Alfred East of England, who has so 4 Comtinued on Twenty-second Page 8 - _ART SCHOORS. HILL SCHOOL of ART Classes in EteLi No. 1211 of the Corcoran Gallery of Art N. Y. Ave. and 17th St, Abbott Art Sco _ Day and Evening Classes. Children’s Saturday Class. 1624 H St. NW. Corner 17th elix Mahony’s National Art School Interior Decoration, Cost'me Design, Commercial Art, Color. 1747 R 1. Ave. Norih 1114 TS0 0000909 hasa a2