Evening Star Newspaper, February 22, 1931, Page 87

1931, A AK WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 22, AND THE SUNDAY STAR, AD AL O Calendar of Exhibitions CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Seven- teenth street and New York avenue. Weaving and Tapestries by Katherine Penn Crawford. PHILLIPS MEMORIAL GALLERY, 1600 Twenty-first street morthwest. Modern Art and Its Sources. Second series of season’s exhibitions. NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, Tenth and B streets morthwest. Permanent Collection Fortieth Annual Exhibition, Society of Washington Artists, Febru= ary 1 to March 1. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Tenth and B streets southwest. Etchings by Herman A. Webster, February 2 to March 1. FREER GALLERY OF ART, Twelfth and B streets southwest. Permanent Col- lection., Recent Acquisitions. UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, ARTS AND INDUSTRIES BUILDING, Ninth and B streets southwest. Pictorial photographs by members of the New York Camera Club, February 1 to 28. ARTS CLUB OF WASHINGTON, 2017 1 street. Silk Murais by Lvdia Bush- Brown, Sculpture by Ciara Hill, Water Colors by Caroiyn Bradley, February 22 to March 7. TEXTILE MUSEUM, 2330 S street northwest. Rugs, Tapestries and other textiles of the Near and Far East. Open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 to 5 o’clock. Admission by card, ob= tainable at the office of G. H. Myers, 1508 H street morihwest. PUBLIC LIBRARY, Eighth and K streets northwest. Art Department. Group of paintings lent by the Phili'ps Memorial Gallery. Lithographs by J. H. Himmel= heber of “Our Washington.” GORDON DUNTHORNE GALLERY, 1726 Connecticut avenue. Paintings by Charlotte S. Cullen. Fcbruary 18 to March 4. T is interesting to make note today—the anniversary of the birth of George Washington—that an important item on the official program of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission, charged with the celebration next year of this great event, is a project to reproduce in color a portrait of George Washington for distribue tion to the schools of the country, the expense being borne by Congress. In order to select the best portrait, an advisory committee was appointed, comprising Leicester B. Holland, chief of the division of fine arts of the Library of Congress; Charles Moore, chairman of the National Commission of Fine Arts; John C. Fitzpatrick, compiler of the writings of George Washington; Ezra Winter, fellow in painting, American Academy in Rome; Gari Melchers, distinguished as a painter both of portraits and figures, together with Harrison H. Dodge, super- intendent of Mount Vernon, and Albert Bushe nell Hart, historian. This commission has given already considerable time to a consideration of the subject, but has come to no definite con- clusion. The portrait which is supposed to be most authentic and satisfactory is, all are agreed, Houdon’s work in sculpture, which, however, will not lend itself satisfactorily to color reproduction. So the selection of the portrait still rests, as it were, in the lap of the Probably the most popular and also the best known portrait of Washington is the so-called Athenaeum portrait, painted from life, by Gil- bert Stuart in 1796, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which has already been ad- mirably reproduced in color and repeatedly ene graved for private purposes and also by the Government for stamps, bank notes, etc. The feeling of historians is that this portrait is per- haps too much idealized, although the supposi= tion is that it was one of the two Gilbert Stuarts painted from life, from which many replicas were made. Certainly it shows Wash= ington in his later days, but it is Washington as the people of the United S than a hundred years have visualize There are at least two portraits of Washing« ton by Gilbert Stuart in this city, one owned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which was pur« cnased from the painter himself by Col. John Tayloe of Mount Airy and was presented to the Corcoran Gallery by Mrs. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe; the other belonging to the Washington Cathedral, the gift of John J. Chapman of New "York. These are both of the Athenaeum type, Twelve years ago a portrait of Washington by Gllbert Stuart, differing in many ways from the Athenaeum portrait, was discovered in Eng- land, brought to this country and purchased by the late Henry C. Frick for the sum of approxi- mately $70,000. This portrait is now included in the Frick collection. The Metropolitan Mu- seum of New York owns what is known as Gil« bert Stuart's “Gibbs-Chidnning” portrait. There is a superb portrait of Washington by Trume bull, full length, in the mayor’s office, City Hall, Charleston. Princeton Universi.y owns a fulle length portrait of Washington by Charles Will- son Peale, representing him as at the Battle of Princeton. Other portraits were painted by Wertmuller and by James Sharples. In Washington Irving's “Life of Washington” a chapter of the appendix is devoted to the sub- ject of portraits of Washington. Special men- tion is made of a portrait by Robert Edge Pine, an Englishman, who settled in Philadel- phia, where