Evening Star Newspaper, October 31, 1937, Page 77

Portraits by H. Stanley Todd, from left to right: Joyce, formerly commanding officer at Fort Myer, Va. H. Stanley Todd, With World, Triumphs to His Credit, Comes * to Make Home in Capital—His Masterpiece, “The Naz- arene,” Ranks With Great Works. By Lucy Salamanca. ANY .years ago, in the Julian Academy in Paris, a young art student painted a picture which he named “Mary at the Tomb.” To the astonishment of the youth it received the Gold Medal at the Concours. But more signifi- cant even than as an indication of exceptional talent, this marked the beginning of a curiously insistent and tenacious determimation on the part of the young student. he told himself, “I must paint the Christ.” That was about 40 years ago. the years between, this young man from St. Louis, Mo, grew in fame and honors. Painter of many of the titled heads of Europe while still in his twenties; Red Cross commissioner for France and Belgium after the armistice; a colonel in the United “Some day,” | | | E In | Btates Army; painter of three Presi- | dents of the United States and more than five hundred distinguished can- | vases, a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, the accumulative triumph of his great career came on that day when, in obedience to a creatiye urge he realized his lifelong aspiration, and in eight hours of inspired labor put upon canvas the head of Christ that has been acclaimed in every large city of the United States, at the World Fair at Chicago and in every capital of the Old World. “The Nazarene” the artist called this remarkable paint- ing, but the world rechristened it, “The Christ Triumphant” and still others, because of the unusual gold hair and blue eyes of the Saviour represented called it “The Nordic | Christ.” HE artist of that canvas, who called Washington his home dur- ing the war days, has returned to the | Capital, and whil* developing themes | reat historical paintings, is lay- ing Plans to make this city his per- manent home. H. Stanley Todd, sol- dier, artist and gentleman of the “old for echool.” has returned. to Washington | to arrange for a second showing of his ‘ masterpiece, which, despite offers | from crowned heads and Oriental | potentates, to say nothing of church organizations and private citizens of wealth, he has never offered for sale. | COL. STANLEY TODD, | Former Red Cross commis- sioner to France and Belgium for the United States Govern- ment and internationally known portrait painter. traits in one London season. And it is a tale of such artistic triumph as has come to very few living painters. Established at the Shoreham with his charming wife, who is a member of the distinguished Cabanne family of St. Louis, Col. Stanley Todd is par- ticularly interesting himself at pres- ent in great historical themes, for he believes that there remains much in American history that has never been painted, and that epic events are re- corded in historic ledgers that also canvas. _ “American history,” he told me, “is 5o rich in stirring themes. I would like to see them brought out in great symbollic paintings that handed down to those generations of Americans that come after us.” American artist, but the fact re- mains that in his portraits of famous people, living and dead, he has also “The Nazarene,” shortly to g0 ONeypipited extraordinary talent. Frances exhibition to the public in Tudor Chapel at Cedar Hill, Md., has, ac- cording to Edwin C. Hill, been seen by more people than any painting in . the world, with the possible exception of Mona Lisa, and aroused such com- ment and admiration abroad that it took the combined efforts of two gov- ernments to get it out of one Euro- pean country that wished to retain it as a national Christ. H. Stanley Todd is today as hand- some and soldierly as he was when he went abroad to take charge of Red Cross relief work shortly after the war. Six feet or more in height and straight as a ramrod, he would make an excellent subject for one of his own | canvases. A great personal friend | of former President Herbert Hoover, he recalls the busy and happy period they spent together when Mr. Hoover called upon him to help raise $33.000,- 000 to save 3,000,000 children, as mem- ber of the European Relief Council in New York, of which Hoover was chair- man. “Not only did we raise the relief funds,” Col. Todd recalls, “but John D. Rockefeller, jr., handed me his per- Willard, the great American