rr y ean a A iat | ee m——————— AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF GRAPHIC ARTS PUBLICATIONS A Series of books published by the Fohn Day Company under the auspices of the Institute FIFTY PRINTS, 1926 FIFTY BOOKS, 1926 PRINTING FOR COMMERCE, 1926 In preparation: OUTLINING A PLAN FOR TEACHING PRINTING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS by HENRY H. TAYLOR THE STANDARDIZATION OF PROCESS COLORS FIFTY PRINTS, 1927 > FIFTY BOOKS, 1927 PRINTING FOR COMMERCE, 1927 AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF GRAPHIC ARTS i FIFTY PRINTS EXHIBITED BY THE INSTITUTE 1926 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RALPH M. PEARSON NEW YORK THE JOHN DAY COMPANY 1927 COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE JOHN DAY COMPANY ALL RIGHTS IN THE PRINTS REPRODUCED IN THIS VOLUME ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE ARTISTS OR THEIR AGENTS, AND NO PRINTS MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOREWORD HE fifty prints reproduced in this book constitute the first annual exhibition of original American prints of the Amer- ican Institute of Graphic Arts. The exhibition opened in New York, and thereafter was shown in about thirty cities from coast to coast. The reception accorded this exhibition seems abundantly to justify the policy which distin- guishes this from other annual print exhibitions: namely, the giving of equal recognition to prints of the “modern” school and to those of the older academic or representative school. In conse- quence the reproductions in this book fall into two sections: the prints from 1 to 25 having been chosen by Ernest D. Roth as representing the highest level attained by artists of the academic school; those from 26 to 50 having been chosen by Ralph M. Pearson from among the prints of artists of the so-called “modern” school. This policy also suggested the plan adopted in choosing the text for this book. The whole of the space available was given to Mr. Pearson for an exposition of the point of view of the artist of “modern” tendencies, and of the rapidly growing circle of owners and collectors of prints who find in the new art a new vitality and beauty. This “modern” point of view, which in its comparatively brief existence has profoundly altered the art ideas of western civilization, 1n- sistently demands wider understanding. The principles of the representational school, on the other hand, has been familiar since the days of Rembrandt. The chief concern of the American Institute of Graphic Arts is not with any one school or group, but with the whole field of prints, and, beyond that, of printing and printed pictures generally. It endeavors to discover, exhibit and encourage the finest in all of the graphic arts. By placing these two groups of prints here to- gether, where they may be compared, it hopes to stimulate the interest and appreciation of the be- holder in both. While the Institute does not participate in the sale of prints, it is most keenly interested in en- couraging such sale. Only through actual own- ership is a print (or any other work of art) enabled to exert its full appeal. A healthy vol- ume of sales is the only tangible encouragement which any country can give to continued pro- duction of distinguished work. The Institute hopes that gradually prints (meaning original prints executed in any of the various hand pro- cesses) may come to be as highly thought-of and as commonly used in American homes as for centuries they have been in homes of every class abroad. Original art, and particularly the original work of living artists, inevitably provides more real and more lasting enjoyment than is possible from reproductions. For educational uses and for reasons of economy, reproductions must al- ways have an important place; but they should be bought and used knowingly for what they are —not original or genuine, but reproduced, art. Of all the forms of original art which can find a place in the home, the print can be ob- tained at the lowest cost. Its comparatively small size, and its adaptability to its surroundings, make it the ideal form of original art for the home, in which the problem of restricted space becomes yearly a more difficult one. It is hoped that, as time goes on, the annual print exhibitions of the Institute will serve with increasing significance as a gauge of American progress in this field, and as a guide to the pub- lic which is the eventual beneficiary of all efforts to encourage high ideals in the production of art. THE “MODERN?” SECTION N choosing the “modern” group of con- temporary American prints, I have tried to find those that were creative expressions of life and nature, in which all the parts of the picture were built into the con- trolled relationships we call design. The reason for emphasizing these qualities above all others was this: The so-called “modern move- ment,” in spite of (or perhaps because of) all its “wildness,” its “blundering experiments,” its “crudities,” its “sophisticated primitiveness,” is disclosing to a steadily widening circle in many countries some long-forgotten facts. Among these is the fact, intuitively known to primitive and other peoples, that the rebuilding of a pic- tured story, idea, man, or horse into a creative expression—namely, into a vision of subject in which the truths of nature are transformed to suit the dream of the artist—is the one and only means of imparting the intensified experience normally expected from works of art. Then there is the fact that pictures may “play” the visual music of harmonious and rhythmic space, line, color and form arrangements exactly as an orchestra plays the sound music of similar tone and time arrangements. Also there emerge the facts, commonly acknowledged but not al- ways (as it now seems) understood, that the great pictorial art of the ages has played this music, that the playing of it (together with the creative expression) is the outstanding rea- son for the greatness, and that the lack of it reduces pictures to the role of documentary records. As the comprehension of these forgot- ten items spreads through Western society (they can be called “forgotten” because history shows them to have been taken for granted throughout the ages, excepting only at such brief times as the imitation-of-nature concept has been in the ascendency) there grows up an entirely new orientation toward all pictures. Those, old or new, that have the creative approach and the music of design open up again ranges of men- tal and emotional experience that habit of thought had come to limit to other arts. Those - feet of the subject. that lack this approach can, for the first time, be valued with greater discrimination and fair- ness for the specific qualities in which they do excel. The Exhibition of the Fifty Prints poses 2 the issue between the two approaches. . Perhaps, since any print or group of prints ran “he ii] easily passed by in these hectic modern times, this educational side-issue may prove, in the end, to be the exhibit’s most useful function. There is no space here to go into a detailed analysis of what is meant by creative expression and design and by its opposite, the representa- tion of actual appearances. It may be worth- while, however, to point out one outstanding difference between them. This can be done, possibly, in the present limited space by relat- ing two incidents that are typical of the two approaches. RAPID SKETCHING OF AN IMPRESSION A number of years ago, on the occasion of his visit to Chicago as the guest of The Chi- cago Society of Etchers, Joseph Pennell ex- ~ pressed a desire to see the famous, and then still odoriferous, Chicago River. As the only member of the local group who owned a motor- boat, I volunteered my services as host and in due time found myself chugging up the North Branch with my distinguished guest beside me in the little cockpit. We were nearing one of the many bridges when Mr. Pennell sud- denly pulled out a grounded copper plate and needle and began to draw the bridge which was a block away. Anxious to serve, I immediately offered to stop the boat. “No, no! Go ahead,” the sketcher said with- out pausing. I ran on thinking he must be waiting to find just the right spot. Half a block away I again asked if I should stop. There came a quick, “No, no!” So on I ran till we were within fifty Certain by this time that my guest was being polite and fearing to trouble me, I spoke up again, assuring him I should be only too glad to stop. FIFTY PRINTS “No, no, no. co on.” He fairly snapped out the words as the rapid hands still sketched. “Qh, all right! If that’s what you want,” I thought, and opened up the throttle, watching him the while. The bridge loomed high in front. Still he sketched. The bridge was overhead. + He 'locked aloft, still sketching. We were out the other side. He turned and went on sketching. “We' ran on and on. The bridge grew smaller and smaller behind. The sketch went on. A bend hid it from view. The etching was fin- ished—in a lapse of time that could not have exceeded five minutes. DELIBERATE CREATION OF A DESIGN The scene shifts to Arizona. A Hopi Indian is squatting on the floor of his adobe house— before him a newly made pot waiting its painted decorations. Pigment and brush are ready. Long sits the Indian gazing at the pot, making no movement. Five minutes pass. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty minutes. A hand moves, takes up the brush and slowly, calmly, motive after motive, the design flows into place and is at last complete. The first of these approaches depends on an outside source for the interest that goes to make the picture, the second on an internal source. In the first, the man is suggestively reporting facts, selected from the scene around him, es- sentially as they exist in life. (That he is re- porting in shorthand instead of longhand does not alter the character of the approach.) In the second, the man is creating facts that are evolved out of the storehouse of his mind to serve his own specific purpose. Skill alone could achieve the first; skill plus the dream and the intuition for the music of space, line and form relations, only could achieve the latter. As mere skill is supplemented by sensitive omission, se- lection and placing of objects in the former case, that method tends to overlap the latter. But so long as, in the main, they keep their gen- eral character, just so long are the two ap- proaches essentially opposed. The one is mostly imitation, the other mostly creation. Pictorial design, it was said, has a counterpart in musical design. Notes spaced at certain sound 2 intervals form an harmonic chord. Different spacings produce in great variety different chords, of which some harmonize with certain others and some do not. These chords might be called the decorative units of music as rhythmic arrangements of lines, spaces, colors, lights, darks, etc., are the decorative units of pictures. From such units a complete work is built, the chords being arranged into phrases with periodic variations of emphasis giving rhythm. Combinations of these phrases with changes of rhythm give melody. Other melo- dies, different but related, combine to form a movement. And finally several movements with all their inventive repetitions and varia- tions round out into the unified structure of a sonata or symphony. Design in pictures inte- grates its units in exactly the same way. The plastic units of form, space and color are built into patterns, related to all other patterns, tempered to the expression of subject, until from the whole emerges the final form of the work. This work is aesthetically significant in proportion as it calls on a varied range of the plastic means, as the integration of all the parts is complete, as it is a fresh and individual crea- tion, as it reveals the universal rather than the superficial quality of life or matter. In music this design is the quality to which we react di- rectly; in pictures it can and should be the same, with other interests taking distinct and supple- mentary places. “The modern movement,” no matter how many camp following charlatans and incompe- tent imitators it has attracted, stands for the creative approach and for the visual music that is design. In doing so, it returns to the grand tradition of the