Evening Star Newspaper, April 19, 1931, Page 95

Calendar of Exhibitions CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Seven- * teenih sireet and New York avenue. . Ezhidition of Mezican Arts. April 1 to 22. Eitchings by Alfred Hutty. Maereh 28 to April 19. Frescoes by Eben F. Comins. Paintings end drawings by Natalie Hayes Hammond, opening April 20. PHILLIPS MEMORIAL GALLERY, 1600 -frst street. Modern Art end Its Sources. Special Exhibitions; Works of Harold Weston, John Marin end Mg Lane. NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, Tenth and B streets northwest. Permanent collection. Memorial Ezxhibition of ':cr Colors dy Henry Bacon. March 1 o April 30. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Tenth and B streets southwest. Etchings, Aguatints and Drypoints by Will Sim- mons and Teresa Cerutti Simmons. Merch 30 to April 26. - UNITED STATES NATIONAL MU- SEUM, Arts and Industries Building, Tenth and B sireets southwest. Photo- ait studies by Aege Rem- o J4 . March to end of April. FREER GALLERY OF ART, Tuwelfth and B streets southwest. Permanent collection. Recent Acquisitions. Art of the Near East and of East India. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Print Divi- sion, First street between East Capitol and B streets southeast. Early Ameri- can Engravings from the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University. To end of May. ARTS CLUB OF WASHINGTON, 2017 1 street morthwest. Paintings by Fanny Bunand-Sevastos; sculpture dy Angeia Gregory; pictorial photographs by Yosei Amemya. April 19 to May 3. TEXTILE MUSEUM, 2330 S street north- west. Rugs, tapesiries and other tex- tiles of the Near end Far East. Open Mondeys, Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 to 5 o’clock. Admission by card, ob- tainabdble at the office of G. H. Myers, 1508 H street morthwest. DUNTHORNE GALLERY, 1143 Connect- icut avenue. Etchings in colors by D. P. Tyson. Through April. LITTLE GALLERY, 1731 Connecticut avenue. Paintings by a group of young Washington Artists. HOWARD UNIVERSITY ART GAL- LERY, Sirth street and Howard place. Ezhibition of Prinis by contemporary American Artists. April 14 to 28. MOUNT PLEASANT BRANCH, PUBLIC LIBRARY, Sirteenth and Lamont streets northwest. Erxhibition of Land- mple Club of Washington. Through April. HE Corcoran Gallery of Art is fortunate in having secured, as an indefinite loan through the Ranger fund, Gari Mel- chers’ painting “The Sermon,” a pic- ture of a group of worshipers in a Putch church, painted when Mr. Melchers was only 25 years of age, but a masterly work. *The Sermon” was purchased by the council of the National Academy of Design, trustees for the Ranger Fund, in January of this year and has been deposited with the Corcoran Gallery until 15 years after the artist’s death, when the National Gallery of Art may, according to the terms of the Ranger will, claim it for the national collection. Without doubt, s peainting of such importance and character will be de- sired by the National Gallery of Art, but even 30 the Corcoran Gallery will, it is to be hoped, have the privilege of exhibiting it for a considerable number of years, as Mr. Mel- chers is still Mving, and the public will find satisfaction in the thought that the painting will have permanent placement in Washington. At the present time this painting has been hung in the place of chi<f honcr on the center of the wall in the middle gallery opposite the staircese where, in time past, hung such nofble works as George Inness’ “Sunset in the Woods™ and Sargent's great portrait of “The Four Doctors.” Twelve Mfe-sized figures are included in the composition of the picture—2 men and 10 women—each in a different attitude and expres- sion, all save one, apparently, intently listening to the sermon. It is a realistic painting of what would now be called the “old school,” but a school which will never be defunct. It was un- doubtedly inspired by the works of the great Dutch painters of the time of Rembrandt and Hals, but it is essentially also of our time, painted in a different manner and in quite a different key. Some may find it photographic, but no photograph can so well express per- sonality or interpret living beings. To be sure, there is a wide gap between this painting and the abstract paintings of the modernist school, but this is of & kind which is old and tried; the abstract modern paintings are still “on probation.” Mr. Melchers is one of the few contemporary painters who attained distinction before mod- ernism came into vogue and without changing his manner has nevertheless kept abreast of the times. For instance, his painting “A Native of Virginia,” a full-length portrait of a farm woman, has the directness, the simplicity, the structural strength for which the best of the modernists stand. It is a prize-winning picture and has come off with honors when works of younger and so-called advanced men were com- peting. Mr. Melchers has always been a good painter. He is perhaps one of the best painters we have today. His “Skaters” in the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia; his “Fencing Master,” “Portrait of Mrs. Melchers,” ‘“Vespers” and “The Wedding” in the Detroit Institute of Arts are all superb works, works which will live. So also is his “Smithy,” owned at one time, and probably still, by the Phillips Memorial Gal- lery. The Corcoran Gallery owns one of his most lovely Dutch madonnas, “Maternity.” He is represented in the Luxembourg, Paris, by “Maternity,” “Peasant Nurse and Two Chil- THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL 19, 1931 A AK A Al AND y LTELA MECHLIN Melchers Painting at Corcoran Gallery —The Mexican Exhibition — Drawings and Etchings on View—Other Notes of Art. dren” and in the Freer Gallery in this eity by a portrait of President Roosevelt. He does not limit his type of subject and does mol confine himself to one style. Sinee having taken up residence mear Predericksburg, Va., he has painted numerous out-of-door sub- jects. He has always, when Tfeeling the urge, painted landscapes. The Teifair Academy of Arts and Sciences, in Savannah, owns an ex- cellent example of his outdeor painting. Mr. Melehers was born in Detroit, Mich., in 1860; studied at the Dusseldorf Aeademy and under Lefebvre and