president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, sat for him in London dur- ing the early days of his career, and the portrait he then painted has since become famous. He finished it while she was visiting the home of Lady | coln,” the head which appears on the | should be permanently depicted on | 1d | | oo belwus doing when they appeared, all THE ~SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D.” C, OCTOBER 31, - Joel Boulon, first American Ambassad | Somerset, who was president of the British branch of the union During those early years Todd also painted the Duchess of Bedford, the Countess of Dudley, wife of the Earl of Dudley, and numerous other mem-= bers of British nobility. In America, when he returned from his studies abroad and during 30 years devotion to portraiture, he painted President Theodore Roosevelt, President Mc- | Kinley and hundreds of distinguished | Americans. The famous “Todd Lin-| Lincoln penny, was also the work of H. | Stanley Todd. | Here, as a matter of fact, is an | artist who began to draw and paint almost as soon as he could speak. When he was 5 years old he had a notebook filled with sketches which | bore such titles as “A Man” “A| Horse” and similar marks of identifi- | cation. Having been born in St. Louis into a well-to-do and distinguished family. Todd attended the Washing- his last year there majored in art. | | ton University in that city and during | | | | TROM the first he was certain of what he wished to do in life, and | fortunately for the world his parents were in complete accord with his as- pirations. Thus when he suggested at the end of his third year at the univer- sity that he would like to go to Paris to study he had to overcome none of those parental objections that have 80 often stood in the way of the de- velopment of genius. Off to Paris he went and with the parental blessing on his handsome head. | “I worked with what I believe were the half dozen real workers in all Paris in that day,” he recalls, “and it was | my privilege to study under the two incomparable masters, Benjamin Con- stant and Jean Paul Laurens. What- ever I know of painting I owe to them. 1 shall never forget those days in the | | Julian Academy when the masters were | to come to criticize the work of the students. No matter what any one work had to cease, and if ti.e model were on the stand he would have to | remain there, perfectly motionless until T IS symbolism that interests this| he tour of inspection was over. I, have seen them drop over from ex-| haustion, but no one stirred, once the masters had entered the studio. “They would walk slowly among the easels, studying the work critically, and we would stand awaiting their judg- ment, scarcely daring to breathe. ‘I learned French perfectly, so that I would have the privilege of interpret- ing the criticisms to English students. In that way I received an invaluable » ARTIST PAINTS FOR AMERICA * REAR ADMIRAL MOFFETT, From a portrait by Col. Todd. ‘extra’ education in art. T have nlwa_\'s‘studying at the Julian Academy in remembered one statement by Benja- | Parisshe was accustomed to spend sea- min Constant, for it has proved abso- | sons at the summer place of his friend, lutely true in my own experience.| Lady Henry Somerset. The estate was ‘Remember,’ he once told me, ‘that known as the Priory and was situ- the best part of any portrait will be| ated in Rigate, Surrey. his return to America, Todd named | painted after the sitter has gone.'” Later, upon his own estate in Long Island the ODD has what he calls a “photo- | Priory, after the estate of his British graphic mind.” He needs only to| friend. spend a short while with the subject | YeArs ago % of & portrait before he has a mental | Nazarene image so clear and distinct that it re- | It was at the Priory a few that the artist painted “The While this delightful place in Huntington no longer pro- mains with him during the entire| duces the noted breed of Jerseys for painting of the picture. And so vivid is this mental image that he can paint the subject without established. This curious and interest- | ing gift of retention accounts for his sittings, once it is | ing as seriously which it has been famous-in the past, and its owner no longer takes farm- as he once did, Col. and Mrs. Todd spend many of their summers in the fine old farmhouse great ability in painting portraits of | et amid its green acres. men and women who are no longer living. There is nothing of the “arty"” artist Old