masters; for, that the masters created and designed would hardly be denied by the most rabid defender of imitation. The prints in the “modern” section of the present exhibit are in tune with that tradition. All are creative. All, in some degree, are controlled by a sense of design. In none of them, perhaps, is there as rich and deep an expression of human life and as mature, well-rounded a mastery of all the means to design as has characterized the works of the Durers, the Rembrandts and the THE MODERN SECTION Holbeins of the past. In some, subject mean- ing and ideas are practically ignored and the decorative quality of patterned spaces, forms and colors featured. In others, the feeling for the expression of subject goes a little way and stops. In still others there is marriage of the two and the realization of a profounder vision. The important matter, it seems to me, is not so much the rating of individual prints, or, indeed, of the entire group, as it is the consciousness of the trend which these prints evidence, and the enjoyment of the new experience which that trend offers. Many handicaps press heavily on living artists who find within themselves the urge to create. The hazards to overcome before significant work can be produced are wrong training, wrong habits of thought, public mis- understanding and preference for ancient art with resultant lack of support or active antag- onism, and difficulties of adjustment to new ideals and methods. These hazards decimate the realization of the potentialities of today, but they cannot stop the momentum that will release the potentialities of tomorrow. And they need not rob the one who looks at pic- tures of the chance which these prints offer to vibrate again to the age-old magic of a creative interpretation of /is own environment. Against all shortcomings stands this compensating cred- it: they are living creative works. The criticisms most frequently heard of “modern” work are that it has such faults as crudity, bad drawing, sloppy technique, distor- tion of subject, and the “expression of self” by the artist. This last assumes a total disregard by the artist of the observer of his pictures. Such criticisms indicate the focal point of a wide- spread and persistent confusion. As I see it, several of these criticisms, even though they often indicate considerable misun- derstanding, are sane and largely justified. Crudity and bad drawing and sloppy technique have no place in distinguished pictorial design. Indeed they are as actively out of place in it as they would be in a prize winner at the Na- tional Academy or in a celebrated symphony. Mastery of processes and power over drawing and technique are tools. And the better the tools, naturally, the better the work they help to produce. But, and here comes a caution, what does the critic mean by “crudity” and “bad drawing” in this connection? Does he pin these labels to distortion of facts because he is of- fended by departures from his great god truth? There are probably few better draughtsmen to- day than such men as Picasso, Matisse and Mo- digliani, and yet these have been charged with crudity and bad drawing merely because they distort their subjects. Why are they accused of distorting? Because, for the time being, con- siderations of design are made dominant over all other considerations. In the necessary break- ing of limiting mind habits, in the search for the vitality that lies dormant in the right con- trol of the “plastic means”—(lines, spaces, forms, colors, textures, etc.) all energies are converged on the one problem. Design can be abstract, as in a geometric-motive decoration, or imposed on nature and life as in a Titian’s “As- sumption.” When the getting of it is the main quest, it is a healthy step to discard the com- plication of truth-to-nature and play with dis- tortion, or abstraction, regardless. Cubism was such a healthy step, and so is all abstract de- sign, whether applied to things or pictures. Such design has in it the “music” that is a suffi- cient end in itself when played by an orchestra. To find it sufficient as an end in itself when played by a painter or print-maker is the new experience of the day in pictures. Criticism that condemns distortion (when it is designed) is condemning music as such. Granted that a pic- ture in which design is imposed on subject or story gives richer returns, is that any valid reason for refusing to hear the music alone? As a mastery of design is gained, the return to an adequate expression of subject is automatic, as is evidenced in the much advertised but little understood swing of the Cubists back to the recognizable subject-matter of a more classic expression. The charge that “modern expressionism” re- veals the artist and ignores the onlooker raises a question that is far too complex to go into here. Of its many possible angles I shall only touch on two. First, it can be admitted readily 3 FIETY PRINTS that there are contemporary pictures that come under the indictment, pictures that are “ex- pressions of self,” that are totally incomprehen- sible on every count to all observers, informed and uninformed. I make no defense of these. To me they seem as useless to all except their maker as is charged. But such useless indi- vidual meanderings will contain no design. Let that be clearly understood. For the instant they achieve beauty of relationships of any of their parts, they become useful to others, as I hope, has been sufficiently suggested above. Subject may still be chaos, but visual music is there. If this is admitted, all the charges against the expression of self that do not take design into account fall flat. An expression of self that is not only that but is usable by someone else (for the moment we shall assume the pres- ence of more than design) is a kind of prism that reveals the colors of the rainbow in an ordinary ray of light. Just what I mean 1s hard to put in words. A creative artist, let us say, looks at the contemporary scene—the common environment of his public and himself, and his highly specialized and sensitized vision sees various aspects of the environment that may be entirely lost to the other. Buildings, for