he painted portraits of numerous statesmen and celebrities. Armed with a let- er from Hopkinson, he solicited the privilege f painting a portrait of Washington, was granted permission, and he spent three weeks t Mount Vernon painting Washington and embers of his family. According to Tucker- an, this portrait “bequeaths the features with great accuracy,” but is “cold in tone and in flect unimpressive beside the more bold and owing pencil of Stuart.” Apparently Gilbert Btuart’s interpretation was, even in those early lays, regarded as mnost satisfa-tory. 2 LELA MECHIIN Selection of the Of ficial Washington Portrait. An Exhibition of Tapestrics— W ater Color Shows—Other Notes of Artists. Birthplace of Gilbert Stuart, North Kingston, R. I. A wood gravure by Macowin Tuttle, exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery. THE house in which Gilbert Stuart was born is still standing.. It is at North Kings- ton, R. L, and in a fair state of preservation. Through the generosity of a few persons the homestead and the old mill adjacent have been purchased. The property is held in trust by the Wakefield Trust Co. of Rhode Island pend- ing the incorporation of a memorial associa- tion and arrangements for its upkeep. Among those who made this purchase possible are Senator and Mrs. Metcalf, Marsden J. Perry, Mrs. Arthur Curtiss James and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison B. Morris. A very excellent picture of the house and the adjacent mill was shown here recently in the exhibition held at the Corcoran Gallery by Macowin Tuttle, who has made one of his Portrait head of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, by Brenda Putnam. Exhibited in the annual exhibition of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. unique wood gravures of this subject. ‘The house, two stories and a hipped roof, is of typical New England farm house design, with its chimneys at either end and its well placed window openings. It stands on the bank of a little stream; the mill is to the right—a pic- turesque subject with very great historic in- terest, beautifully engraved by Mr. Tuttle. This wood gravure is destined for a collector who has been fortunate enough to acquire several examples of Gilbert Stuart’s works, AN exhibition of weaving and tapestries by Katherine Penn Crawford of this city opened in the Corcoran Gallery of Art Feb- ruary 17. Miss Crawford in her work follows the method employed centuries ago by Norwegian weavers. The art of Norwegian picture weav- ing, called by ancient Vikings “billedveau,” was for many centuries lost. In 1887 it was re- vived by Mme. Hansen of Norway and fostered by the Norwegian government, with the un- derstanding that only impoverished ladies of nobility would be permitted to take it up. Later this restriction was removed, and a pupil of Mme. Hansen—Mme, Berthea Aske Bergh— made it known to the American public. Miss Crawford studied under Mme. Berg, weaving for a time under her direction. She uses only imported wools prepared in Norway with Norwegian dyes. Her loom is of the “high warp” variety. No bobbins, shuttles or treadles are used, but each stitch is made by the fingers, It is a lock-stitch process, which renders the design similar on both sides and is said to make the fabric most durable. Miss Crawford has set up her loom tempo- rarily in the Corcoran Gallery, where her ex- hibit is shown, and she is working at present . upon a design of penguins brought from Nor- way. The cartoon is placed under the threads and is cepied accurately as the work progresses. This method is quite different from the tap- estry weaving of Belgium and France, where the worker wove in reverse and from the under side. For the most part, Miss Crawford's weavings are small in dimension. The largest of those showh at the Corcoran Gallery at the present time are probably the panels for a screen—land- scape subjects. She usually chooses, true to tradition, pictorial themes, and has done, with photographic accuracy, pictures in this unusual medium of St. John's Church, Mount Vernon, the Washington Cathedral and other well known landmarks. But she has developed on her own initiative an interesting type of weaving, that of heraldic emblems, coats of arms. The idea occurred to her during her study of old Flemish tapestries, and she has been most successful in develop- ing it. For a large firm of decorators in Phila- delphia she has executed a number of com- missions for heraldic panels. She has also had commissions from numerous private families, In the present exhibition she shows no less than six of these interesting coats of arms— one of the Page family, Among her pictorial subjects in the present showing is a spirited interpretation of a polo game and a very interesting bell pull in con- ventional design peculiarly suitable to the me- dium; besides, a quaint and interesting pic- torial subject decoratively rendered in the style of ancient work, “The Lady and the Unicorn.” This collection is very effectively shown in the sculpture gallery, on the first floor of the Corcoran Gallery to the left of the main stair- case. It will continue through February 28. AT the Arts Club, 2017 I street, other inter- esting wall hangings will be placed on view