May 20, 1928
The summer exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum is now announced to open on June 1st and to continue until October 1st. The show will be composed of paintings, sculpture and drawings and will be on view in the large west gallery on the third floor where the winter exhibitions are hung.
The list of artists whose work will be included indicates that the exhibition will be an interesting one. The artists are Hayley Lever, Boris Anisfeld, Aimee Seyfort, George H. Macrum, Joan Osborne, Gertrude Farquharson Boyle, Lena Pilico, Leopold Pilichowski, Olive Earle, Thronton Oakley, Holmean Phillips, Winold Reiss, Joseph Stella, Bela Kadar, Claggett Wilson and Eugene Dunkel.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 04-06/1928, 072. View Original
May 29, 1928
The summer show at the Brooklyn Museum will open on Saturday, June 2d, to the public. There will be no private view in advance. However, the collection will be complete and there will be a list of paintings in case the catalogue is not finished for purposes of review, if you would care to come any time after Wednesday noon, May 30th.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 04-06/1928, 073. View Original
May 29, 1928
The summer show of paintings, sculpture and drawings which opened to the public at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, June 2d, is well worth a visit for its interesting variety, if for nothing else. The collection which is the work of sixteen artists who have been invited to exhibit extends in schools from conservative through to very advanced modern work with one or two specialties which cannot be classed in any particular school or movement. Modernism, however, is the dominant note and covers the whole range from the abstract to realism done in the modern spirit. Thus the exhibition is distinctly one of painting of to-day, which bears the policy for which the Museum is famous. Nearly all the work exhibited is by Americans or foreigners living in this country. Only three of the exhibitors paint abroad. The variety of, the exhibition has resulted from the choice of artists who are engaged in interpreting entirely different phases of life.
The exhibitors who undoubtedly are most familiar to the New York public are Boris Anisfeld, Holmead Phillips, Hayley Lever, Joseph Stella, Claggett Wilson, Thornton Oakley and Winold Reiss. The portraits of Pigan Indians whioh constitute Mr. Reiss's section of the exhibition are work that he did last summer in Montana and Canada. The entire collection is now the property of Mr. Louis W. Hill, chairman of the Board of the Great Northern Railroad.
Joseph Stella's part of the exhibition consists of five panels showing views of New York and the Thornton Oakley pen and ink drawings are illustrating for the books "Cloud Lands of France" (which are drawings of the French Alps) and "Hill Towns of the Pyrenees".
One of the most interesting of the foreigners is Bela Kadar, a Hungarian who is leader of the modern movement in his country, He paints in oil and tempera using prismatic colors and his forms are abstractions and simplifications showing a delightful humor in the depiction of several of the subjects.
Another interesting modern painter is Aimée Seyffort, a young woman who has been painting in Europe for some time but who lives in Binghamton, New York. She does dashing, decorative works in a distinctly modern manner with fine strong color. Her medium is tempera and oil. This is her first exhibition in this country and the canvases she has contributed were painted within the last few months.
Another of the modern painters is Eugene Dunkel, whose water colors and tinted drawings are in the spirit of the theatre and are illustrative of subjects that might be used in scenery design, such as the Salome story, Scheherezade and Pierrot and Columbine. His designs are arabesques and in the oriental manner.
Léna Pillico's decorative designs are also in the modern spirit. Her husband, Leopold Pilichowski is considerably more academic and is well known in Europe for his portraits and Jewish type pictures.
Gertrude Boyle-Kanno's work is very familiar to art lovers on the Pacific Coast. She contributes both sculpture and drawings to the exhibition. The drawings are in crayon, water color and wash and are lovely rhythmic compositions employing chiefly the human figure draped and nude. Her small sculptures are in the same imaginative mood as the drawings but the portrait busts are more realistic. The subjects of four of them are Luther Burbank, John Muir, William Keith, the foremost California landscape painter, and Christy Mathewson.
George H. Macrum has contributed pictures of French hill towns which, though conservative, are rich in color and Joan Osborne's canvases are lovely views from the West Indies and California.