in- stance, may be seen as geometric solids instead of merely as walls of bricks and windows; and humans, instead of being just Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, may have endless weird, imagined implications. He “nails down” these imagin- ings on paper, thus changing them from in- tangible to tangible realities. In doing so he “reveals himself.” Yes, but is that all? If one sees a ray of light in a mirror he sees a dupli- cation of the original. If he sees it through a prism he sees its innermost secrets unlocked. If in revealing himself he also reveals his sub- ject, is the creative artist performing no ser- vice? Is he not taking the other fellow into account? Or does the criticism that condemns expression of self as selfish indulgence need qualification? It is tempting to go further into this matter, for within its borders, as I see it, lies the germ of a disease that is sorely afflicting modern so- 4 cety—the looking-backward disease, as it might be called, and it has been thoroughly caught by the entire profession of interior deco- rators and by several museum officials, collectors and just plain people. It is tempting, for in- stance, to contrast Mr. Robert DeForrest’s radio advice to the American public on buying repro- ductions of the old masters with Mr. John Quinn’s and Mr. Duncan Phillips’ practice of buying contemporary original “expressions of self,” and see what returns each program pays. But the lack of space compels the postponement of such indulgence to another time and place. We must hold now to the main matter of the prints. Creative expression, then, may realize itself in three ways. It may express story or idea; it may express the felt-nature of life, nature or things; or, ignoring all such high-brow activi- ties, it may just have a joyous time playing the piano of decoration. When any of these three are indulged singly the result is justifiable in terms of its utility to others, but it is a one- sided result. When all are combined into a unified whole the result is mature and enduring art. The “modern” prints make use of creative expression in these three ways, some relying mainly on one, some combining all. The comments on individual prints which will fol- low will attempt to discover the more conspicu- ous leanings of each and be conscious of the general trend they all represent. Such state- ments as are here set down have no finality, it should be remembered; they are an expres- sion of personal opinion and no more than that. If they have any value at all it lies in their bringing before the reader what may, in some cases, be new material for his consideration and in preparing the way a bit for the important act of pleasuring in the work itself. SELECTING CONTEMPORARY CREATIVE PRINTS It has been an exceedingly difficult task to find twenty-five American prints that come under the present classification. The handi- caps mentioned above tend severely to limit THE MODERN SECTION production. Some of the print-makers who are working creatively, knowing there will be few if any sales, neglect to exhibit; others are refus- ing to exhibit on principle (under this head comes the distinguished wood-cutter, John J. A. Murphy) and the work of still others is so scattered it cannot be found. The present group, therefore, makes no claim of being all-inclusive and it is not strictly limited to the current year. But in the main it offers, I believe, a showing of contemporary creative work that is fairly repre- sentative of present production, and at least has the merit of the unity incident to one-man selec- tion. In this respect it avoids the dead-level compromise that must result from the conflict of opinion in a larger jury. As such it is pre- sented to the consideration of American print- lovers. : FOUNDATIONS FOR REFUSALS TO EXHIBIT It may be of interest to report Mr. Murphy’s reasons for refusing to exhibit in all layman organizations. An exhibition system, he thinks, in which laymen act as intermediaries between artist and public, is unhealthy from the angles of both, and is incapable of attaining the valu- able educational results that are usually ad- vanced as its raison d’étre. Contact between the producer and consumer of works of art to be healthy and mutually valuable should be di- rect. The non-artist middleman (regardless of good intentions) can only confuse issues or color them with his own interpretation. Creative artists each have their own unique expressions and they or other artists are the only ones who can “explain” their work in cases where explana- tion is a necessary preliminary to the enjoyment of the work. The artist must meet this respon- sibility by having office hours like a doctor if necessary. The responsibility of the layman who wishes to serve the cause of art lies, under present conditions, in the direction of making it possible to get the work done. Instead of en- dowing institutions he might endow producers. Instead of spending millions, or thousands, or hundreds, or tens for the art of dead men, he could buy the work of living men, thereby free- ing them to produce the most distinguished work of which they are capable, in the enjoy- ment of which he and others may participate. In England, the Contemporary Art Society, an organization of laymen, is fulfilling this func- tion by setting aside a fund for the annual pur- chase of distinguished contemporary work, which is exhibited throughout the country for the current year and then presented to the British Museum or other galleries. The fund is divided into two sections, one for paintings and one for prints and drawings. Selections for purchase, in the case of prints, are entrusted to Mr. Campbell Dodgson, the Keeper of Prints of the British Museum, and editor of the Print Collector’s Quarterly, who buys what he con- siders desirable, both of English and foreign work, and turns them over to the Society. The “honor” to contemporary work, thus backed up by purchase and preservation, rings true and places the Society and its members beyond the possible criticism of self-seeking in their support of art. Enjoyment of living art is the normal and healthy condition that