Art: Morse and Friedsam

Last week the School of Fine Arts of New York University was resurrected.

Samuel F. B. Morse, whose telegraph distracted the public’s attention from the fact that he was an outstanding painter of the 19th Century, held the chair of Fine Arts from 1832 to 1872, when it lapsed at his death.

The chair and a complete art department has been reinstituted by

Colonel Michael Friedsam, department store owner, and the Altman Foundation.

Professor Fiske Kimball, former head of the School of Fine Arts, University of Virginia, will be director, and courses will be given by Dr. Richard Offner (Italian art), William M. Odom (French decoration), Dr. R. M. Riefstahl (textiles), Francis Lenygon (furniture). Edwin H. Blashfield, President of the National Academy, will inaugurate a series of Morse lectures on Morse’s own life. Commercial arts and crafts will be fostered through the cooperation of the Art-in-Trades Club.

Manhattan is the greatest market in the world for all artistic, semiartistic and pseudo-artistic ware. The new department is calculated to increase production and to raise the standard of things bought and sold.

Morse, whose name will live in the school, anticipated Cezanne and the post-impressionists in many of their ideas about color.

Returned Loot The Guido Reni Entombment of Christ stolen from the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento (TIME, Sept. 10), was returned by mail to a San Francisco newspaper with a note ” God has forgiven me ! You will find my body in Stow Lake.” No body was found when the lake was dragged.