Boulanger in Paris, and he and charming in design. One of the finest of the chests, early eighteenth century, was lent by Senator Dwight Merrow, and one of the shale low wooden bowls eor plagues, lacquer from Patscuaro, seventeenth century, is & joan from the same source. Count d’Harnoncourt himself is especially in- terested In the toys, and a large number of those shown belong te his own private eollec- tion. Mrs. Morrew, while in Mexico, wrote a book of Mexican fairy stories, for whieh Count d'Harnoncourt supplied the illastrations. The extent %o which the boundaries of art South by Southern patrons. The Telfair Acad- emy of Arts and Sciences offered a prize of $100 for the best painting of a Southern sub- scape by & Georgia artist was William P. Silva, a native of Georgia, one time residcmt of this city, but Carmel, Calif., for a painting entitled of $10 for the best flower painting, and varieus merchants of Southern cities contributed awards. Washington being south of the Masom and Dizon Hne is comsidered within the league's terzitory, and quite 2 number of Washington artists were represented in addition $o Miss Wagner. The exhibition comprises 150 paintings, bee “The Sermon,” by Gari Melchers, purchased by the Council of the National Academy of Design from the Henry Ward is a member not only of the National Academy of Design but the Societe des Beaux Arts, Paris the International Society of Artists, London Munich Secession, the Berlin Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He is also, at the present time, president of the Cen- tury Club, New York. He has, of course, re- ceived innumerable medals and awards at the hands of his confreres, TBR Mexican exhibition at the Corcoran Gal- lery of Art, which opened April 1 and will continue to the 22d, has attractd exceptional interest and with excellent reason. It is a unique and remarkable collection. Its first showing in this country was at the Metro- politan Museum last Fall, since which time it has been shown successively in some of the leading museums of this country, but it is safe to venture that in no place has it been better or more effectively shown than here, the two galleries to the right and left of the grand staircase lending themselves admirably to its exhibition. Although one of these galleries is given over almost exclusively to paintings and works of fine arts, the special emphasis is un- doubtedly on the so-called minor arts—pot- tery, lacquer, wood carving, embroidery, etc. Count d'Harnoncourt, who accompanjes this exhibition, said in an article published at the time of the opening in New York that “pottery is, without doubt, the most outstanding artistic product of the modern applied arts of Mexico, and the contemporary examples in this exhi- bition show such a wide range of traditions, techniques and forms that they appear to be products of different centuries. Owing to the fact that in Mexico there are many villages so isolated that the inhabitants live new as they did when the Spaniards reached the coun- iry, we are able to find Indian pottery baked on the open fire as it was 500 years ago.” Some of the pieces in this collection were made in Colonial times, but have a distinctly modern character. This makes it difficult to distin- guish between modern pottery and that of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth cen- turies. Those who study this exhibition care- fully will note the beautiful shapes as well as the interesting decorations of the huge pottery jars, and even the smaller receptacles. But those who love color cannot fail to find special attraction in the lacquer bowls, trays and chests—beautiful pieces of craftsmanship . Ranger Fund. sort, comprising toys and pottery, glass, woven materials, embroideries, baskets, etc., is now perfectly legitimate material for art museums of this coun- have been permitted admission; the eredit of the Chicago Art Institute n that it was one of the first to s to current exhibitions of the fail to create better international understanding and serve most acceptably as an “envoy of QEVERAL sales have been made from the spe- cial emhibition of drawings, etchings and dry points by Alfred Hutty, which opened at the Corcoran Gallery, March 28, to continue through today, but why any of the works in that collection remain unsold it is hard ‘o understand, so excellent are they, so full of artistic quality, so moderate in price. The etchings and dry points in this collec- tion are beautifully executed and of exceptional interest, but the drawings are of a type quite rare, so sensitive in feeling, so skillful in execu- tion, so altogether significant. To see work of this type is in a measure to look behind the scenes, for all great works of art are dependent to a large extent upon good draftsmanship, and in these later days we have come to understand, through study of works by the great masters, the value of such drawing, whether as auxiliary to painting or, as in this instance, as an end in itself, TO Catherine C. Critcher of this city a prize of $100, given by Mrs. B. F. Bullard and Mrs. E. 8. Trosdal of Savannah, for the best portrait shown in the Eleventh Annual Ex- hibition of the Southern States Art League at the Telfair Academy, was awarded for her painting “Indian Grandmother,” shown in her recent exhibition here at the Mayflower Hotel —an outstanding work. To know that 22 other prizes were awarded in this exhibition does mot in the least take from Miss Critcher’s honor, but evidences & keen interest in the advancement of art in the sides pastels, miniatures, etchings, lithographs and craftwork. . RROW afternocon there will opem at the Corcoran Gallery of Art a special exe hibition of works by Natalie Hays Hammend, Continued en Twenty-second Page e ART SCHOOLS. HILL SCHOOL of ART TR ST IS April 22 to May 6. L Aa s e o 2 ol Felix Mahony’s National Art School Interior Decoration, Costume Desigmy Commercial Art, Color. 1747 R. 1. Ave. North1114 Abbott Art School Spring Term Opens April 8 Summer Session July 6 1624 H St. N.W. Corner 17th Summer School, Too YOU CAN LEARN COMMERCIAL ART Poster, Pen and Ink Show Cards. &e. Advertising, Interier Decoration Drafting (All Branches) Costume Design, Ete. % Short professional aayndn.. 'rulhhc tanities. Individual imstruction. * Start