Arts: Clark Books

Five million dollars is a handsome and unusual gift for a university to receive. Five million dollars’ worth of rare books is unique. The southern (Los Angeles) branch of the University of California acknowledged receipt of such a gift from William Andrews Clark Jr. The collection was made by his late father, the onetime U. S. Senator from Montana, and is housed in the son’s Los Angeles residence—a Dryden collection of 882 volumes; Shakespeare in 12 folios and 42 quartos; 1,000 pieces of Oscar Wildeiana; rare editions of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Dickens, Restoration authors; a collection of French manuscripts; the Kessler collection of books on Montana and the Northwest.

The ornate and costly Manhattan home of Senator Clark was sold last year, its art treasures going to the Corcoran Gallery (Washington) after they had been refused by the Metropolitan (TIME, Aug. 10).

Not long ago, in a shanty on the Blue Bird range, Montana, there lived an ancient, Billy Martin, with a tobacco-stained beard, drawing out his days as caretaker of a disused copper mine. He was full of stories about the great days of the silver rush at Virginia City; of how he had drunk and gambled away his takings; about how his partner, Billy Clark, had been more sensible, saved his metal, gone into politics, retired as one of the country’s wealthiest men with money to burn “down East” on rich living, art and suchlike.

Carnegie Invites

Director Homer St. Gaudens of the Fine Arts section of the Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh) last week returned from Europe with an announcement that made the art world sit up and exclaim, “Well, well! That will be interesting!”

Director St. Gaudens announced that the Institute’s annual international exhibit* of paintings would consist of work by artists invited to contribute anything they chose and not, as always heretofore, of canvases selected by a jury. The one big international exhibit in the U. S., in other words, was to be almost as free and spontaneous as the annual circus of the independent U. S. artists.

Not quite as free, of course, for only Europeans with invitations would be admitted, and U. S. contributors would be made to run the critical gantlet as usual. But Director St. Gaudens had been impressed by the insistence of Europeans that “the weakest painters brought in by direct invitation would be distinctly better than the best to be had through a jury.” He had issued some 250 invitations to painters in 16 countries. At the instance of Mr. Julius Mihalik of the Cleveland School of Art he had invited Hungarian artists for the first time, also adding Norway and Roumania to the list. The jury of award will consist of Artists Emile Rènè Menard (France), Charles Sims (England), Giovanni Romagnoli (Italy), Gifford Beal, Howard E. Giles and Charles W. Hawthorne (U.S.).

Among the 40 British paintings expected were works by Sir William Orpen, Alfred J. Munnings, David Y. Cameron, Frank Brangwyn, Colin Univen Gill. Mild surprise greeted the news that Augustus John was to be featured in a one-man exhibit (a room to himself). Of late seasons this eminent portraitist’s popularity has somewhat waned.

From France would come Jean Louis Forain, Paul Signac, Pierre Laprade, Louis Charlot, Albert Andre and others. Italy: Antonio Mancini, Felice Casorati, Ettore Tito, Giovanni Romagnoli, Baccio Maria Bacci and others. Spain: Antonio Ortiz Echague, Gustavo Bacarisas (Ignacio Zuluoaga not mentioned). Belgium: Louis Buisserte. Norway: Edvard Munch. Roumania: E. G. Stoenesco.

“Present day German art is markedly radical, erotic, neurotic, much of it far too salacious to be shown in any American gallery.” But Director St. Gaudens had invited Max Liebermann, fairly sedate impressionist; Max Slevogt, Paul Plontke, Karl Hofer, Franz Heckendorf, Rudolph Levy, Heinrich Nauen and Emil Orlik (etcher).

El Greco

A handsome hidalgo, his black doublet set off with his white cuffs and a ruff, a medal hanging on his breast by a neck ribbon, will go to Minneapolis to ennoble the home of Publisher Herschel V. Jones of the Minneapolis Journal. He was but recently discovered in his native Spain and the consideration of some $75,000 that Publisher Jones paid the Reinhardt Galleries (Manhattan) was not out of the way at all, seeing that the hidalgo was “an unusually brilliant and daring” example of the portraiture of Dominico Theotocopuli, or “El Greco” as he was called from his Cretan origin and habit of signing his pictures in Greek characters. Schooled at Venice under Titian, El Greco went to Spain in 1577 and had lost the Italian influence when he painted the severe, visionary religious subjects for which he became best known and which grew increasingly mystical as he aged. He originated realism in portrait painting, inspiring Velasquez, teaching the late John Singer Sargent most of all the latter knew.

El Greco portraits are not common. There is but one in the National Gallery, London; but one in the Louvre; lately the Metropolitan bought one.

*Formerly held in the Spring but changed last year to Autumn (TIME, July 20, 1925).