Evening Star Newspaper, January 1, 1933, Page 50

o750 Calendar of Exhibitions CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Seven- teenth sireet and New York avenue. Thirteenth Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings. December 3-January 15. Permanent collection. NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, Tenth and B {constitution avenue) streets northwest. Permanent collection, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Tenth and B sireets southwest. Etchings by Robert Lawson. January 2 to 29. UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, ARTS AND INDUSTRIES BUILDING. Photographic portraits by Ralph Og- giano of New York. To January 31. FREER GALLERY OF ART, Twelfth and B streets southwest. Permanent collection. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, print divi- sion, First street between East Capitol and B sireets southeast. Permaneni collection. ARTS CLUB OF WASHINGTON, 2017 I street. Paintings by club members, December 11-January 7. Eczhibition of Water Colors by Sewell Johnson. Jan- uary 4-14. PHILLIPS MEMORIAL GALLERY, 1600 Twenty-first street. Open on Satur- days (only), 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. TEXTILE MUSEUM OF THE DIS- TRICT OF COLUMBIA, 2300 S street northwest. Rugs, tapestries and other textiles of the Near and Far East. Open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fri- days, 2 to 5 o’'clock. Admission by card obtainable at the office of G. H. Myers, 730 Fifteenth sireet morthwest, Closed December 26 to January 2. MOUNT PLEASANT BRANCH, PUBLIC LIBRARY, Sirteenth and Lamont streets. Eichings by Ellen Day Hale, Gabrielle de V., Clements and Lesley Jackson. January 4 to 31. GORDON DUNTHORNE GALLERY, 1105 Connecticut avenuwe. English prints of flowers and sporting subjects. Etchings and water colors. ART LEAGUE OF WASHINGTON, 2111 Bancroft place, Recent paintings by Venson Moore. January 2-16. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO. ART GAL- LERIES, 1106 Connecticut avenue. Oil paintings, water colors, prints, etc., by American artists. Opening January 7. HIS is the week that the public is in- vited by the trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art to award a prize for the most popular painting in the thirteenth biennial exhibition, now on view. This prize of $200 will be given to the painting which receives the greatest number of votes of visitors to the ex- hibition during the week beginning tomorrow. Every person visiting the exhibition during the next seven days will have the privilege of cast- ing a vote, and every picture in the exhibition will be regarded as eligible. It should be noted that visitors voting are not asked to state which picture in the exhibi- tion they think best as a work of art, but which picture they like best. Here is a distinction with a difference. As every painting in this exhibition was passed upon or invited by a jury of competent artists, it may well be taken for _granted that they are all well painted. But there is something more to art than technique; every great work of art has a spiritual as well as a material quality. It is of the spiritual quality which makes appeal that the public is asked in this instance to judge. To have spiritual quality a painting need not be of a beautiful subject, but it must, many believe, have inherent beauty—beauty in rendering, beauty in interpretation, beauty in the matter "of lighting, in rhythmical arrangement or in a dozen other things; it must certainly be a painting with which one would like to live. Obviously, taste in such matters varies—even good taste—but after all it is the public which determines, if not merit, demand, and it is de- mand which keeps for the producer the home fires burning. . How much music would we have today if musicians were obliged to play to empty seats in empty halls? How much art shall we continue to have if no one is inter- ested in looking at the pictures and works in sculpture that artists produce, or in acquiring them? Cur.lou.sly enough, Holland and Spain have derived greater rame, respectively, through Rembrandt and Velasquez, their greatest painters, than they have through the greatest military victory that either ever won. What our American artists today are doing and, through the medium of their art, saying, is of much more vital importance to us in the future as a nation than the quotations from the na- tional stock exchange. It should not be thought, however, artists paint or should paint to please the pub- lic. As soon as a painter does this his career THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 1, 1933. A Al AND AR 4 LEILA MECHILTN : Most Popular Painting at Corcoran Gallery to Receive Prize This Week— Eitchings at the Smithsonian—O Other Art Notes. “The Boat Builder,” by John C. Johansen, In the biennial exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. civilization and in national life. Until the Government of the United States comes to some such understanding we shall not as a Nafion realize real greainess. Therefore, this voting for the most popular painting in the Corcoran Gallery’s biennial ex- hibition during the coming week is not a mere bid for popularity, an amusing incident, but instead a real opportunity and one which all thoughtful people, art lovers and good citi- zens, should take seriously and discharge con- scientiously. “But,” some will say, “there are many pic- tures in this exhibition that I do