Art at the Exposition

 

Art at the Exposition

Building Almost Ready to Receive the Exhibits.

DISPLAY PROMISES TO BE OF THE BEST

Six Hundred Pictures Secured, Most of Which Are the Handiwork of American Artists. Some of Them Noted Paintings.

The installation of the pictures and works of art which will be displayed in the Art building at the exposition will be well under way with the beginning of the current week. The beautiful building which has been erected as the home of the best work of American and foreign artists is practically completed and the corps of assistants working under the instruction of Art Director Griffiths will take full possession. All but a very few of the pictures have been received and the warehouse downtown where they have been stored is groaning with the plethora of wooden cases containing the priceless gems sent here for exhibition by the artists or by the owners, who have kindly loaned their treasures for the occasion. There will be only about 600 pictures in the entire collection, Director Griffiths and the committee of the Western Art association having charge of the art exhibit having proceeded on the theory that the available spare should be filled with works of the very highest grade. Hundreds of pictures were available, but from among the very large number offered the best were selected, with the result that the art display of the Transmississippi and International Exposition will compare very favorably with any art exhibit that has ever been held in this country.

Display by American Artists.

A feature of the art display will be the work of American artists. Special attention has been devoted to making the exhibition largely American, and when the pictures are all in place the names of the artists will appeal strongly to the patriotism of visitors.

Among those whose pictures will be in the collection is William Howe of Philadelphia, an artist whose standing in Europe is such that his pictures are admitted to the far-famed salons of Paris without being first passed on by a jury. He may be called the Rosa Bonheur of America, his work being confined to painting animals. He will exhibit two cattle pieces.

William T. Richards of New York has achieved fame as a painter of marine scenes and he will exhibit two marines of more than usual excellence.

Alice P. Barney, a society woman of Washington, D. C., who paints because she loves the art, has yielded to many requests and will exhibit a work she calls, "In My Looking Glass."

John Alexander of Pittsburg, an American artist who has received more medals than he knows what to do with, will have a piece entitled "A Yellow Girl," a very striking portrait of a beautiful young girl in a brilliant yellow gown.

George Wharton Edwards, another painter of marines, will contribute a "Fog Bell on the Maine Coast," a very strong piece of work.

Paul de Sar of Indianapolis, a young American who studied in Paris, where he ,acquired a great reputation, and whose second picture shown in the salon was purchased by the French goverment, is one of the very few artists who will have more than two pictures in the collection. One of these is a very strong picture entitled, "The Departure of the Fishermen." The scene is laid on the French coast, showing the boats in waiting, and a group of men and women in the background performing a simple religious ceremony invoking the Divine blessing upon the departing fishermen. In the foreground are two children and the breadth of feeling displayed in the treatment of these two figures would assure the lasting reputation of the artist if he never painted anything else.

Handy with the Brush.

Kenyon Cox of New York, an artist whose work is gaining for him a wide reputation both at home and abroad, contributes an allegorical painting of exceptional beauty and excellence entitled "Science Instructing Industry" and a portrait of Mrs. Cox.

William H. Haberle of New Haven is one of those caretaking individuals who paint $5 bills and newspaper clippings so true to life that people insist on trying to pick them from the canvas. A number of his paintings of money have been confiscated by the government because they were counterfeit. He has agreed to send a picture he calls "A Bachelor's Drawer." It has not arrived, but will undoubtedly be found to be a freak of fancy.

Charles Grafty of Philadelphia contributes an original plaster model which has attracted great attention wherever it has been exhibited, and received honorable mention at Paris. It is a figure of a young girl, perfectly nude, standing on the sea beach. With one hand she holds to her ear a sea shell and the whole pose of the figure, the closed eyes, the evident concentration of the whole thought on the news being whispered by the shell, all tell a story of youthful faith in the message from the sea.

The list of meritorious works of art might thus be continued almost indefinitely, but the assurance is doubly certain that the visitor to the art exhibit of the exposition will be fully repaid for the hours which will be spent in the study of the many beautiful things there displayed.