Art: Certainly Not

Spade-bearded Ivan Mestrovic is a man who puts strong feelings into his sculpture (TIME, Aug. 30, 1948), and has plenty left over when he has laid aside his mallet. Last week Mestrovic received an urgent invitation to return to Yugoslavia, where he was born and made his fame. The invitation came through Fellow Sculptor Jo Davidson, who had recently completed a bust of Marshal Tito, and it was from the Dictator himself. “Tell Mestrovic,” Tito had said, “not to be a fool. Tell him to come back.” The expatriate sculptor’s blunt reply: “Too many of my friends are in jail over there.”

Mestrovic, who now teaches at Syracuse University, added that the Yugoslav ambassador also had been urging him to return, if only for a visit. “He said that if I wished I could go incognito. But I will go to Belgrade incognito only when Tito goes to Moscow incognito.”