not like.” Well, what of it? It is a positive, not a negative vote that is asked. Surely in this collection of over 300 works there are some for which one can en~ tertain real admiration. What, for instance (to name only a few) of that charming group by the late Gari Melchers entitled “Indian Sum- mer”—a picture of a mother with two chil- dren, one in her arms and the other by her knee, and a nursemaid standing by—Indian Summer with the foliage on the trees gold in the sunlight, and fallen leaves gold on the ground—a typical Gari Melchers and yet ten- derer, perhaps, than some—a beautiful compo- sition beautifully rendered. And what of “The Boat-Builder,” by John C. Johansen (incidentally a portrait of his own son) with the toy yacht he has built in his right hand, his hammer and chisel in his left hand, seen against a conventionalized background of dark blue sea, high cliffs and a dark sky. This picture was included last Summer in the Olym- pic Exhibition in Los Angeles and the question then arose as to whether the background was the coast of Maine or the coast of California, but which it mattered little, for it is an excel- lent portrait strongly rendered, admirably set forth, every inch of the canvas with definite significance. What of Cecilia Beaux’s painting, “Dressing Dolls,” very French in its flavor, very charming in its high-keyed color scheme, very reserved, and a work full of freshness of youth, but painted with full maturity of knowledge. Or, turning from the figure paintings, what indeed of Daniel Garber's exquisite landscape, “Bridge by Aquetong,” lovely not only in its composition and its color, but in its play of light; of Redfield’s two charming characteristic Winter landscapes, one entitled “Christmas American N exhibition of etchings by Robert Lawson will open tomorrow in the Smithsonian Building under the auspices of the Division of Graphic Arts of the United States National Museum, to continue to January 29. “Robert Lawson,” said John Taylor Arms, president of the Society of American Etchers, recently, “is one of the most accomplished tech- nicians in the fleld of American etching today.” Yet Robert Lawson has been etching members in 1932 one of his prints. entitled “We Fix Flats,” and showed a of gnomes shoeing a Pegasus. At the time print was issued atiention was called by Bociety of American Etchers not only to Mr, Lawson’s extraordinary manual dexterity but to the imaginative quality of his work, the fact that he has explored, as it were, an entirely fairies, of elves and goblins and sprites, all of whom he has interpreted with a whimsicality of expression that has made his prints some- thing more than mere phantasies, Lawson was born in New York City in 1892 and grew up in Montclair, N. J. He studied for two years in the New York School of Fine and Applied Art; worked as an illustrator until 1917, then spent two years in France as a member of the American camouflage section. At the close of the war he went back to illus- trating and worked for various leading publish- ers. Among the bobks he has illustrated are “The Wee Men of Bally Wooden,” “The Roving Lobster” and “From the Horn of the Moon,” by Arthur Mason; “The Unicorn with Silver Shoes,” by Ella Young. Almost as soon as he turned to etching he attained distinction in this field, his prints appearing in “PFine Prints of the Year,” “Contemporary American Prints” and “Fifty Prints of the Year,” Purthermore, they have been acquired by the Library of Congress and for other public collections. He lives now There is every reason to anticipate this ex- hibition with uncommon interest, TWO exhibitions, one of oil paintings, the other of water colors, chiefly works by Wash- Wmmm&uum little figures silhouetted against the a landscape, *Valley at Sunset,” by Warren Eaton. Catherine C. Critcher, a Virginian by birth, by a delightful child portrait, “Little Anne in Blue,” shown at the Dunthorne Gallery last m:ter and attracting much favorable atten- There are charming still life and flower studies by Ellen Day Hale, Gabrielle de V. Clem~ ents and Hattie E. Burdette; a Western moun« tain painting, strongly rendered, by Richard E. Meryman, “Mountain Pasture”; characteristic landscapes by Minor S. Jameson, Garnet Jex, “A. H. O. Rolle, J. C. Claghorn, A. J. Schram and Tom Browne; and, to round out the group, one of Charles Bittinger's inimitable interiors, “Old Wallpaper.” The water-color exhibition is made up of groups and single examples of the works of 10 resented by single examples in each instance, Eliot O'Hara’s contribution is his “Iceberg Off Labrador”; Elizabeth Sawtelle’s a picture painted last Summer of the Ogunquit River. The exhibition as it stands represents variety, in comparatively smail space, in matter of rendering and brings to fact that water colors are no more color dra ings—the works of amateurs, works in sm but rather powerful presentations g syfifii Cm BITTINGER'S painting of “A Room at Arlington,” included in the re- cent Winter Exhibition of the National Acad- Ralph Oggiano of New York City on view during the month of January Arts and Industries Building, United States N: tional Museum, section of photography. Mr, Continued on Thirteenth Page Hill School of Art Sculptore—Painting—Etching THE CORCORAN SCHOOL OF ART Tuition FREE Annual Entrance Fee, $25.00 v Felix ny, ' National Art School 1747 R. 1. Ave. NAT. 2656 Nc Classes .a,inlm’ Abbott Art School and Evening Classes. mdrcn's guh:::ay Class. 6 Dupont Circle