Arts: Hardship

Germany bitterly resists the invasion of her coal fields, but not, apparently, of her studios. The younger painters still follow the lead of Paris modernists, in spite of propaganda and the mutter of the Ruhr. According to foreign critics, German art today is French. But art of any sort exists with difficulty in Berlin. Statistics recently published show that nine-tenths of the painters and sculptors face starvation. The situation has reached a crisis—which the government ignores. The only help, thus far, has come from America. Munich and Vienna duplicate Berlin. Hundreds of German and Austrian artists have already entered the coal mines to make a living. The others, working in heatless studios, live chiefly on rice. Thomas E. Kirby, for 40 years leading figure in the art auction business in the United States, is retiring as head of the American Art Association to write his memoirs. [About $60,000,000 worth of art works have passed beneath his hammer since he came to New York in 1883.] “New York,” Mr. Kirby says, “is now the art center of the world.” Possibly inspired by Edward of Wales, an American buyer paid $10,000 for a realistic painting of western life by Charles M. Russell, Montana painter of cowboys and cattle. The Prince paid $10,000 for a similar picture, and, following the purchase, Russell made sales amounting to $20,300 in a single week. A great fair, in which 120 dealers will sell antique objects of art, will be held at Versailles next summer. Proceeds will go toward the repair of palace and grounds, which have been allowed to fall literally into ruin. Joseph Pennell, distinguished etcher, after a successful invasion of the untried field of water color, has turned his talent to picture postcards. In Philadelphia, five-cent postcards by Pennell and Thornton Oakley are being exhibited. The British Society of Architects offers three annual scholarships, valued at £300 each, open to British subjects under 40. The holder of the first is required to spend six months of architectural study in America—a graceful compliment.