photographs, or memo- | about Todd. He prefers to be called randa that contribute to a conception | a “painter” and he refers to his studio of their personality, are all he needs| as his “workshop.” to catch the spirit and personality. On one occasion, when a portrait of our first Ambassador to France, Joel Barlow, was requested, Todd painted a striking portrait after looking at a|left a deep impression upon marble bust of Barlow done by Houdin, and with such excellent results that it is as lifelike and compelling as if Bar- low himself had sat for the painting. He has always been a great athlete, and during his Paris student days spent his leisure time in boxing. Three historical events he witnessed during this period him. The humiliation of Dreyfuss and the courtyard incident already referred to, the assassination of Sadie Carnot, which he witnessed, and the funeral During the five years that Todd spent | of Louis Pasteur. , #onal check for $1,000,000 for the | fg% cause. “Mr. Rockefeller and I had been friends for many years. We had both taught, as young men, down in the Harriman Boys' Club, in the ‘Hell's . Kitchen' section of lower New York. Mr. Rockefeller used to go down to teach economics to about the toughest group of youngsters ever gathered un- der one roof and I used to teach them art. The ‘club’ was down at Avenue A and Tenth street, and, despite the squalor and poverty and evil of the gurroundings, some of those boys really made good. I met them later in life, and it gave me a thrill to see what could be done when one rose above circumstances.” ' A CKNOWLEDGED to be one of the greatest of living painters, H. Btanley Todd is modest and unas- suming to an astonishing degree. ‘Yet his career has been 5o outstand- ing that it glows in the telling as a tale told by candlelight of Paris in the 90s, and the great Benjamin Con- stant and Jean Paul Laurens walking through the aisles of easels to criticize while a student stood breathless before his own canvas. It is a tale bright with the glamour of historic events, for Todd saw them strip the buttons from the uniform of Dreyfuss in the courtyard behind his living quarters in the Rue Cherche Midi, as they flung him from the army wagon to the prison yard beneath the windows of the lodgings of the young St. Louis art student. And in 1894 he was present at the Gran Prix when Carnot, Presi- dent of France, was shot and killed not 200 feet from where he stood. Tt is & tale that moves through Eng- lish countryside life, at the home of Lady Henry Somerset, wiere the young Todd spent his summers as GRT \T s GOESL. HAVEMEYER PARK MAY~30-1892 MOPERN OANCE CAVILLION SHAOY G AMUSEMENTS DRIVE QOT T e PURCHASED ' IN & \89\ To BUILD <5 RN ODE | AMUSEMENT PARK . \TWASAN OTYER FAIL meJ. LIGUORS, 1301= F 5T NW, TEA A SPECIALXY, guest of Lady Henry's son, and while still jn his twenties executed 14 por- 14 A 47,?33' s T & L 5‘ BEALTIFUL PoroTueroLn" RUARTERS A |2 HILLCREST 'TO-DAY, BLY ao.xx HAVEMEYER 4 WEALTAY SUGAR \\REFINER EMEMBER WHEN YOU DIONY HAVE TO CALL OR ‘THREE AWYER OR S A N Two ) =X CERTS, A L WO EACH VEAR YO S SIDE OF ‘WHE LEDGER YOLR BUSINESS \WASON FAVTH EOL HiIS HIGH STOOL AND HIG EDUCATION ABOLY MATHEMATICS CARTER KNEW ABOOT LIV Y AND DIDNT NEED AN ADDING MACKINE TO AND YOOUR OO KEEPE WHO KNEW eR C/LLS A\ \) ”v\ EE WHAY | = WITA \ H SCHooL MORE STHAN \ s N A AN AN THOSE WERE THE HAPPY DAYS! <0t beais for New /_\_ N\ L WELLWITA YEN “THOUSANO AY SIXPER CENY AND EIFTY SHARES INVEST- ED IN’ FOROS HORSE~ LESS CARRIAGE ,THE ONLY OVERHEAD EXCENSE WE GOTIA WATCH |5 TH® 7 GAS BILL WAt vy \ N “ats-) KeeP HIM STRAIGH Y. 1937—PART FIVE. T WAS while Todd’s mother was visiting him in Paris that she be- came ill and he had to return with her to America. He remained in the United States for many years, setting up his studio and seriously giving himself to portraiture. After his first marriage, during this period, he took up the study of engineering and be- came president of an engineering firm. Later he became associated in a business way, in an engineering project, with the man who later be- came President and his very good friend, Herbert Hoover. For eight years Todd did not touch a brush to canvas, but the war, if it brought him great suffering and wide experience, also returned him to painting. When the war broke out Todd en- listed and came to Washington, En- tering the War Department attached to the Intelligence Division of the | general staff. He studied night and | day, determined to earn his rank and | was commissioned a colonel after his | military studies. Three times he was ready to go abroad, but so important | were the services he was performing | in Washington he was not permitted | to go across until after the armistice. | Then he was sent to France and Bel- |gium by the War Department as commissioner for the Red Cross, in full control of all relief work, with more than 5000 cities and towns |.under his direct charge. “All my life,” Col. Todd told me, “I had burned with the desire to paint a living Christ, to give a new conception of Christ to the world. I had made several attempts, but no one of them satisfied me. Each seemed but a pictorial representation. | During my work in France and Bel- gium directly after the war I wit- nessed such incredible suffering, I saw so much misery and destitution and was so long in the midst of dis- could scarcely rest for the intensity | of the conviction that I should paint a new Christ—a Christ triumphant over death and human suffering, a Christ that could command the uni- verse yet could be gentle as a child. “The thought would not leave me. | It grew and grew, and “The Naza- rene,” painted upon my return to the | United States, was the result. It was | painted in eight hours of divinely in- | spired labor, but it had taken 40 | years for the ideal to materialize on canvas. It was painted without a model, purely inspirationally, and in all humility I state that I consider myself no more than the instrument, the channel, through which “The Nazarene” was given fo the world. Once it was painted it was no longer was finished. “It has gone all over the world and its history has been amazing. So amazing, in fact, that at times it has overwhelmed me. Mahatma Gandhi has a full-size photo of ‘The Nazarene’ in the Ashran in India. The Mahar- ajah of Barada saw it at the Chicago World's Fair and has sought to pur- chase it ‘at any price’ for India. But I feel ‘The Nazarene' belongs to Amer- | eased and dismembered men that I| mine, and my work in producing it | American Off With Advice F—3 for Europe on Diet (Continued From First Page.) problem seemed too large or too small for it to tackle in its 327-page report. Conridered were the vast sections of the population just lazing along for lack of various vitamins: The co-ed who diets to stay slender was warned of the error of her ways: “Indeed, among young women there has been an increase in tuberculosis during recent years in some countries. This state of affairs has been ascribed by some to the modern habit of ‘slimming,’ by others to the greater expenditure dictated by modern habits of life on clothes, which leaves too food. Efforts of an educative nature ought to be taken to make adolescent boys and girls realize that the best health and the fullest physical and mental development are only possible if their dietary contains an abundance of the protective foodstuffs.” Even the shinnying small boy had his bit of advice. He wouldn't break his bones so often if his food had more calcium content. He should drink more milk. OF FAR more moment were some of its main lines of argument. Not a nation on this food-filled globe has nearly enough nutrition. In the United States of America, the United Kingdom and western Europe, where the record is best, such sore spots as the following were found: Mortality rates in the depressed districts of South Wales 166 per cent above those of the well-to-do districts. Pellagra still a problem in the south- ern States of the United States. “About 80 per cent of the deciduous teeth of British children imperfectly developed.” And this from an Aus- tralian nutrition council: “The pale, puffy, even slightly overweight child, with continual catarrh, colds and chronic bronchitis, came to be such a familiar type that it could be recog- nized as it came through the door.” Far worse was the reported situation of the peasant class of central and eastern Europe, where & serious prob- lem of malnutrition exists, made vivid by this sentence: “Frequently, the consumption of meat in peasant house- holds is restricted to one pig per year, which is slaughtered at Christmas.” More baffling still were Asia and the ica, and I intend to keep it in my native country. That is why I have consented to its being shown for the second time in Washington this win- ter, for when it was exhibited a few years ago many thousands wrote me requesting its return. “I am not primarily a painter of religious