THE ETROPOLITAN NEWS FOR MUSEUM OF ART RELEASE THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1950 FIFTH AYE.at 82 STREET • NEW YORK

PRESS VIEW: Tuesday, June 13 2 - 4:30 p.m.

MAJOR EXHIBITION OF AMERICAN 20TH CENTURY APT OPENING AT METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

A panorama of American art since the turn of the 20th century will open to

the public at The Metropolitan Museum of Art tomorrow. Well over 200 oils, water-

colors and drawings and more than 100 prints by artists whose work reflects the ma­

jor artistic trend3 of the past half-century in the United States are included in

the exhibition. All works displayed are from the permanent collections of the Mu­

seum.

Because it will be possible to show only a portion of the total number of

American paintings*owned by the Museum at any one time in the exhibition 20TH

CENTURY PALNTERS-U. S. A., substitutions will be made as the exhibition continues

in order to give the fullest possible representation to the more than 500 artists

of the period whose works are in the collections. The exhibition will be on view

through the summer.

Outstanding canvases by artists now recognized as being among the great­

est of the 19th century serve as an introduction to the exhibition, which follows a

chronological pattern. Among these earlier paintings are The Gulf Stream by Winslow

Homer, Max Schmitt in a Single Scull by Thomas Eakins and two famous marine sub­

jects by Albert Pinkham Ryder, Toilers of the Sea and Moonlight-Marine.

Portraits of the period include Madame X and The Wyndham. Sisters by John

Singer Sargent, Portrait of Theodore Duret by James A. McNeill Whistler and The

Thinker, by Eakins.

Story-telling pictures such as King Lear's Daughters by Edwin A. Abbey

and The Muse of Painting by John LaFarge, which enjoyed great popularity as the cen­

tury began, are also to be found in the galleries of early paintings.

American Impressionism is vividly portrayed in a gallery devoted to the

works of Miry Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Julian Alder Weir, Gari Melchers, John

Twachtman and others who drew inspiration from French Impressionists such as Degas,

Monet, and Manet. Among the best-known canvases shown are Lady at the Tea Table by

Cassatt, July 14th Rue Daunou by Hassam, The Green Bodice by Weir, Madonna by

Melchers and Waterfall by Twachtman.

Impressionistic paintings are succeeded by realistic works from the

brushes of such men as John Sloan, Dust Storm, Fifth Avenue; Robert Henri, Dutch (more) 2-20th Century American Art

Girl in White; George Luk3, Tho Old Duchess; and Arthur B. Davies, Unicorns. All

were members of The Eight, a group of forthright artists who created the "Journal­

istic Revolution" of 1908 by abandoning academic subject matter and turning to the

man in the street for inspiration. Here also is Up the Hudson by George Bellows,

the outstanding student of Henri, one of the leaders of The Eight. Bellows was among the artists who carried on the movement with extraordinary sensitivity and

vitality.

Influence of the famed Armory Show of 1913 in New York, which featured

"radical" European art of the day, and the impact of advanced painters then active

on the continent, is to be seen in such paintings as Straggly Pines by Max Weber,

Acrobat in Red and Green by Walt Kuhn, Lobster Fishermen by Marsden Hartley and

Bazaar with Cocoanut Palms by Maurice Sterne.

Regional painting is represented by the leading exponents of this trend in

American art. Among them are John Steuart Curry, whose heroic John Brown is a

recent acquisition being exhibited for the first time at the Metropolitan; Grant

Wood, whose Midnight Ride of Paul Revere has also just been acquired, and Thomas

Benton, who is represented by Roasting Ears. Other well-known interpreters of the

American scene being shown include Edward Hopper, Guy Pene DuBois, Reginald Marsh,

Peter Hurd, Jon Corbino and Raphael Soyer.

Many other painters who came into prominence at this time are also repre­

sented. Among them are Eugene Speicher, George Biddle, Waldo Pelrce, Alexander

Brook and Louis Bouche.

