Art: Picnic Time

For the swank galleries on Manhattan’s East 57th Street, the art season was almost over, but across the U.S. it was just beginning. Three U.S. cities were staging big spring exhibits—gay art picnics for all the folks.

¶ Los Angeles opened its huge (102,000 seats) Memorial Coliseum for its third annual Art Festival, asked artists for 50 miles around to enter their work. More than 1,000 professionals and amateurs, ranging from Muralist Rico Lebrun to TV Star Lucille Ball, accepted the invitation. Among the standouts: a skillful, grey still life of a jug and grapes by Marion Olds, and a tense study of two vicious fighting cocks by Howard Bradford (both professional artists). In three days 10,000 people came to see the show.

¶ Cleveland held its 35th arts and crafts exhibition, in the city’s Museum of Art. There was something for every taste: 1,308 objects by 411 artists and craftsmen, from oils and watercolors to ceramic bowls, pewter boxes, jewelry, lithographs, displays of fabric printing, weaving, furniture. Museumgoers pounced on their favorite exhibits as fiercely as customers at Macy’s, fought off rival buyers. Museum staffers estimated that by the time the show closes next week, 120,000 citizens will have visited it, and bought $30,000 worth of art.

¶ Boston transformed its historic Common into an open-air, museum for its second annual Art. Festival this week. In brightly decorated tents were some 400 pictures and sculptures. To back up the art, there were nightly concerts, and rides for the kids on the park’s graceful swan boats. In four days last year more than 150,000 people came to the event, and this year’s crowd looked even bigger.