National Affairs: Harry Truman, Critic

Harry Truman held up some G.I.-drawn war scenes for all the White House reporters to see. The drawings were wonderful, he said, because they were done by artists who believe in an infinite capacity for taking pains. No daubs, he added, grinning—none of that ham-&-eggs school of art.

Somebody asked him what a ham-&-egg artist is. The President illustrated it with a southpaw pitch, as if throwing something at an imaginary canvas. Their paintings, he said, look as if they stood off and threw an egg at it.

Harry Truman ended his art lecture by letting reporters quote direct a Missouri moral: “I believe in taking pains in anything you try to do.”