Press: Feelthy Pictures

PETER ARNO’S CIRCUS—Peter Arno— Liveright ($3).*

One of Peter Arno’s (Curtis Arnoux Peters) earlier drawings shows an upright U. S. tourist being accosted in Paris by a smirking obscene-postcard-vendor; the caption is “Feelthy pictures?” No fly-by-night hawker of crude pornography, sexy Artist Arno accosts his public in broad daylight, through the pages of the New Yorker. Many an old-fashioned person would not understand Arno’s allusions but would consider them “feelthy” if he did. One prominent English bookseller was so shocked by the English edition of Peter Arno drawings (Peter Arno’s Parade) that he refused to sell the book. But Peter Arno’s Circus is not nearly so crude as The Stag at Eve (TIME, Dec. 21), should shock no adult.

Typical drawing: an opulent bedroom scene in which only the end of the bed appears. On it you observe a pair of feet (male) beside a pair of feet (female). Caption: “Haf you had any previous experience in pictures?”

*Published Dec. 14.