• U.S.

Business & Finance: Knavery?

4 minute read
TIME

Artist Rockwell Kent said “exceptional knavery.” Juror Richard J. Walsh of The John Day Co., said “miscarriage of justice.” Jeweler Chapin Marcus, of Marcus & Co., Manhattan jewelers, said “little evidence of professional spirit.” General Manager and Publicity Director Charles A. Hammarstrom said nothing. Advertising men in general said “regrettable.”

The cause of these various opinions was a controversy resulting from the recent (TIME, March 18) Harvard Awards−advertising prizes. This year’s jury awarded to Marcus & Co., “with recognition to Charles A. Hammarstrom,” the sum of $1,000 “for the advertisement most effective in its use of pictorial illustration as the chief means of delivering its message.” But no mention was made of the fact that Mr. Hammarstrom is an advertising manager and that the picture was actually the work of famed Rockwell Kent.* In naming Mr. Hammarstrom, the Harvard School of Business Administration had followed its usual custom of asking the winner (i.e., the winning organization) of the prize to suggest the individual most worthy of honorable mention, and Marcus & Co. had named Mr. Hammarstrom, had ignored Mr. Kent.

Disturbed was Artist Kent at this discrimination; insulted was he by further developments. For Marcus & Co. instructed Harvard to divide its award by sending a $500 check to Mr. Kent and a $500 check to Mr. Hammarstrom. Mr. Kent promptly returned the $500. Said he: “I cannot see that Mr. Hammarstrom is entitled to any recognition whatsoever.” Thereupon Mr. Marcus announced that the entire $1,000 was really the property of Marcus & Co. and that Mr. Kent had been sent his $500 “purely as a courtesy.” Both checks were returned to Harvard with instructions to make out a single $1,000 check and send it to Marcus & Co.

Since the award was for the advertisement “most effective in its use of pictorial illustration,” the jurors who made the award were unquestionably thinking of the drawing as a Kent, not as a Hammarstrom product. Had Marcus & Co. argued that the prize winning advertisement was a Marcus & Co. achievement for which no personal credit should be given, their position would not be in conflict with the Harvard Award system, which generally glorifies organizations rather than individuals. What chiefly troubles Mr. Kent (and puzzles the advertising world) is that, having decided to give personal credit, Marcus & Co. put the laurel wreath upon the Hammarstrom brow.

The Marcus action may not seem important from the standpoint of establishing a precedent. Last year’s illustration award went to the Cadillac Co., which gave recognition to Artist Thomas L. Cleland.

It is probable that next year’s award will also include mention of the artist. The fact that Mr. Kent, even prior to the present controversy, terminated relations with Marcus & Co. and is at present engaged in preparing drawings for another Fifth Avenue establishment accents the fact that the Marcus & Co. “incident” is isolated rather than typical. Nevertheless, in an age when many marriages are at tempted between Art & Business*, such an incident seemed likely to confirm the artist in his suspicion that Business is without honor at the moment when Business was beginning to appreciate the fine shades of honor which motivate such an artist as Artist Kent.

* Not in magazine pages but in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum, in Chicago’s Art Institute and in many another museum appears the most representative work of Mr. Kent who neither considers himself nor is generally considered merely a commercial artist. Mr. Kent lives at Ausable Forks, in Northeastern New York. * For example the desire of Harrods, London department store, to secure literary promotion from Writers Bennett, Shaw, Wells (TIME, March 25).

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