pictures. I am a portrait painter. But I painted one other re- ligious . picture which was likewise purely inspirational. This is ‘Immor- tality,” and I made the first sketches for it during a severe illness, rising from my bed in clear interludes amid delirium and jotting down the mental impressions as they came to me. I dated these drawings and put them away, and days later, when able to get about again, I immediately set about transferring the vision to can- vas. I made three canvasses in all, returning in the third to the original conception, both in form, transparency and spirituality. This canvas is 10 feet high. They have built a beau- tiful shrine for it in Los Angeles, where it is exhibited.” COL. TODD spoke glowingly of the “new Washington,” the city that has risen beside the Potomac since the days when he was on war duty in the Capital. “It is the most beautiful city in the world,” he asserts enthusiastically, “and nothing will make me happier than to establish my permanent home here. The classic beauty of the new buildings, the green parks, the wide, clean streets and, best of all, that at- mosphere which is like that of no other city in America “Washington is a city that should be an inspiration to any painter. It is the meeting place of men and women who are making history, and it is bright with tradition. I have been dwelling mentally for some time upon historical canvasses that will be sym- bolic of all that America has accom- plished and all that she stands for. And I hope it will be my privilege in time to put these on canvas.” peaers>—By Dick Mansfield & " 1 WANTA Sy T, AT F):SE;EAL T 3 8 S CHERGE of 2t & LAYTE W Woopyy, YHROPS Witk SIORES IN N,Y. L(gNOoN & > CARIS Opgy. €D \vs =N - VO THe POG ONMARKEY BETween OHNPRECCTT BOUGHT TAE PROCERTY W ~FSTLINIBB3 Yor § e AND WHAT A — WHILE SHORTLYE YHEREAFIER \WILLIAM \3,000 ACZGAL 2, PROPRIETOR § A RESTAORANT AT €, SoLO THE 2 PROPERTY 0 SYONEY WENT For 59,000, ‘N APQIL 189\~ “CTHE HOYLER CANOY COMPANY QURCHASED “THEJAME s Proeety For # 72,500 iR Eeemgy/ - /| 7‘\'07))5\\ 3 R 4D & Emoevy ! | WHaT Do Yoo REMEMBER T §8 ONSWER 7O LAST wug GUUESTION, | T WHAT CORNER WAS g WASHINGTONT FIRST AND OANLY TRAFFIC COLICE WOMAN TESH SYATIONED? § NSWER., . : Z < 575, Now. Kg; EXT'-(WHEEH sLE&Ymg ARK? little money to the purchase of proper T colonial areas of Africa, where, so the committee chronicled, contrary to old tradition the institution of simple peoples living close to nature does not cause them unerringly to pick the foods that are good for them. Theirs were the worst nutritional diseases, a special problem merely touched on but - not considered by the Astor Committee, Instead, & special conference of the League's health organization was’ called in Java last August to figure out diet improvements along the line of making soya milk from the soya bean, since improving diets by real milk is out of the auestion. ‘HIS might seem a gloomy world picture, but the Astor Committee looked it over, and brought in factors of great hope. Dietary habits are subject to change, and dietary changes show up quickly, for better or for worse. During the World War when the nations were saying, “Food will win the war,” and that was what food was used for, the change was for the worse. A stunted crop of school children was the result in Berlin and Leipzig. Berlin children born in 1918 who entered school in 1935 were 2 to 2Y, inches smaller and 2 to 3 pounds lighter than those who entered school |in 1933. In Leipzig, the averag: height | of boys increased by £’ inches, that of | girls 4} inches from 1918 to 1933. But food habits of the Western nations are tending to change in the right direction. The past century has seen English, German and American life spans growing longer, and the average stature of young Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and American uni- versity students increasing, as a result of better nutrition and public health. In Sweden, the average stature of youths measured for the army in- creased 3 inches between 1840 and 1926; in Denmark, 3 inches between 1840 and 1913; in Norway, 4 inches between 1800 and 1900; in the Nether- lands, 5 inches between 1850 and 1807. Nor does it take a century to show |change. This Nation's food habits, | probably your own included, have | changed greatly since the World War. |'Said the Astor Committee: “There remains no doubt that, since | the war, there has been a very large | increase in the consumption of vege- | tables