Two galleries of the exhibition are devoted to oils, watercolors and draw­

ings from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection given to the Museum last year by Georgia

O'Keeffe, executrix of the Stieglitz estate. Oils from the collection being shown

for the_first time at the Metropolitan include the dramatic I Saw the Figure 5 in

Gold by Charles Demuth and The Perk Mountain, No. 2 by Marsden Hartley. Among paint

ings by Georgia O'Keeffe on permanent loan from the artist to the Stieglitz Col­ lection timt are to be soen are Cow's Skull, Red,White, and Blue and White Canadian Born.

A group of John Marin's watercolors from the Stieglitz Collection are o;

view, ranging in date from London Omnibus (lg08) to Bathers on Rocks (1943) and

including many of his Maine seascapes. A. number of Demuth watercolors are also on

display.

Other watercolors and drawings from the Museum's collections by Americans

outstanding in the field are shown in three additional galleries. Displayed for

the first time at the Museum is Civil Prisoners by Boardman Robinson, one of sever­

al works by Robinson purchased by 134 of the artist's friends and presented earliest (more) 3"20th Century American Art this year to the Metropolitan. Charles Burchfield, Stuart Davis, Adolph. Dehn,. Dong

Kingman and Jacob Lawrence are all represented by typical examples of their work.

Works of the surrealists, the abstractionists anS others active in today's advanced schools of art are to be found in the remaining galleries of paintings.

String Quartette by Jack Levine, Homeless by William Gropper, The Ambassador of

Good Will by George Croaz and Muse of the Western World by Eugene Berman are shown with the abstractions Green Depth by I. Rice Pereira and Burial by Bradley Walker

Tomlin.

Recently acquired paintings in two galleries illustrate the complete sweep of contemporary art, from the most conservative to the most advanced. Here are works by Hobart Nichols, Andrew Wyeth, Walter Stuempfig, Ivan LeLorraine Albright,

Charles Sheeler, Loren Maclver, Philip Evergood, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Karl Khaths,

Abraham Rattner, Ben Shahn, Mark Tobey, William Bar-,iotes, and Theodoros Stamos. In still another gallery modern works by such newcomers to the collections of the .

Metropolitan as Pavel Tchelitchew and Karl Zerbe are hung with canvases by Julian

Levi and Darrell Austin who have been represented for a number of years past.

From the Museum's collection of several thousand American prints made be­ tween 1900 and 1950, more than one hundred examples have been selected for display in conjunction with the 20th century paintings. The prints parallel the oils, watercolors and drawings in illustrating the full range of artistic tendencies of the past fifty years.

Included in the print exhibition is the famous illustrative work, Dempse.v and Firpo by Bellows, the ultra-realistic lithograph Into the World There Came A

Soul Called Ida by Ivan LeLorraine Albright, and an abstract intaglio print, Five

People by Stanley William Hayter.

For the first time at the Museum, photographs are being shown alongside prints. Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Clarence White and

Charles Sheeler, all from the Stieglitz Collection, are on view. Work by other photographers on display includes examples by George Piatt Lynes and Ansel Adams.

Assembled by Robert Beverly Hale, Associate Curator of American Art, 20th

Century Painters - U.S.A., is the first major exhibition to be held at the Metro­ politan Museum in accordance with its newly adopted policy on American art. It will be followed in December by American Painting Today - 1950, an $8,500 prize competition open to all painters in the nation.

Concurrently with the present exhibition, the Museum is publishing a

picture book titled 100 American Painters of the 20th Century containing repro­

ductions in color and black-and-white of many of the works from the Museum's col-

(more) 4 - 20th Century American Art lections now being exhibited. Commenting on the relationship of art and history in his foreword to the book, Mr. Hale says that "if we understand history fully we should understand the art of our times, for it is still, as it always has been, the mirror of ourselves.

"If our art seems violent," Mr. Hale continues, "it is because we have perpetrated more violence than any other generation. If it deals with weird dreams it is because we have opened up the caverns of the mind and let such phantoms loose. If it is filled with broken shapes it is because we have watched the order of our fathers break and fall to pieces at our feet.

"We have seen, in our century, the development of fantastic scientific paraphernalia and much ill will. We live in the fear of some monstrous event which will bring, at best, a curious and distorted future; at worst, annihilation.

The artist is in part a prophet. We should not complain if the shadows that have lately haunted us have for some time been visible upon his canvas."

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