The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 32

BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, NEW YORK. SUNDAY. JANUARY 20, 1935 Robert Loflin Newman and Arthur B. Davies: Two American Romantics 6 RECEMT nillTMEY MI SEUM ACQVISITIOSS A Review of the Week In Manhattan Galleries Two American Romantics: Newman, Arthur Davies Young Is showing a group of well. By HELEN APPLF.TON' READ i VIEW of the many rediscov eries and revaluations of for gotten or disregarded reputations it is becoming increasingly necessary that our art histories be rewritten or at least have new chapters interpolated.

Every distinctive epoch necessitates a rewriting of its art histories in as much as changes of taste invariably occure when the socnl or economic structure undergoes a change of form or direction. The present Intensive Interest in works of art which express the un contaminated American essence and which shall not only be enjoyed for themselves but may also serve as a "usable past" is very largely conrii younger painters who continued the tradition of romantic mysticism. It is not necessary to be a Davies enthusiast to enjoy the quality that the Davies' tapestries exemplify. They exist for themselves as exquisite specimens of an undying art. But if to this recognition is added an enthusiasm for the quality and kind of Davies design and its Imaginative content, the collection will be an exciting experience.

In the Davies Memorial exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum theie were a few examples of this aspect of his talent but the present collection is the first complete showing to have been held in New York. Davies' sculpture hus been seen before, but again in not so compre uu, 1h ui iou. npnsive a showing. These little fig for spiritual and social salvation in uritlps carved W00(1 nr fast ln tut tSlte w. an adherence to the best qualities of the national tradition.

It is for this reason that the early landscap' and genre painters who were disre this reason that the early landscape garded when they appeared provincial beside their more accomplished contemporaries who had assimilated the manners of the Eu ropean studios have been reinstated. But there is another influence at work to bring about these revaluations and that Is the growing and widespread interest in the romantic spirit, a spirit which Walter Pater I has said is "an essential characteristic rather than a spirit, which shows itself at all times, in various degrees, in individual workmen and their work." One reason for this rebirth is probably a reaction against the aridity of abstract art and the school of esthetics which 1 J. J. Campbell Collection On View An Imnnrtanf rprnrrieri nnrtrnlt. of Washington by Gilbert Stuart and Bv CHARLES OFFIN At the Art Students League the walls of the librarj this week are covered with huge murals by Jacob Burck and Edward Laning.

Burck's group represents various phases of the Russian five year plan and will be Installed shortly In Moscow in the government travel office. Bear tag in mind the purpose tor wmcn mese murais were nmue nuu man i propaganda background of Burck's i art, we naturally find the gloriflca lion of the proletariat portrayed ln the too familiar brawn and muscle school of mural decoration. Some of the designs, such as the one dealing with education, are effectively built up. Perhaps as he acquires more opportunities to pursuse mural work, Burck will be able to develop ln this most difficult of arts, the devastating directness that makes his black and white work the best of its kind being done in America today. Laning is showing a large cartoon executed for the Hudson Guild Neighborhood House and two tempera panels, all representing variations of his Sidewalks of New York theme.

There is the same Intricate and minutely detailed modelling of the figures that we find In this artist's easel pictures; he apparently feels that mural decorations do not necessarily have to preserve the flatness of the walls. Each Summer about 100 voting AmpricanSi painters, sculptors and fluences of La Belle France. Each year the alumni association arranges an exhibition here of the work of former students and the Argent Gallery is host to the show now current which lncludes'some 60 odd en tries. These consist mostly of oil flnd color paintings; only a few examples of sculpture and arch itectural work are represented. The general standard of the exhibition is quite high, some of the exhibitors having already made their mark ln the world or art.

Alexander Brook, Guy Pcne Du Bols and Ernest Peix etto constituted the committee that selected the entries. A somewhat similar kind of exhl bition is being held at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, as New York ateliers of the school. While there are some paintings, the emphasis is on desins for Interiors, costume and adverthing illustration It is ln these latter departments that students of this school which was founded by the late Frank Alvah i Gerome last notea painting, nis archltects, take the short course of "Promenade de la Cour dans les study offered by the French Ministry Jardines de Versailles." apppar In a of Fine Arts at Fontainebleau, out collection of paintings from the es side of Paris. The studios occupy tate of the late John J. Campbell of i one of the buildings on the inside placed plastic considerations above foundly in the educational value of typed pose of a professional dancer emotional and spiritual values.

