The Human Touch>

THERE are more Jewish painters per square foot of exhibition space at the Grand Central Palace show of the Society of Independent Artists that have been seen at any one of the large group displays this year in New York, or anywhere else for the matter. Against a total of no more than 500 exhibitors, eighty-five by conservatice count, are Jewish, and I am always careful to give a man, or a woman, the benefit of the doubt. If a man’s name is George L. Johnson, or Arduino Iaricci, or Ladislas de Nagy, or Gabriel Di Pasquale, or Eitaro Ishigaki, or if a woman’s name is Cleonika Damianakes, or Hulda Stamoules, or Rosemary Mundy, I do not list him or her among the Jews. I did not list him or her among the Jews. I did not even look at the rugs and pictures of Indian tribal arts submitted by the American Indians because I took it for granted there wasn’t a Jewish production in the lot.

But if you bear in mind that at least a dozen Jewish artists worked on each of the composite exhibits submitted by the John Reed Club and the Artists’ Union, there is no escaping the conclusion that at least one-fifth of the Independents Exhibition this year—the eighteenth in a row—is of Jewish creation, while at the Salons exhibition at Rockefeller Center, the ratio is one Jew to fifteen non-Jews approximately. And of the two, the Independents show is by far the more navigable, the better, hung and the better arranged. It is at least possible to see all the pictures at the Independents show, which is a little more than you can say for the Salons.

THE EINSTEIN PROBLEM

After seeing a lot of pictures in a lot of shows, one cannot but begin feeling a little sorry for Albert Einstein. Everybody’s doing him, in painting, drawing, etching. Sculpture and what not from the life and from photographs. If he posed for half the drawings and etchings and busts and paintings I have seen of him, I think he must be tired as a model. It is of course obvious, from some of the worst Einsteiniana I have seen, that many have been done from photographs. At the Salons exhibition, for example, I think that Einstein is next in popularity as artist’s model to President Roosevelt. And of all the mediums in which he is represented sculpture seems the worst, because whereas a painter can do badly only in two dimensions a sculptor can do badly in three. It is almost possible to imagine part of the routine when Dr. and Frau Einstein go over the morning’s mail—in German—and Mrs. Einstein reports: “Five more Jewish artists want you to pose for them, Albert, and here are some photographs of portraits which you must acknowledge, Albert.” And the dear old man acknowledges them, in German, and those autographs become part of the literary treasure of Jewish artists and are even exhibited with pride.

It mustn’t be supposed that the felling which Einstein inspires in Jewish artists is not genuine; besides, as a model, he is one in a million. Quite apart from his distinction he has a glorious and irradiated head which justifies the persistent quest of him as a model. He is the subject also for non-Jewish artistic efforts. One of the Hitler canvasses at the Independents, signed by one Califano, depicts a venomous and snarling Hitler banishing from Germany an Einstein whose puzzlement is written large on a childlike and spiritual face. Despite the banality of the theme there is pretty good painting in it.

THE GRAND DUCHESS MARIE

Among the good painters and the cranks and the radicals who are represented, the Grand Duchess Marie is exhibited—with three photographs, for photography is also and art. A person called Laussat Richter Rogers is represented with a large mural-like canvas, a rather muddled attack on materialistic values entitled “These Be Thy Goods, O Israel!” David Burliuk continues to ask $10,000 for this year’s entry, a large thing he calls “Stones and Men” which has some splendid painting in it. Some of the exhibitors go on the happy assumption that they might as well not get $10,000 or $5,000 as ask for, say, $500 and not get that.

Perhaps some of them are hopeful that Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. will send her son around to buy a couple of pictures, or perhaps that visitors will look longer at a canvas marked $3,000 than they would if it were marked only $485. Unfortunately C. Soots “Sagittarius” has no price on it, for the complete title, painted on the canvas though not given in the catalogue, is “Mrs. Lee Kugel as Sagittarius the Archer.” Please tie that!

Among the Jewish painters of reputation who now hang at the Independents are A. S. Baylinson Theresa F. Bernstein, who is also at the Salons and was represented in the Municipal; Boris Deutsch, who has two very fine portrait heads in the show and examples of whose paintings have been reproduced in The Bulletin; Louis G. Ferstadt, Bernar Gussow, who conveys that depth and solidity of sculpture in his pictures; Bertram Hartman, who contributes the Fantasia of Spain mural which won so much praise; Morris Kantor, Paul R. Meltsner, William Meyerowitz, likewise an ubiquitous exhibitor; the man who calls himself just Saul and the other, whose name is just Iskantor; A. Walkowitz, veteran painter and one of the founders of the Independents, with whom the list of notable painter must end.

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