ihis afternoon. These are silk murals by Lydia Bush-Brown (Mrs. Francis Head), for- merly of this city. The process by which these beautful hangings is produced is known as batik, but the artist has found in this medium such free expression that the work has few of the earmarks of that known by this name. Lydia Bush-Brown has not only great origi- nality, but a remarkably keen sense of deco- rative effects, and although she employs to an extent the modern mode of expression, her work never lacks inherent beauty. Her color is peculiarly charming, her style dignified, gra- cious and essentially her own. Some of the subjects that Lydia Bush-Brown has chosen to interpret are the skyscrapers of New York; others are rural scenes in Italy, in the Near East and in our own Central America—widely diverse in character, but completely in har- mony because alike possessed of the charm ¢V good line, color and arrangement. Certainly these silk murals go to prove that one can be both modern and traditional in the same breath, WITH Lydia Bush-Brown's silk murals will b@ ,_shown at the Arts Club for the next forte night sculpture by Clara Hill, director of the@ Hill School of Art of this city. Miss Hill comes of an artistic family. He# father, it will be remembered, was an engravery long heall of the division of engraving of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and aiso & violinist of exceptional skill, a member of the old Georgetown Orchestra. Miss Hill studied under Saint-Gaudens and others, and has ex< hibited extensively. She has a real sense of plastic form and a very sympathetic and undere standing technique. Some of her portraits im relief and small bronzes have almost a classig beauty. N the reception room at the Arts Club frong today until March 7 a collection of watef colors by Carolyn Bradley of Indianapolis wil§ be on vicw. Miss Bradley studied at the Johi Herron Art Institute and with Henry B, Sne W. Lester Stevens and others. She is a membe! of the New York Water Color Club, an associat@ member of the American Water Color Society and other well known professional organizationg and has received prizes for her works in Chie cago, Indianapolis and New York. The pictures which comprise her exhibit come here dircctly from a one-man show in Indianapolis. A VERY attractive little exhibition of painte ings in oil—flowers, still life and other sub jects—by Grace Merrill Ruckman was latelyl shown in the rooms of the District of Columbig League of American Pen Women, Stoneleigh Court. Mrs. Ruckman paints in the traditional manner but shows in her work a very keen and delicate sense of beauty in nature. Some of hes flower subjects are excecdingly well composed and rendered, are colorful and at the same time decorative. THE Art and Archeology League has arranged for the current season an interesting and excellent program of meetings and lectures. The February 7 meeting took the form of a studid assembly at which Miss Lucia B. Hollerith wag hostess in her studio, at 808 Seventeenth street, The next meeting will be held February 28 a§ Gunston Hall, when Mrs. Mitchell Carroll, prese ident of the league, will give an illustrated lece ture on “Art Treasures of Istanbul.” Mrs. Care roll visited Constantinople last Summer and many of the slides which she will use to illuse trate her lecture are from photographs eole lected at that time, THE Washington Water Color Club will opeq its thirty-fifth annual exhibition in the Core coran Gallery of Art a week from today, Sune day, March 1. Two prizes will be awarded this year for thg first time—the Lucien Whiting Powell Memoe rial Award of $25, the gift of Mrs. Powell, fod the most meritorious landscape or figure painte ing in the exhibition, and the James Henry} Moser Memorial Award of $25 given by the Washington Water Color Club for the best stif} 1}1e or flower painting in the exhibition. Thd jury of award will consist of Mary G. Rileyy Alyn Williams and Eugen Weisz, LUCIEN POWELL, in whose memory the firs§ of these prizes is given, is well remembered here, being but lately deceased. James Henry Moser, whom the second prize memorial was for many years president of the Washing« ton Water Color Club, a teacher of water colod at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, a distinguished water colorist, whose works found ready admise sion and welcome in the great exhibitions held in New York and Philadelphia—a very genuine and capable arttist, held in high esteem by hid associates. Works by Mr. Mcser are included in the National Gallery of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and in many private collections, OF notable interest in the annual exhibition .of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors held in New York is a portrait bust by Brenda Putnam, daughter of Continued on Twenty-second Page ART SCHOOLS. HILL SCHOOL of ART CLARA HILL, DIRECTOR Sculpture—Painting—Etching—Design _G !)upont Circle. No. 1271. ’ ACADEMY~ 1333 F St. N.W. ME. 2883. l Abbott Art School Day and Evening Classes. Children’s Saturday Class. 1624 H St. N.W. Corner 17th SCHOOL OF ART 1 Dupont Circle——-Nqfih l96§_ = Felix Mahony’s National Art School Interior Dacfirnlion, Costume Design, Commercial Art, Color. 1747R.1. Ave. North 1114