Charge Prejudice in Rejection of Jewish Sculptor’s Model After Art Body Picked It

Charges that the design for the Pulaski monument submitted by Enrico Glicenstein, Chicago sculptor, and selected by the Art Committee, had been rejected by the Board of Directors of the Pulaski Monument Association of Milwaukee because the sculptor is a Jew, are being denied by Casimir Gonski, a leader in the Association and a local politician.

Glicenstein, whose design had been awarded first place, has twice won the Prix de Rome. Second place was given to Joseph Kisielewski of Browerville, Minn., and the Board rejected Glicenstein’s design in favor of Kisielewski’s work. The statue to be placed in Pulaski Park in October is to be paid for by public subscription of $15,000.

Friends of Glicenstein here charged that his model was rejected because he is a Jew, although of Polish descent, and Kisielewski, a Pole, given the award because he would be more popular with the Polish element in the population who will be asked to subscribe. Gonski, however, insists that the design selected was chosen because the Board deemed it best, the requirements and nationalities and personalities of artists were not considered.

The committee of artists that picked Glicenstein’s model consisted of Charlotta R. Partridge, directress of the Layton Art Gallery; Alexander Eschweiler and Leon Gurba. They met January 18 and selected two models with the recommendation that Glicenstein’s be accepted. Miss Partridge declared that the committee was unanimously for Glicenstein’s work and she indicated that “Kisielewski’s statue might have been that of any general.” She also said that she was “surprised to learn that the Board had rejected our selection. In my experience it is the first time that I have been asked to be on a committee to make an artistic selection and then have the choice rejected.”

Mr. Gonski, defending the action of the Board, declared that “such selection and report by the artists committee was purely of an advisory nature. The ultimate choice rested with the directors of the Pulaski Memorial Association which at a meeting on January 27 rejected the Glicenstein model and accepted Kisielewski’s model.”

A prominent Milwaukee rabbi, who preferred to remain anonymous, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “it was particularly painful to me to realize the sordid mediaeval motive which prompted the action and to think that we shall henceforth have in Milwaukee a monument to the stupidity and bigotry of man.” Alexander Eschweiler, a member of the artists’ committee, found it necessary to demand that Mr. Gonski issue a statement to the press that the Directors and not the committee had turned down the Glicenstein model. The original statement from the directors inferred that they had merely seconded the artists’ recommendation.