An a few beautiful objects among those that is depicted here but an alto 1 other reason may well be an escape used and seen daily by children and gether original concept of a stal from immediate problems to the en considered himself more indebted to wartly built female of classic pro chantments of the imagination. certain pld English silver spoons i irartions, interestingly Balanced pos New York City, property of a New rotirt of the historic Fontainebleau wnicn seem t0 have befn Polished York private collector, and from palace, overlooking the carp pond, off witn consummate ease. It Is a other sources, which is on exhibition and here amidst this beautiful set mannr that other portraitists at the Amrlcan Art Association ting the students apply themselves the Sargent Idea might Anderson Galleries prior to sale the with varying degrees of seriousness PprhaPs envJ'; but it is not lm evening of Jan. 25. The paintings to the absorbing of the artistic in 1 pressive as a medium for conveying are the work of American, British and Continental European artists, ranging from those of the seventeenth century to contemporaries.

In the early American portraits, in addition to the Stuart Washington, appear two companion works py Samuel Lovett Waldo. Landscape works by American painters of the nineteenth century include attractive examples by Thomas Moran, George Inness, Emil Carlsen and J. Francis Murphy, including his "The Lone Tree," one of the Campbell pictures, obtained by him at the dis persal of the collection of the painter at the American Art Assoc! ation in 1926, and which is signed: J. Francis Murphy. Arkville." Among the examples by contemporary i Americans are works by Guy Carl ton Ernest Lawson and I.rnn Kroll'i 'liimd Through Willow' and Jo Daridton't bust of Albert Einntrin are among ihe nwtsruni'i 193 1 purchimpt.

designed and spirltediy execuiea landscapes in water color. While forms tend to be over slmplifled at times in the striving for a decorative pattern of color and a bold sweep of rhythm, the general quality of breadth ln all the paintings is refreshing. The most successful com positions ln the eyes of this ob servor are "Indian Publos." "Gal Rgnch flnrt Bridge ln Renee Lahme is showing paintings of New York and Connecticut landscapes at the Grant Gallery. A sen satlve feeling for mood pervades these pictures and gives them a living quality, though at times it has to struggle hard against a technique that hasn't as yet attained to sufficient sureness and clarity. So many exhibitions are on view this week that It Is not possible to give more than passing mention to them in this column.

Philip Cheney's lithographs at the Ferargil Gallery reveal a 'genuine flair for this medium, yet the artist would show to better advantage if he would throw off his obvious influences, as he has done ln "The Chess Players." At the same galleries Yovan Raden kovitch is showing Dalmatian landscapes in which strong simplifica. tions of design are executed with sPlrited and virile bsh strokes. Macbeth Galleries are showing sub jects from Guatemala and flowers by Leopold Seyffert. This artist Is well known to New Yorkers for his suave portraits, strikingly life life, the "strained Impassive character or the South American Indians. In "Cruz Garcia" he has toned down the scintillating quality of the painting and striven for some austerity in the design, which aids con slderably ln capturing the character 01 me SUDJect LOAN EXHIBITION OK PAINTINGS IN AID OF THE Architects' Emergency Fund I'ntil in Morning 50c; Afternoon $1 Oprn Thii Artrrnoon EHRICH NEWHOUSE Inc.

578 MADISON N. Y. At ATlli Rtrffl Arts and Crafts Center Creative Leisure Interests 22 COURSES For Bmlnm ind Homt Women Tff hers Group Leaden Occupation TheraoT Workers Day and Eienino Ask for Catalogue GIRLS' CENTRAL SCHOOL, Y. W. C.

A. SO Third Brooklyn, N. T. Tef. rnwnse 5 11S0 colter tmanG Old Prints Paintings 'tpair ana rrxore "Id anlii leal Iramts.

ttARSO SH.VW Ewm Tfc OlD PRINT SHOP 'TO Lexington Av 30 JorA SPECIAL EXHIBITION tork pnis riAi.Y lor Int Illll.f 1 mt 10 a.m to 5 rlllfcivr. frnm NEW VORK K1IIOOL OK Hroadwav rich S.ir C. T. LOO of Pari chink si: aht aallrrir 1 ral si 12th Januar to 2fith For IMIM1 Jan. 19th In Krh.

2rl GATTERDAM ART GALLERY 9:9 Seventl, Av N. y. A B.dR the FIFTEEN GALLERY "Forgottrn Wen" fcv Charles Hovey Pepper Thrmnh "Mt, IGNATIUS BANASEWICZ EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS Indian Paintings by Reiss; Tiro Suporrealist Exhibits though the exhibitors hers are cur rent students from the Paris as well Crane. century British portraits include a Hopp "Miss Lut trell;" a bust length figure of Mr. 3arrinnton by and examples by Dance and Zoffany.

