Evening Star Newspaper, January 17, 1932, Page 80

Calendar of Exhibitions CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Seven- teenth street and New York avenue. Permanent collection, Forty-first An- nual Exhibition of the Society of Wash- ington Ariists, January 1 to 31. Special exhibitions of Water Colors and Draw- ings by Mahonri M. Young, January 11 to 31, inclusive PHILLIPS MEMORIAL GALERY, 1600 Twenty-first street. Permanent collec- tion with recent acql ons and group of paintings by Wasiington artists. Special exhibtion of paintings by Harold Weston. *NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, Tenth and B (Constitution avenue) streets northwest. Pexmanent collection. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Tenth and B streets souti:wezt. Etciings by Beatrice Levy of Q‘mgo, Jenuary 4 to 31. ARTS AND INDUSTRIES BUILDING, United States Naional! Museum. Me- morial exhibition of P graphs by Joseph Pctro 15 to January 31 FREER GALLERY OF ART, Twelfth and B streets southicest. Permanent collection. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Print Divi- sion, First street betwcen East Capitol end B streets southeast. Lithographs by Joseph Pennell. ARTS CLUB OF WASHINGTON, 2017 1 street morthwest. Oil Paintings by Frank Niepold; Oil Paintings anrd Black-and-White Drawings by Herbert Hicks, January 17 to 31. TEXTLE MUSEUM, 2330 S street north- west. Rugs, tapestries and other textiles of the Near and Far East. Open Mon- days, Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 to § o'clock. Admission by card obtainable at the office of G. H. Myers, 730 Fif- teenth street northwest. GORDON DUNTHORNE GALLERY, Connecticut avenue and De Sales street. An erhibition of Lithographs, illus- trating the History of Lithography; rare and fine eramples, some lent by private collectors. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO. 1106 Con- necticut avenue. Paintings by members of the faculty of the Grand Central School of Art, New York, and by Charles Aiken and Anlonio P. Martino; Soap Sculpture from the National Soap Sculpture Committee; Etchings by Ed- ward T. Hurley and Charles Dahlgreen; Drawings by Hugo D. Pohl; Sculpture by Adam Pietz, L. A. Meliodon and others; Water Colors by Richard Sar- geant. HOWARD UNIVERSITY GALLERY OF ART, Sirth street and Howard place. Drawings, Painlings end Designs by students of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, Januvary 4 0 © December T the suuie wwwe that Philip de Laszlo, the great Hungarian-English artist, painted the portrait of the President in the White House for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, he found opportunity to fo a sketch portrait of Mrs. Hoover, which is an admirable likeness and full of that spon- taneity which is her own peculiar charm. It §s a small panel-shape portrait, showing only the head and shoulders and is in shades of tan and brown; but it has the freshness and wvigor that one finds seldom except in, as in this instance, a quick sketch painted from start go finish under a single inspiration Mr. de Laszlo is a brilliant technician, thor- pugly commanding his medium, capable of rendering textures and detail with great per- fection, but even so it is in these sketch por- graits that he seems to those of his own pro- fession to attain highest success. In these, with the least interventicn of medium and technique, he literally interprets personality, fecreates that which is living and vital, and mssures the work perpelual interest, signifi- pance. His portrait of Mrs. Hoover is one for which all who hold her in high admiration, pffection and esteem (and their name is legion) pust be grateiul. Mr. de Laszlo's portrait of the President was #ent to New York immediately upon completion fn order that it might be included in the de Laszlo exhibition at Knocedler's, which is being held for the benefit of the fund to aid the unemployed. It is in many respects one of the most successful portraits of the President that has been painted, possessing great dignity @nd alertness of expression. It will find per- manent placement in the headquarters of the @ssociation under commission from whom it was produced. EWARD RATHBUN of this city is perhaps betier known as an architect and a teacher #®f architecture than as a painter. but during . Summer holidays he travels with his paint Ppox and has for the second time brovght back notable group of water colors as a result. :n the first instance Mr. Rathbun’s water col- ors were of Alaska—of mountains, totem poles gand other typical Alaskan features. These ere exhibited