does as much as en- vironment can do to breed distinguished cre- ation. Present-day habits of mind must inevitably result in practically all layman organizations supporting the past, or reflections of the past as they crystallize into academies, instead of the living creative today. Therefore, the only pos- sible stand for creative artists to take is one that is uncompromisingly against all such agents. This holds (in view of the widespread preva- lence of the backward-looking habit and predi- lection for imitative art) in spite of such advantages as these agencies may offer. In refusing to exhibit, Mr. Murphy is enter- ing his personal protest against the entire system. As modern juror, and, like Murphy, speak- ing as an advocate of a wider understanding of the advanced work, I might say, in this con- nection, that while experience is gradually forc- ing me from a contrary to a similar opinion, I have codperated with the progressive president of the Institute, Mr. Burton Emmett, and urged other artists to coSperate, because, still being optimistic, I have hoped the Institutes activity would help (by stimulating sales) to 5 FIFTY PRINTS get advanced experimental work produced. Also I have codperated because I appreciate the furnishing of the machinery and the cost of ex- hibition, and because the showing of the two schools should have educational value. Sales are a true barometer of all values (particularly in this field, since original prints are within the reach of nearly all people), and if these do not materialize it means that the educational value is not there and production is not helped. In this case the remaining reason for coSperation is hardly sufhicient to warrant its continuance. Experimental work needs experimental buyers. But Mr. Fitzroy Carrington says that forty years of experience in the print world have taught him that there never will be experimen- tal buyers of pictorial art except in isolated individual cases. If this is so, and there is little reason to doubt its truth, Mr. Murphy is right. Our elaborate program of spreading “art appreciation” is largely futile and the only really fruitful relation between artist and lay- man is direct personal contact. Layman-spon- sored exhibitions are still valuable, perhaps, as introductory agencies, but artists’ exhibitions or presentation of the work in book or periodical form are more direct and eliminate the illusion of “support” which does not “help to get the work produced.” The success of the artist- chosen-and-staged exhibitions of The Whitney Studio Club and of the personally-conducted- by-artists exhibitions of The Chicago Society of Etchers (where sales have steadily grown since 1910 to the present level of seven thousand dol- lars per year) furnishes supporting evidence. The question is a vital one if art is of any impor- tance in life; and one that puts the American In- stitute of Graphic Arts, as it is typical of all lay- men’s organizations, on trial. Also it has vari- ous other implications. Among them, that in a nation so large as ours the tendency toward re- liance on “authorities” and officials is a serious handicap to aesthetic development, and that our present program for stimulating that develop- ment needs radical alteration. Many laymen are sincere protagonists of “art.” If their ef- forts are being largely wasted it is well to know it—if progress is really desired. 6 THE ‘MODERN’ GROUP 26. ERIKA LOHMAN. African Phantasy. Wood- cut. In this print there is two-dimensional design that is simple as compared with the complexities of three-dimensional design, but highly inventive as depicting flat pattern. It is more than pure deco- ration, for the subject African Phantasy is ex- pressed with a sensitively felt selection of motives that harmoniously support the main idea. Joyous- ness of life is in the active patterns and their syn- copated variations. Lushness of jungles is in the fat simplified leaf motives. The poise of a race that finds its emotional outlet in song and dance is in face and hands that express negro through pat- terned design. Repetitions and variations of lines, angles, shapes and curves intrigue the eye. To any sensitive observer there is adventurous new experi- ence in seeing how subject is expressed and in see- ing the design for its own unique sensations. The artist, it is interesting to note, was a dancer with Isadora Duncan from the age of four to twenty-one, and she creates as spontaneously in the pictorial and textile mediums as in her natural one of the dance. 27. WINOLD REISS. Houses. Woodcut. This is in much the same vein as the preceding woodcut, except that in the houses the third dimen- sion is introduced. Tree forms are reduced to flat pattern and played with joyously and inventively. Variety of texture is probably the dominant design note. Foreground, middle-distance, distance, sky, tree-foliage and trunks, clouds, house-walls and roofs are all expressed differently yet take their places as part of an harmonious whole. Decoration is the sole objective, subject being thought of only as material for decorative treatment. Creation as naive as this should especially delight the eyes of children (and not too sophisticated adults). 28. ARTHUR B. DAVIES. Autumn. Aquatint. Decorative pattern of a very simple and obvious nature is the main feature of this aquatint. It is two-dimensional with less conventionalization or abstraction, and therefore with less invention, than in the work of Lohman and Reiss. There is not much attempt at significant expression of subject, the title Autumn being more a starting point for a decorative theme than something deeply realized for its own quality. The design is suggestive, as in Whistler’s etchings of Venice, rather than thought out and cleanly expressed. Yet there is probably more sense of decorative pattern and of THE MODERN SECTION the functioning of all the space within the borders of the picture as a part of the pattern than Whistler ever made manifest in his etchings. 