Earlier British portrait work comprises camasrs from the brush of Ui HIV (11 V. 1 lllVlil I'lVlllJll. LlKlb Davies had the feeling of plastic jvoUlmes that belongs essentially to the sculptor, although the simpli flcations of his forms on canvas might almost seem to belie this qual ity. In fact, his first essays in ere ative expression were made with tne knife so Dr Vlrglnia Da. vies tells us in her foreword to the catalogue.

Dr. Davies closes her in traduction to the collection with an explanation of her husband's artistic creed that contains so profound a spiritual message for those who are seeking ways and means of injecting or retaining spiritual values in contemporary life that I am quoting i it ln full for the benefit of thase of my readers who may not see the catalogue. "Arthur Davies believed pro (than to all else in his family's gear, To one remonstrating on the futility of reviving the tapestry art he re plied, 'Modern architecture, particularly that Intended for homes, allows only the sparest decoration therefore to make It livable, to bind the past to the future, it is imperative that the decoration be the finest, be packed with human aspiration and endeavour. In this machine age what's to be done with all our surplus time? Men and women will have plenty of time to make tapestries, to appraise them and to enjoy At the LiUenfeld Galleries land vein are being shown by Richard Guggenheimer. Gentle and delicate in approach, they succeed In capturing the atmosphere of the peaceful scenes mostly in southern France and Italy that they portray.

At the John Levy Gallery there is a choice selection of old English landscapes and portraits on view. In the room devoted to the portraits Is Sir Thomas Lawrence's ersion of George IV with the whimsical expression on his face. Also a Joshua Reynolds and a George Romney. A landscape by Willcox with a modern acidulous quality of color is outstanding In the other group. MIM)E Stud) of a HI ark font Indian i fir Kneller, William Dob on and Ho i Parsons, have been known to dis gnrth.

In the paintings of the tingulsh themselves. French school are some attractive ninet cnth century examples. At the Midtown Galleries Helen Various Items In the Local Art Salons For sculpture this week we must go to the Kraushaar Galleries, where there Is an extremely interesting figure by Miss Emily W. Miles, of a dancing nude, heroic in size and cast in aluminum. It is not a stereo ture.

Besides this large sized figure there is a small recumbent nude and two heads, also beautifully modelled. Oil paintings by Leo Huber are being shown at the Pascal M. Gat terdam Gallery. This artist uses a combination of impasto and flat painting which enables him to get some original effects to his landscapes. "Across the Three Mile Harbor" and "A Frosty Morning" both done in Long Island, are especially appealing.

There are two portrait exhibitions to be seen. The eminent British painter Frank O. Salisbury is showing at the Wildenstein Gallery his latest array oi glittering dignitaries King George, Premier Mussolini. Cardinal Hayes, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, J.

P. Morgan et a.I. Confronted with such a galaxy, I felt myself shrink to such a small size that I was able to escape through the crack under the door. The other exhibition of portraits is by Jere R. Wickwire and is being held at the Reinhardt Gallery.

Ike Finn" is easily the outstanding canvas, not being so much a forme 1 portrait as a free and easy ftudy. But even in the formal portraits the artist succeeds in imparting a natural and unselfconscious look to his sitters. REDER" gfiSMUO. Ml it i )(' bv urlint ff inold Rehi SIG TALKERS' awt phenomenon which has occurred before in the history of art, as wit ness the romantic escape of German creative intelligence during the oppressions of the Napoleonic era and the subsequent dlsintergration of the national spirit. But whatever the reason may be there are too many manifestations of this renaissance to regard it merely as coincidence.

One of the most significant Instances of this changing point of view is the reintroduction to the art loving public of the work of Robert Loftin Newman. The Whitney Museum has sponsored this reintroduction by holding a loan exhibition of Newman's pictures which are now on view at the museum together a collection of sculpture and tapestries by the late Arthur B. Davies. Newman was born in Virginia in 1827, and died in New York in 1912. A friend of William Morris Hunt, an Intense admirer of Millet and an art which held a social message, a pupil first at Dussrl'lo and later in the studio of Couture his glowing, dusky little canvases in wnich symbolic figures vaguely suggest classic legends of Biblical themes show almost no effect either of his admirations or his instruction.

For Newman was a solitary as all mystics and romanticists tend to be. If less heroic and demonic than Ryder he is more closely allied to him in spirit and technikue than to any other of his contemporaries. Newman lias remained almost unknown to the art loving public. With the exception of a small group of canvases which belong to the Brooklyn Museum and a one man show held at the Babcock Galleries some years ago. his work has been hidden away in the private collections of a few connoisseurs who did not have to wait for a rebirth of romanticism to recognize his spiritual and esthetic integrity.