a couple of years ago at the Ppunthorne Gallery attracting wide and favor- pble attention. During the past Summer Mr. and Mrs. Rath- pun were on the West Coast and the water tolors which Mr. Rathbun has brought home 2 of the famous Spanish missions and the dc ert. They are large paintings, as water oelors go, rendered in broad washes of pure polyr, with great directness and sustained THF. SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 17, 1932 S = ST de Laszlo’s Sketch Portrait of Mrs. Hoover. Fine Collection of Beatrice Levy Etchings at the Smithsonian. Copyright by Lewis P. Woltz. Mrs. Herbert Hoover, @ sketch in oils by Philip de Laszlo. strength. In style and character they are dis- tinctly out of the ordinary, modern and at the same time traditional. Among the desert set is one showing prominently in the fore- ground a telegraph pole with its sagging wires, suggestive of the genius of man, which, in & way essentially magical, has brought all parts of the world into communication, so that mo place today is afar, no solitudes are left, com- paratively speaking. Mr. Rathbun’s interpre- tation of this emblem of progress and man’s supremacy is peculiarly significant and has at the same time picturesqueness and definite quality, two black-and-white magpies—natives of the desert—beingz so placed as to lend, by their foliage, accent precisely aright. His pictures of the missions are exceedingly well drawn and interestingly colored, quite different from other transecriptions of these picturesque themes, rendered in each instance with the knowledge of the architect, the in- terest of the archeologist and the feeling of the artist. By special invitation this engaging group of water colors is to be exhibited almost imme- diately in the Art Gallery at Leland Stanford University, California. Mrs. Rathbun (who before her marriage was Hope Willis) insists that she can neither paint nor draw, but produces unique and very beau- titul pictures in silks and satins, enhanced with embroidery. At present she is making a series of pictures in these unusual materials to illustrate an Oriental tale of the tenth cen- tury. In spirit these works are essentially Japanesque, but the manner of presentation is decidedly Mrs. Rathbun’s own. That she is not coyping the Japanese or too strongly in- fluenced by the art of the Orient is evidenced in another work which she has lately com- pleted—a picture of the “Madonna of Spring,” done in the Gothic manner. Here the Ma- donna, occupying the center of the picture, is all in blue—her drapery, her dress, the atmos- pheric sky is a light lavender, the ground a pale buff, and over the whole, in a fairy-like lace work, are the intertwining branches and twigs of blossoming fruit trees. These twigs and flowers are all embroiderad (as are the features of the Madonna) in interlacing out- lines, yet the whole blends together with com- plete unity and presents the appearance of a gravely simple, reverent, almost primitive work. Mrs. Rathbun uses different kinds of material to present different textures—crepe, satin, silk; she invariably enriches her designs with em- broidery, but in such wise that it is never insistent. This is a unique field, and work of a very original and exquisite character— real art, HE Thursday evening conferences at the Phillips Memorial Gallery are proving very popular, practically every available seat be- ing taken. And, what is more, these audiences are keenly eager to learn, and listen with close attention to expositions of the techni- calities of art, which are bound to lead to better understanding. ‘The first of the January series was given by Harold Weston, a collection of whose work constitutes the special January exhibition at the gallery. Mr. Weston's subject was an- nounced as “Beyond the Known—the Artist's Abnormality of Vision,” but he promptly ex- plained that by the word “abnormality” he meant something belonging peculiarly to the individual and transcending the ordinary. And throughcut his address he laid special em- phasis on originality, the importance of seeking out new ways and of doing that which had not been done before. In other words, ap- parently it was Mr. Weston’s belief that every artist should be an explorer, that he should not be content to merely record or to repeat. Mr. Weston spoke merely from notes, and ex- tremely well, holding unbroken the attention of his audience, opening for them new vistas, and of necessity increasing, by his own earnest- ness and sincerity, his own belief in and rev- erence for his art, understanding of and re- spect for the artist’s