29. MARY H. TANNAHILL. A Family. Color woodcut. In this print it is easy to enjoy the visual sen- sation to be had from design in some of its sim- plest two-dimensional manifestations; namely, in patterned arrangements of colors, spaces and lines. Note variety in the use of each of these elements—the building of each into an individual harmony, line with line, space with space, etc. and the final integration of all into a unified whole. Subject is adequately but not profoundly expressed. It is the decorative possibilities of the concept “fam- ily” rather than a welding of these with deeply realized human values that has preoccupied the artist. If the sensation value of design were more widely understood and enjoyed, all magazine cov- ers, for instance, and many advertisements would assume this visually adventurous character, instead of relying solely on subject interest as most of them do. 30. ARNOLD RONNEBECK. Brooklyn Bridge. Lithograph. An excellent though simple example of the ex- perience value added to subject value of a picture by creative design. The “story” of the bridge is clearly told—more forcibly, in fact, than it would have been in an imitative drawing with many minor truths distracting attention from the great main truth of the slow sweeping curve of the arch and bulk-weight of the tower. Added to this re- vealing of the fundamental nature of the bridge is an imaginative expression of various sub-dominant implications—the emphasis on lines of force in the superstructure by the patterned extension of seen lines, for instance. An adventure in lines this might be called. Note the visual importance of the two curved letters in the lower right-hand corner as a needed contrast to the many straight lines. This print (and the following one) play their design themes in one or two octaves instead of calling on the resources of the entire piano. 31. ARNOLD RONNEBECK. Wall Street. Litho- graph. Here the height of New York street canyons is emphasized by the organized distortion of perspec- tive, and one truth of great cities is more vividly portrayed than would ever be possible by straight sketching of actual appearances. 32. CHARLES SHEELER. Sailboats. Lithograph. This is a design theme in three dimensions stressing straight and curved lines, straight and curved triangular forms and their relation to each other. At the same time it expresses the univer- sal truth of subject—a race of sailboats. These are not particular sailboats; they are all sailboats. Like the other prints so far discussed, it is a simple work, an arrangement of one or two harmonic chords rather than an entire symphony. 33. JOHN MARIN. Woolworth Building. Etch- mg. If this etching is compared with one by Joseph Pennell of a similar subject an inherent differ- ence is at once seen. Whereas Pennell’s etching is ordered as an expression of subject and disordered as an expression of design, this is exactly the re- verse—disordered as to subject and ordered as to design. The controlled counteracting directions of trees and buildings give a sense, if one wishes to read that into them, of the forces at war between man and nature and thus, perhaps, portray the es- sential truth of all skyscrapers rather than the superficial truths of a single one. An observer, of course, may prefer the superficial truths to this “distortion”; but, in the former case, it is well to remember that he is getting only a more or less simplified record of facts, while in the latter he is getting an intensification of the facts as seen through the prism of an artist’s creative feeling. The former adds little if anything to familiar experience; the latter ss new experience. 34. MAX WEBER. Mother and Child. Aqua- tint. This aquatint does not tell the human mother- hood story in its usual implications at all well. The figures are monumental—calling to mind, if one wishes, the statues of Egyptian kings. There is distortion. Do these qualities detract from the usefulness of the picture or do they give compen- sating value in other directions? In other words, is the impersonal and universal conception of motherhood of value as a contrast with the thou- sands of humanized ones already in existence? There is in this aquatint orchestration of forms into a unified whole, as the familiar trick of turn- ing the picture upside down (and eliminating the meaning of subject without affecting design) will help to show. Note curves of tree and arch in relation to curves of bodies and draperies, and these contrasted with the triangular forms below. The picture is rough-hewn as an expression of 7 FIFTY PRINTS subject and design. If it were more finished, would the net result be gain or loss in the quality of experience offered? It is questions like these that have to be weighed and answered if one wishes to get all that an unfamiliar type of expres- sion has to offer. 35. MAX WEBER. Abstraction. Woodcut, Here is creation run riot. Distortion of the truths of the human figure reaches the grotesque. Story and subject-interest are ignored. Design is dominant. If this picture had been found painted on the cover of some two-hundred-year-old Mex- ican chest, it would immediately fetch a hundred or a thousand dollars in the open antique market and be duly preserved under glass in one of our foremost museums or private residences. The “odd” forms would amuse authorities and buyers. Mythological significance would be found or read into them. War god! Gladiator! Dragon-slayer! What fun to guess the story! Would it offend? Absurd. It would be highly entertaining. But it is not two hundred years old. It was made by a living artist, who was extemporizing on the piano of design purely for the love of it. There are chords and rhythmic repetitions and variations woven into an over-all pattern that intrigues the eye. The grotesque is a healthy escape from the boredom of the known. Does it offend? Is it entertaining?! Is it bought for museums and private residences! Are stories read into it? Does it? Isit? Are they? 36. J. J. LANKES and CHARLES BURCHFIELD. Carolina Village. Woodcut. A country village has been searched for pic- torial material, which has then been recreated into design rather than copied from life. The charac- terization of men, horse, buildings and trees has _ gained rather than lost in power by the arbitrary organization of lights, darks, lines and masses, and the various inventions of the collaborating artists have added much to interest of subject. 