Art: Denver Memorial

Upborne on one of Denver’s first re-form waves, Mayor Robert W. Speer was re-elected in 1908 and promptly closed all the city’s gambling houses. Of these the toughest, most renowned was the old Arcade at 16th and Larimer streets. The Arcade’s owner, a Serb named Vaso L. Chucovich, contributed heavily to the mayor’s campaign, remained his warm friend, grew rich in Denver real estate and on his death in 1933 left $100,000 for a Robert W. Speer memorial. Denver’s wrangles over the execution of this bequest have been periodic art news ever since.

Serb Chucovich’s Serb trustees first awarded the commission to Yugoslavian Sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, withdrew it when local patriots and Federal art officials protested that a U. S. sculptor should have the job. Obligingly the trustees fixed on Denver’s own Maillol-trained Sculptor Arnold Ronnebeck. But when Ronne-beck’s design of a female figure cradling a covered wagon in one arm came before the Municipal Art Commission it was speedily vetoed. An advisory committee of local artists and architects then held a national contest for designs, invited able Sculptor Maurice Sterne to help pick the winner. Last year Sterne gave first place to a design of two reposeful, smooth figures by Manhattan’s William Zorach, returned to San Francisco to explode in outraged telegrams when he learned that Ronnebeck had been selected again.

For Zorach and against Ronnebeck, the Municipal Art Commission stuck to its guns for a while in the face of clamor by the trustees, the committee and Mayor Benjamin F. Stapleton that Denver should have Ronnebeck or nothing. Leader of the Commission was fiftyish Anne Evans, weathered, spirited daughter of the first territorial governor of Colorado, patron of the summer theatre festival at Central City (TIME, July 26). Less exacting Commissioners began to waver when local ar-chitects declared that the Zorach memorial would not fit into Denver’s $1,000,000 Civic Center. Then Mayor Stapleton dismissed two old members of the Commission, appointed two new ones.

Last week the mayor’s two appointees voted “aye” to the Ronnebeck design, carried it over another member’s silence and Miss Evans’ “no.” Next day a spokes-man for Denver’s women’s clubs snorted that they had been “basely betrayed.” Commissioner Evans resigned. Said she: “Mr. Ronnebeck’s conception of Rising City … is childish. . . . The sculptural forms seem to be commonplace. . . . To me it is clear that the Commission was packed.”