In his sympathetic biographical appreciation which is used as foreword to the cataln Mr. Marchael remarks that "New rnm's plastic ability is also a reason for his present day appreciation." His facility with color, his use of distortion and the freedom and power of his drawings are all a part of a fine plastic sense which is remarkable for the tune during winch he lived. "Surely his porancs held more concern for composition ln a ncid sense." Mr. Landcren goes on to sav. "Newmans forms ar' personal, balanced, an integral par! of himself.

They can be admired as abstract shapes, but without complementary subjects they are meaningless. There is no pattern for pattern's no unwarranted use of distortion, each form relates to the next and all build to express the uncle unit is his subject For this reason alone Newman should fee one of the rare pcr tonali'ies in painting who. with the establishes harmony between meaning of his subc nd his jihility to express it." It i cirious cnnincitlence the Da 'ii' exhibition should Iim been Ix'iri Mmul'aneouslv with th' Newni.m pn res. for Davies er idmirM Nv man and Newman (urn found Davies one of the few If 11 Wlnold Reiss' paintings of Indians'' are not a new experience to callerv frequenters. For a decade or more he has dedicated his talents to creating a pictorial epic of the Indians of the Northwest and excerpts from this epic have been shown from time to time in gljoup exhibitions and in previous one man shows.

The present exhibition at the Squibb Building, however, differs from the other in that its 83 examples com prise a complete story of the Black feet Indians. It is, one might av the finished saga. The collection again attests to Mr. Reiss' unusual and paradoxical combination of talents his interest in type and character and his un failing eye for the decorative. Spe cialists in the study of the Ameri can Indian commend Mr.

Reiss' studies of the aborigines for their accuracy and the knowledge of custom and folklore which they display and those in search of decoration which shall have an authentic American note are very apt to out Mr. Reiss. It is perhaps another paradox that a German painter Mr. Reiss came to this country from Munich in 1913 should have been a pathfinder in discovering the dec i orative possibilities of the North American Indian. Other artists had, of course, painted the Indian either from the purely ethnological angle or with sentimental inaccuracy.

But Mr. Reiss was the first who saw the Indian abstractly as subject for art. who recognized montimentality in the way in which he wore his blankets and in the proud carriage Of his head His pictures have helped to restore the legend of the noble redman and have placed him among the epic figures of vanishing rarPS The contention that there has en a rebirth of interest in the ro mantic spirit may accqunt in a o' asure for the Increasing interest in the phenomena of superrealism, "here iv no denying the fact that harting popular trends in the orld of art it shares honors with he current Interest in art wi'h na flavor. And now that Senor is here to elucidate its in; ri as he did at his rerent lecture at the 1 Modern Museum, the subject no longer presents the difficulties that has. heretofore, to the unitiated.

For superrealism is after all only another name for imaginative painting and its Freudian significance? add little to the fact it is essentially "landscape of the mind," as it has been poetically described by one of its founders. And the world of dreams as subject for art has had its exponents at all times and in all places. The Julien Galleries is the place in which to study the more literary and romantic interpretations of the movement. The class! of the. movement as well as new recruits are to be found there.

Thn Pierre Matisse Galleries, on the other hand, prefer to exhibit sur realist purists, as it were those whose dream states are expressed in purely plastic terms as in the ease of the Jan Miro exhibition which is now current. An interesting opportunity to study the path by which Miro reached his superrealist phase is af 'orded in the naively realistic ean as belonging to Ernest Hemingway which is also i iciurled In the exhibition. The canvas, riopk'ting a French farm and painted with meticulous detail, is dated 1924. H. A.

R. Robert Philipp Is also known in these parts, having shown several times. His latest work Is now being exhibited in the lavish Fifth Avenue building of the Grand Central Galleries and the pretentious setting may have something to do with the added importance his paintings seem to have acquired. I do. think, however, that the work at this exhibit is the 'jest that this mteretsing artist has yet shown; especially in the nudes, a much nPecpcl firmness In the modelling has appeared, without any loss of that soft hazy light that gives Philipp's paintings their distinction, if you are interested see which 0f his paintings Eugene Higgins likes best, you'll find them at the Klee man Gallery.

They are mostly small canvases which his admirers have side tracked, but that doesn't bother Higgins, because he thinks they an better than tile ones he has sol'l and is glad to have them around Mr. Kl rmans idea of making an exhibition out of them is a very good ona, iff xA 4 75 a fli if nrrmrn i i ar loan Tn Januar? Si Water Colors and Etchings ACADEMY OF ALLIED ARTS tl Weat Sdth, New Tork inother of Mr. Reiaa' Hudiet, thotrn at the Squibb Building Callrrr..