37. MAURICE STERNE. Repose. Lithograph. Universalized expression is probably the domi- nant note in this print. In this respect it is at the opposite end of the scale from the story-telling pictures without any design sense that “adorn” the covers of so many fast-selling magazines. It por- trays all events that come under its title; these others portray some one particular event. In de- sign it is three-dimensional, but of the simplest form, rather a study than a thoroughly realized work. 8 39. PEGGY BACON. 38. PEGGY BACON. Hatty. Drypoint. This and the following print portray particular incidents; but the portrayal, instead of being a copy of the actual appearance of that incident, is an intensification of its essential details by a creative use of the plastic means. Textures are played with creatively to get variety as in floor, wall, clothing, table-tops, etc.; but the relations of these and of forms to each other and the whole are not as thor- oughly integrated as they might be. The blacks, for instance, are nearly all on one side of the picture and are monotonous in quality. The artist’s attention has gone chiefly to characterization which is admirably achieved. Country Dressmaking. Drypoint. Characterization is also the dominant quality in this print, but a sense of organization of all the elements reinforces it more coherently than in the former one. The figures are not just copied models, they are quick with the intention the artist has put into them. 40. RALPH M. PEARSON. Mountains at Llano. Etching. The attempt has been to express the fundamental truths of all mountains in a design of forms that is contrasted to the flat pattern design of valley fields. AI. HARRY WICKEY. The Park. Etching. There is some sense of design organization here in the contrasting of the curving forms of people against the rectangular forms of buildings, the former apparently being kept white arbitrarily to accentuate that comparison. But the print can hardly be said to go much beyond the striking of that one chord. : 42. JAN MATULKA. New York. Lithograph. This three-dimensional form design expresses the basic geometric character of New York City’s buildings. It is clearly thought out. All the ele- ments of the picture—windows (as single spots, bars and gridiron arrangements), building forms, shafts of light, dark and light spots, lines, shapes and textures—are woven into a unified whole that functions equally well as expression of subject and as expression of design. If the temper of the picture seems cold-blooded, intellectualized, almost mathematical, it is well to remember that the city has these aspects as part of its vast total truth, and that the adventure of looking at pictures is height- THE MODERN SECTION ened by experiencing the different personal inter- pretations of different artists. Indeed it is these dif- ferences that particularly intrigue the searching observer. 43. JAN MATULKA. Maine. Lithograph. This is an interpretation of all sunsets expressed in design. 44. ROCKWELL KENT. Bluebird. Woodcut. Here subject and design obviously merge into a unified whole that is a creative conception of child- hood vividly expressed. 45. ROCKWELL KENT. Voyaging. Woodcut. The essentials of story are all told in Voyaging, as are the universal truths of man, knapsack, tree and mountains; and the whole is ordered into de- sign. It is this using of design quality, by the way, that saves the print from being no more than good illustration as some of the Kent woodcuts, i.e., those that ignore all plastic quality in the expres- sion of the idea, tend to be. 46. PAMELA BIANCO. Fruit Piece. Lithograph. In this and the following lithograph the felt- nature of things is forcibly expressed and adven- turous three-dimensional design has had free play. The plastic quality, the consciousness of the pic- torial value of each form and space in its purely visual character and as an entity within the frame of the picture, is highly present. Out of the chaos of accidental appearances and relations of things as they exist in our environment has been recreated the order and expression that is art according to modern theory. 47. PAMELA BIANCO. Aquarium. Lithograph. Note how every portion of the picture and every object portrayed functions actively as a liv- ing part of the created whole! Nothing is irrele- vant. There are no dead spots. 48. ceciL BULLER. T'/e Dancers. Woodcut. In this print are powerful designs of forms that emphasize the rhythms of the dance. The eye that roams curiously over the picture surface discovers this in the controlled relationships— for instance, of all the arms to each other with their quick and slow, angular and flowing move- ments, in the varying rhythms of legs and in the contrasted forms of plant life introduced as foils to forms of bodies. Also, as a needed contrast to the dominant mainly vertical, rounded and curv- ing forms of bodies there are three groups of straight diagonal lines in background and diagonal curving forms below them. And for contrast in textures there are the solid blacks, the flatness of parallel lined foreground, the rounded bodies and the very important dotted curving shape in distance. In this case as always design buttresses the ex- pression of the meaning of subject and adds its own peculiar value to the work. The whole is an obvious unity of all elements—is, in fact, one of the most mature blendings of all the plastic means with expression of subject in the present group. The technical cutting of the block is highly pro- fessional and features the rich blacks and whites that are eminently peculiar to the woodcut medium and which John J. A. Murphy was among the first of the moderns to discover. 49. CECIL BULLER. I'he Jugglers. Woodcut. What has just been said applies also to this. Note the forceful telling of story, with the essentials featured and the unessentials omitted, and the ad- venturous creation in the setting which supports story and also gives free play to those emotional responses that design alone can stimulate. 