September 13, 1927
The Brooklyn Museum makes preliminary announcement of the fact that the 26th International Exhibition of Paintings from the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, will be shown in Brooklyn from January 9th to February 20th, 1928. The Exhibition will contain about four hundred paintings representing the work of artists of sixteen nations, twenty-five of the paintings being by Americans.
The exhibition this year will be different in an important respect from all the previous ones. In order to meet the generally expressed desire that each exhibitor be represented by more than one painting, approximately one-third of the usual number of artists has been invited, each, artist, however, being asked to send from three to five pictures. In this way the public will become better acquainted with the full personality and the artistic development of each artist. Homer Saint-Gaudens, Director of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute, has been abroad for the last three months, visiting artists and assembling paintings for the exhibition.
Mr. Saint-Gaudens reports that there will not be a man included who has not an outstanding reputation in some important group in his own land. Such artists will be represented as Augustus John, Sir William Orpen and A. J. Munnings of Great Britain; Le Sidaner, Menard and Matisse of France; Leon Kroll, Edward Redfield and Rockwell Kent of the United States; Boris Grigorieff and Alexandre Jacovleff of Russia, Mancini and Casorati of Italy; Zuloaga and Solana of Spain; Karl Hofer of Germany; Carte of Belgium, and numerous others.
At the conclusion of the Exhibition in Pittsburgh and prior to its coming to Brooklyn, the show will be presented in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 1927, 061. View Original
December 30, 1927
The 26th International Exhibition of Paintings from the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh, familiarly known as the "Carnegie International", is now being hung at the Brooklyn Museum where the people of Greater New York will have their only opportunity to see this now nationally famous exhibition. After it leaves Brooklyn it is to appear on the Pacific Coast in San Francisco.
The theory of the make-up of this year's exhibition is somewhat different than formerly. In past years the plan has been to exhibit work by a large number of painters, so that it allowed of only one canvas per man. It has now been found to be more satisfactory to show in nearly every case three to five canvases by each artist, so that the public can became better acquainted with an artist's style and progress in more than one mood or method. The result, of course, means inclusion of fewer artists but the same number of pictures.
It will now take three years of exhibitions to cover the same number of artists as was done before, as next year there will be a new group and the year after that still another. In the fourth year the men whose work is being exhibited now will be called upon again wherever practicable and such substitutions made as seem advisable.
By this method of bringing together an exhibition great variety is attained, as paintings will be shown from sixteen countries and artists of both the old and new schools will be represented. Allowing for the fact that there are, roughly, five different groups of painters in each country, the Carnegie International can show nearly eighty aspects of art by hanging the work of one hundred and sixteen painters.
Mr. Homer Saint-Gaudens, Director of the Department of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Institute, who gathered the collection, says in an article in the December issue of "The American Magazine of Art":
"Apparently, the only man in the world who is not frantic to defend to the last ditch the proposition that he, and he alone, knows what group of artists and what type of painting is worth while is the Premier of Italy, Mussolini. Because when he heard that the Italian Section of the Carnegie Exhibition included such fine elderly painters as Beppe Ciardi and such keen youngsters as Donghi, he said: 'That's good! What is art? I do not know. It is one thing for one person and another thing for another person; yet it is just as important today as it ever was. Everybody fights about it. But that does not make any difference so long as it is genuine."
"Mussolini's remark might well be taken as the aim of this exhibition, which endeavors to demonstrate what are the various kinds of painting, why they exist, who blazes the trail, how we are to know when they are genuine, why we should have patience in some directions, what is unpardonably wrong in other directions; and thus to help this land of ours to have a fine and healthy art in the future."
The exhibition will open to the public at the Brooklyn Museum on January 10th and will close on February 19th.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 1927, 142-3. View Original
January 3, 1928
As the Carnegie International Exhibition will formally open with a private view on Monday, January 9th, at the Brooklyn Museum, we should be glad to have you see it any time before that date, as we are willing to have reviews appear after and including January 7th.
I should be very glad if you would let me know when you expect to come so that I may have catalogues and photographs ready for you and so that I may be sure to be here to help you in any way that I can.
ARTHUR H. TORREY
for The Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 01-03/1928, 001. View Original
January 6, 1928
The most important event in the field of contemporary art in Greater New York this season will be the opening of the Carnegie International Exhibition of Paintings at the Brooklyn Museum on Monday night at 8:30. The exhibition will open with a private view for the Trustees, members of the Museum and their guests. Among the guests who are expected will be the exhibitors in the show who are in this country, which includes a number of very distinguished artists as well as the members of the important painters' societies in this city. The reception will be held in the rotunda on the third floor and music will be supplied by a six-piece orchestra.
This collection of pictures has already become nationally famous since its exhibition in Pittsburgh where heated discussion was engendered when the jury of artists conferred the first prize of $1500. on the "Still Life" by Matisse. The exhibition is the most complete survey which the people of Greater New York will have of contemporary painting in 16 countries, which include the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Hungary, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain. The principal characteristic of the exhibition is its gay, fresh color. This year it has been the policy to obtain from 1 to 5 pictures by each artist represented so that the public can have as comprehensive a view as possible of each man's work. The collection consists of 360 pictures by 125 artists.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 01-03/1928, 002. View Original
January 16, 1928
The Carnegie International Exhibition of Paintings at the Brooklyn Museum is proving as popular and has stirred up as much interest as this now nationally famous exhibition did in Pittsburgh, if one can judge by the attendance during the first six days of its showing in Brooklyn. The first opportunity which the general public had to attend in any numbers was on Sunday when over 10,000 persons came to the Museum. The total attendance for the six days was over 17,500. This fact simply adds one more instance to the numerous ones which have been accumulating of the fine national and international exhibitions of wide interest which the Brooklyn Museum's general policy makes possible.
The exhibition will be on view until February 19th.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 01-03/1928, 012. View Original
January 19, 1928
Along with the Carnegie International Exhibition a special room of paintings that might be called the Brooklyn Museum International has very appropriately been arranged at the Brooklyn Museum by Mr. Herbert B. Tschudy, Curator of Paintings. One reason for this exhibition is that as the gallery of contemporary European paintings at the Museum had to be dismantled to make room for the Carnegie International this is a good means of displaying some of the best things in the Museum's own collections.
It is an interesting commentary on the excellence of its collection of contemporary paintings that such interesting exhibition of 26 pictures can be arranged so quickly representing work of 11 countries, namely, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and Canada.
The artists whose works are shown do not in any way duplicate those in the Carnegie International Exhibition and the collection is only one of several that could have been made. The selections were made as outstanding examples of work from the countries represented.
This collection will be on exhibition for the duration of the Carnegie International which will be on view until February 19th.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 01-03/1928, 015. View Original
February 15, 1928
Arrangements have been made so that the Foreign Section of the Carnegie International Exhibition of Paintings will be held over at the Brooklyn Museum for an extra week. The closing date will now be Sunday, February 26th, instead of the 19th. The American Section of the Exhibition, however will not be on view after the 19th.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 01-03/1928, 026. View Original