The most specialized painter in the exhibition is Olive Earle, whose canvases are submarine scenes from the waters around Bermuda, California and Florida. She has obtained these colorful pictures of fish against their natural backgrounds by the use of a glass-bottomed boat, instead of the method of painting from a submerged chamber. Consequently, her paintings should be judged from the standpoint of design rather than realistic reproduction of what a diver sees.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 04-06/1928, 074-6. View Original
August 25, 1928
There have been three groups of paintings added to the summer exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum which opened in June and will continue on through September. These additions consist of seven small decorative panels by Leonid and Rimma Brailowsky, two decorative canvases by Joel Levitt and a painting of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Nicolas S. Macsoud.
The first group is interesting for the emphasis on design and the rich coloring. The panels are done in the ikon tradition and in every instance show a central figure with an interesting background pattern. The drawing is somewhat in the ikon manner but the characteristics which most definitely puts the panels in this class are the use of gold paint and the high varnish which gives a mellow tone. This group is loaned by Mr. B. N. Schnitnikoff of New York City.
The two panels by Joel Levitt are entitled, "Recreation" and "Inspiration" and are done in soft pleasant tones suitable for murals as they are to be placed in the Apartment Hotel, known as 47 Plaza Street, now under construction on Prospect Park Plaza. The panels were loaned by Jacob Mark, architect of the Hotel.
The painting of the Holy Sepulchre has become well known in this country as it has been reproduced in magazines. Mr. Macsoud was the first president of the Brooklyn Society of Miniature painters which held its 10th Annual Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum the early part of this year. Mr. Macsoud is also a miniaturist as well as a painter in oil.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 07-09/1928, 087. View Original
September 18, 1928
The most recent, and probably the last addition to the summer show at the Brooklyn Museum, is a group of bronze figures, plaques, medals and ivory bas-reliefs done by Alexander Finta, whose actual first name in Hungary, where he was born, is Sandor. Mr. Finta, whose name is fast becoming familiar to those interested in sculpture, came to this country four years ago with an introduction from the Hungarian Royal Consul-General in which it was stated that this sculptor has more public monuments to his credit than any Hungarian sculptor living or dead. He won 36 competitions in Europe, of which only 18 were executed because of the interference of war conditions.
In Rio de Janeiro, where he went before the opening of the World's Fair there in 1921, he was appointed Director-in-Chief in charge of the Sculpture. After a very successful stay he came to this country four years ago and has been heard from through public commissions from time to time. In one instance he was called on as an expert by the Committee which was trying to determine how to carry on Gutzon Borglum's work at Stone Mountain and when the delegation of Magyars came to this country last spring to attend the unveiling of the Louis Kossuth memorial he designed and executed a bronze plaque which was given to Mayor Charles H. Kline of Pittsburgh as a token from local Hungarians of the appreciation of the hospitality extended to the delegation.
The quality of Mr. Finta's training is evident in his work. He studied in Hungary, Vienna and Berlin, was in Rodin's studio three years and worked under Hildebrand in Florence A few of the well-known personalities of whom he has done busts are Carl Laemmle, Justice H. Victor Dowling, Alexander Konta, Count Apponyi, Francis Kleinberger, R. M. Haan, Countess Szecheny and Cardinal Hayes. Mr. Finta believes in trying his hand in fields other than the fine arts, so that his work in the theatre was seen in New York in the stage setting for the moving picture "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".
The present exhibition is made up only of small pieces, many of which were studies for monuments of heroic proportions. The visitor to the gallery in the Brooklyn Museum where his things are shown will be struck with the interest which Finta shows in Walt Whitman. The many pieces in which the poet figures the artist did entirely for his own pleasure, as he says the democracy of Whitman is more fully appreciated in Europe than it is here and, in fact, it is rather disappointing to some Europeans who do not really find his spirit prevalent when they come to this country.
Mr. Finta thinks that New York is the new art centre of the world and for that reason has come to live here with his wife. Catherine Finta is a painter and is a Professor of Design. She received her degree from the Royal Academy of Decorative Arts in Budapest. In Brazil she worked with her husband on the decoration of the World's Fair by making designs for the walls and reliefs of several pavillions. She is particularly interested in the production of fine velvet and silk batiks, four examples of which are included in the exhibition.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 07-09/1928, 092-3. View Original