viewpoint. Duncan Phillips, in an essay on Mr. Weston, once said: “There is a young American painter who stirs in me the hope for a rebirth on this new soil of something that was not lost to the art of painting with the passing of Vincent Van Gogh. It is something earthy and rugged, and, at the same time, of a lyrie pregnancy—something unguardedly and tact- Jessly frank, yet tenderly human. I am thinking of Harold Weston.” ‘The Phillips Memorial Gallery owns a num- ber of Mr. Weston's paintings, among them a small portrait of his wife, “Asleep™”; a strange, dramatic figure of a woman who has thrown herself face downward in her unhappiness, entitled “Loneliness”; a picture of a cat, a painting of a new stove beside an open win=- dow. To these have been added a variety of other paintings for the present exhibition— other cats, still life, interiors, figures and parts of figures; such, for instance, as the knotted hands of a lumberman, the feet of a man clad in tan leather shoes—common- place things, one might say, painted with ruggedness and with little regard for the so- called amenities of art, but undocubtedly different from what has been done before, and equally evidently done with emotion. To like or to dislike such paintings is the privilege of the individual, tut no one could have heard Mr. Weston speak and doubt his sincerity, ne one could see his paintings without realizing the desire of the artist to find fuller expression, “Color,” Mr. Phillips has said, “is Weston’s instrument, but for sculptural rather tham orchestral purpcses.” His intention is not pri- marily to producé harmonies, but to recreate forms, emotions. He is an individualist, and he has the courage of his convictions—not mere stubbornness or complacent egotism, but the courage of the seeker. “I am glad,” he said in his talk, “of my Quaker ancestry because of what it has given me.” To again quote Mr. Phillips: “The guiding principle of Weston’s life is whole-hearted in- tegrity. * * * There is a devout, an affirmas= tive conscience in the man and in the artist. Weston paints what he lives.” Even Mr. Phil- lips, however, admits that at times Weston can be “almost needlessly fierce and shaggy im exeeution.” It is this “fierceness” and “shaggi- ness,” this insistence upon strength rather than beauty, that undoubtedly repels seme from his works. N the Smithsonian Institution, division of graphic arts, is now to be seen a collection of etchings by Beatrice S. Levy of Chicago, well known woman etcher. Forty-five prints are shown in all, of which more than twenty are aquatints in color. The aquatint, it will be recalled, is produced by giving the plate a granual cover before bit- ing, by which a surface is produced which prints in tint rather than line, although lines may be etched in association therewith. This me- dium makes pessible the use of color in printe ing in a way all its own, and the results ate tained are often very charming. But they lack, as in the so-called color etching, a suggestion of the accidental, and they have not the depth of tone or strength of pigment that one finds in the woodblock print. To some, color aqua- tints seem lacking in flavor, but with others they are extremely popular. Miss Levy's vary considerably in character, showing what the uninformed visitor may suppose to be experi- mentation or versatility on the part of the artist. One of the most attractive of her aAquUa-~ tints in color is that entitled “The Tide Comes In,” in which ‘color is well applied and the sweeping coast line attractively portrayed. Her “City Nocturne”—lights twinkling out of dark- ness—is also exceedingly successful, and the “Edge of the Desert” has in dscorative quality much to commend it. Many, howevar, will like h'er "st.dFraPrncis," her “Central Park Impres- sion” and “Provincetown Houses” if not better. sl o S MOng Miss Levy’s etchings in black and white she shows great variety of subject and some very elaborate themes, such as “Stock Show, Chicago,” and “In Orchestra Hall,” con- trasted with several extremely simple subjects such as “African 1dol” and “Congo Gods.” Included in the exhibition are two excellent portrait etchings, one of Cornelius Botke, the Continued on Sixteenth Page 1333 F St. NN\W. ME. 2883 * CRITCHER SCHOOL of PAINTING & APPLIED ART COMMERCIAL ART PORTRAIT & LIFE CLASSES 1726 Conn. Ave. North 1968 HILL SCHOOL of ART CLARA HILL, DIRECTOR Sculpture—Painting—Etchirs—Desicn ¢ Dupont Circle. N ABBOTT SCHOOL | FINE AND COMMERCIAL 1624 H St. N.W. ART 3k e e Fe Felix Mahony’s New Classes Now Forming National Art School 1747R.1. Ave. North1114