in all Western countries. The | nutritive qualities of this food have | been increasingly recognized. Produc- tion has tended to become more specialized, qualities have been stand- ardized, transport facilities improved and marketing better organized | These factors with the development of | particularly early and late-maturing | strains, have contributed much toward the reduction of seasonal fluctuations in the consumption of vegetables.” THE Astor Committee called this change “no accident,” and gave two main reasons for it. One, that the machine had taken many jobs hitherto done by strong muscles, hence less physical craving for energy-producing foods among workers, and more ap- petite for lighter fruits and vegetables. The other was the recent nutrition teaching which has attached such especial importance to green leafy vegetables and citrus fruits that even school children have learned to call them “protective” foods, along with | milk and eggs. And that's where dark-haired, dark eved, slender Dr. Hazel K. Stiebel: of the Bureau of Home Economics comes in. “Intense” is the adjective that best describes her, and for that matter, the whole tribe of' true scientists at work for Uncle Sam. 8he had been a food chemistry research assistant in the Graduate School oi | Columbia University before she came | to the Department of Agriculture in | July, 1930. Immediately she found plenty of opportunity to put her lab- | oratory learning to practical use There had been a big drought in the | South, and the American Red Cros: | Public Health Service and Department | of Agriculture were collaborating on | the problem. Miss Stiebeling worked out a simple, understandable, practical leaflet dealing with adequate diets for families of limited incomes. Then the depression came on in earnest, and at its worst the Chil- dren’s Bureau wanted Miss Steibiling to work out diets for impoverished city children that would cost even less. At the same time, she was called upon to plan diets for farm families not especially needy, the argument being that if the drought- stricken could fare so well on so little, any farm family could eat well if it planned to produce the right foods in the proper proportions, THIS led to one of the most widely- used of Government publications, “Diets at Four Levels of Nutritive Content and Cost,” done by Miss Stiebeling in collaboration with Miss Medora Ward. The most restricted diet outlined therein, and definitely labelled as for emergency use only, was as good in nutritive value as half the population now lives on. The three other diet plans all give an adequate margin of safety, but at different cost levels. The least ex- | pensive was perfectly adequate for any eater; it just didn't have expensive meats, succulent fruits, and things out of season. Next contribution of Miss Stiebeling was diets adapted to different types of farming. She planned eating for farm families on whose acres truck crops were plentiful and meat scarce. She planned them for families out on the range, where vegetables were few and hard to raise and meat plentiful She saw her plans put to use in a remarkable manner. When the Re- settlement Administration was moving families onto new farms, those diet plans were an integral part of the process, reduced to writing in prepared forms, « like making out a family budget. Either the farm had to be big enough to grow the essential foods for the family—and such foods were listed according to a standard plan, with allowance for family likes and dislikes—or it had to produce enough cash to buy these foods in addition to paying back on the Government loan. Included in this family planning was the canning of food to last through the year. While farms were thus being based on the Stiebeling nutritional studies, city relief administrations were keep- ing close to the standards get in her equate diets at minimum cost.” And overseas, Sir John Orr used the Stiebeling standards to grade Great Britain's diets. A MEETING of representatives of national nutrition committees was called in Geneva last February, at the request of the Astor committee, The United States was invited to send a representative. This country has no national nutrition committee, but it does have here in Washington an Interdepartmental Committee on Nu- trition, & section of the Cabinet Committee on Health and Welfare, e OVE 32 WCAR mox«V “c?e‘o’%es\'own TO LINCOLN Miss Btiebeling was chosen from that group to represent this country. 4