50. EUGENE HIGGINS. Tunnel Dwellers. Etch- ing. This print illuminates certain matters sufficiently to warrant giving it rather careful attention. Eugene Higgins is not, strictly speaking, a “mod- ern.” That is, he has not arrived at his present stage of development by tearing out of conscious- ness the results of an academic training toward imitation and substituting therefor the new dis- pensation toward creative design (as all adult art- school-trained moderns have had to do). He is still technically an academician. But in the process of his own growth he has arrived at related con- clusions. He simplifies. He universalizes. He changes his material to suit his needs. Why! Be- cause, perhaps, he has something to say emotionally (about the tragedy of human life) and this inner compulsion influences the form and style of his use of subject material. The “moderns” have some- thing to say emotionally, and to their task of ex- pression they bring, one might say, three agents: subject, the intensification of subject through the orderly and dramatic arrangement of the parts, which is one of the functions of design and an exploitation of creation and design for their own inherent powers, a process that taps the unknown. Higgins uses the first two of these agents and in so doing discards the “imitation” of the academy that nourished him and tunes in with modern prac- tice. In the Tunnel Dwellers design supports 9 FIETY PRINTS story. The simplification of the bodies with the re- sulting added emphasis on the important drooping basic forms and lines intensifies the force of the expression of the idea. Also, because of this sim- plification or universalization, it changes anecdote to epic and adds dignity and weight to the whole conception. Arrangements of forms and lines, the curves of bodies related to the curves of arch, con- tribute their quota to the whole by their definite eye control. But the third agent, because he has never studied the rhythm and counterpoint of advanced design, entirely eludes him. The work is creative, universalized, distinguished, but lacking in the intangible impression that is gained by a conscious use of design for its own peculiar emotional effects. The point of the matter comes down to this: the chasm that separates the academy from the “moderns” consists chiefly of imitation. Once that habit of mind is discarded and the creative ap- proach, with its inevitable enlistment of design, is 10 installed in its place, differences fade into questions of degree rather than of kind. And this holds even if design is not consciously understood and used for its own ends. I submit Tunnel Dwellers as evidence in support of this conclusion. CONCLUSION The creative expression of the artist, then, as it is released through the architecture of design, is the dominant quality of the works included in the “modern” group. There may be many differing opinions as to the greatness or lack of greatness attained in these particular prints, but all of human history says that creative expres- sion and design are the materials out of which great art is built. Yes, the Exhibition of the Fifty Prints does pose a leading question: What is the value in pictures of the genius to create? RALPH M. PEARSON .D TOM. ETCHING. . BENSON: OL I. FRANK W 7. A 2. JOHN TAYLOR ARMS: ANGOULEME. ETCHINC 3. JOHN TAYLOR ARMS: LA GIRALDA. ETCHING. Me NE Uh N47 2 7 ASIA 3 VRS (5) | x » HEARS J SY Sen = AN PRN E> SINS fA —~/ S <7 Vf) IS » L Ss RA A \\ A NEN S WANS A Fw 8 A EX A G NO, ARE FOMENE a) : SURES La Ch N iad Sp ¢ » 7 Is | ho 0 \ J : (SRN il $ N ~ T= Jd A So LR od x 1 by 4. ERNEST HASKELL: THE WILLOWS. ETCHING. Ee es IA 1 WANDERER. ETCHING, THE LEVY. ACH Er ——— RE A ER f a a = WILLIAM AUERB 5. 2 a nese ie cge8 0°80 2 co 2®n o8c0 2 © ron Tali wf 6. KERR EBY: SPRING PLOWING. DRYPOINT. wv. Rs LX nD Lr. AQUATIN’ URES. y S$ AND FIC AUR r , CEN’ E (POP) HART: DECORATION GEORG 7 Pig 5% Ye EAST SIDE INTERIOR. ETCHINC 8. EDWARD HOPPER 3 © ne r we eg Spt AR a 0 8 Py g e © : « ‘oe obey oe € ee ’ ? < sy v PRE Oa 28 WA t < © y a3 0 ow * > Cy oe weg . © € «0 va ated, [of bin / / Wr & G. CHI Ir HE PARK, EF’ IN 1 NIGHT . EDWARD HOPPER 9 LAVA 35 As o> ER PY 8 wa, Wry ; RT \ 14) ii J ib \f 4 % J Rd \. NR a A RR Ao ORS A VERS RN woo TOME AL Lh I i be ] % 4 i i) ab rit arm ERR \ WN fh Y TR £5 NL rm IRE ye up Nt x Som A EON . © I ETE TR TR TT ax \ rr ee hE Trades Fama ® 2% i. ¥ ali | FH Eh 3 op \ | TTY — he TS win Robi Et a iin ee 1 Ee HY RN NEO Lope plies | x ol es ee NPN a Willer in Ae A ” ay Fegan WE Coa goo aE Abii PAN ada Se Toro Hm rir srirty wil, Wh’ 2 2 P \ / i me we ph NN Ns LS iy Mui Lrediy ny 10. CHIL.DE HASSAM : SPRING IN CHARLESTON. ETCHING. 1I. ALLEN LEWIS: THE ARCHER. WOODCUT. \ = a fire Lod Shug y 12. CHILDE HASSAM : WASHINC ~ Te ETCHIN(C TON ELMS IN APRIL. y I A 3 3 : i : an J 4130 3 D BN ytd p Nath . ¥ BF Fi - o? RN LD) Po ‘ Fit PCa 4 oP mat AS SCE Si RY LA e } LX 2® ApS — ENNIS AZ a z - : 4 ))! IN RRR ! t : tess ns We hy a. LA RL Ww. ; Ud) \ \ S Rca, A gt No ¥ & A = \ | A Or A (I Zen 74 (U BE 4 is 13. ALLEN LEWIS. THE COW IN APPLETIME. WOODCUT. 14. EUGENE HIGGINS: THE BARGEMEN. DRYPOINT, oa A N TRS 2 TS PS TR STO rT — LOUIS C. ROSENBERG: ST. ETIENNE, TOULOUSE. ETCHING. RR ET 16. TROY KINNEY: APRIL. ETCHING. ES © WHE APE Me VI 17. TROY KINNEY: - of p a vl (a Eo / BSL 7 — 7 TIN 1 . 24 C GC. 19. ROI PARTRIDGE! LONE PINE. ETCHING. 20. RUDOLPH RUZICKA: A SLOVAKIAN LANDSCAPE. WOODCUT. ’ “¥ —y y y . A 3 3 yyy 78; ) a Cll. Of 27 Aa 21. ARTHUR W, HEINTZELMAN CRUCIFIX. ETCHING. BREAKING WAVE. ETCHING. 22. CHARLES H. WOODBURY: Chien ed H LD rvilhranan, — > ) > 9 2,290 » > > 3.002 9» 335. 290 y : > $72.90 3 )? a2, > v 8,92 2%, 22 5 ’ > > >) 200 25 5 > 5 : >, ? ) > 3 2930s 222 530,535 8 3 » o,91% 53, 3 2:32 9a 23. ERNEST D. ROTH: FONDAMENTO RIELO, VENICE. ETCHING. 24. CHARLES H. WOODBURY: THE PILOT. ETCHING. 25. FRANK W, BENSON: FLYING BRANT, ETCHING, 27. WINOLD REISS: HOUSES. WOODCUT, TES: AUTUMN. AQUATINT. 28. ARTHUR B. DA 1 OCK PRIN’ OR BL ANNAHILL: A FAMILY. COL T 29. MARY A, EC Nt om Gs \ LITHOGRAPH. N BRIDGE. BROOKLY 30. ARNOLD RONNEBECK Ee er prs pA WALL STREET. LITHOGRAPH. ARNOLD RONNEBECK: 31 3 i i re. nd i a CaS Er Lom ona