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Leisure/The Arts The Washington Post D8 Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1971 . . . R Changing National Gallery Gallery, from D1 [[image]] "Marilyn Monroe Diptych," 1962, by Andy Warhol is in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine, which may be acquired by the National Gallery of Art. prohibiting the lending of important National Gallery pictures has been reversed. The museum has begun to form a "National Gallery Lending Collection" that will hold works not yet "of upstairs quality" and lend them to galleries and universities throughout the country. • The gallery is secretly acquiring works of 20th-century art, many to hang in the new addition now being constructed. Though Brown will not discuss it, it has been learned that he has been seriously negotiating with Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine of Meriden, Conn., and New York City, whose collection of more than 300 pictures of the 20th-century is among the world's finest. Its range is spectacularly broad. It includes such European masterpieces as "Victory Boogie-Woogie" Piet Mondrian's last great work, as well as major examples of abstract expressionism and Pop, and the Tremaines are buying still. They own more than one Pollock, as well as pictures by Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Jasper Johns' "Three Flags" is theirs, as are works by Oldenburg and Lichtenstein, and they own a multiple portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol. If the Tremaines donate their collection - they are known to lean in that direction, but no formal pledge has yet been made - their finest pictures, the Mondrian, for instance, will hang with the gallery's masterpieces. But they own other works - Robert Irwins, for example - that are still too new to have established an unshakable historical reputation. Had these been offered 10 years ago, they certainly would have been turned away. Under Brown's new policies, however, they might enter the lending collection until - and if - time has judged them worthy of admission to the galleries upstairs. "You can quote me", says Henry Geldzahler, the Metropolitan Museum's curator of contemporary art in New York. "You can say we're disappointed the Tremaines' collection is not going to the Met." • As a sign of the gallery's new focus on paintings of this century, Brown has begun attracting to the gallery personnel expert in contemporary art. William C. Seitz, who has taught at Princeton and at Harvard, a man whose museum credentials are as impressive as his academic ones, will join the gallery as Kress professor this fall. The gallery's previous Kress professors - such men as Harvard's Jakob Rosenberg, Columbia's Rudolph Wittkower, and Rene Huyghe of the Louvre - were students of the past. Seitz, in contrast, spent the early 1960s at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has written on Arshile Gorky and Hans Hoffman and he interviewed Marcel Duchamp for Vogue. His Monet exhibition at the Modern altered our understanding of that prophetic figure. His "The Art of Assemblage" show added a new term to the conventional art vocabulary, and his "The Responsive Eye" was the first major museum exhibition to recognize "Op Art." Seitz is familiar with America's best collections and collectors of contemporary art. Because of his wide academic experience he will be able to guide Brown towards those accomplished scholars who eventually will study the paintings of our age at the gallery's new Institute for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Brown has not yet selected a curator of contemporary art. Though that job is of paramount importance, it will be perhaps a year before it will be filled. In the meantime, however, Seitz will not be the only gallery specialist in the field. Of the half a dozen gallery fellows to join the staff this fall, one is a student of Monet, another is studying Matisse. Despite the scope of his new programs, despite the resolutely modern look of his Pei-designed new building, Brown remains convinced that the gallery's traditional conservatism is not a defect but a strength. "We will not become a museum of modern art," he says. He knows that fortunes will be made and lost by the gallery's modern art decisions, and that those decisions will be watched with care. When the gallery buys a Leonardo, art history, insures the soundness of its judgment, but if it hangs a Warhol, sparks will surely fly. Every step it takes into the contemporary field will be second-guessed. Should it hire the wrong curator, for example, esthetic politicians, museum men, art fans, artists and collectors everywhere would gripe. Yet Brown knows that the century is almost over, that time will inevitably disqualify some of the new works that it acquires, yet despite the dangers that it faces, the gallery must move. The gallery cannot afford to demean the quality of its collection, it cannot anticipate the politics of the future and the future's judgment of the past - but neither can it afford to wait. Brown knows the basement of the Louvre is filled with works, once though important, for which no one cares today, and he is well aware that though the lending collection is a safety valve, time may prove that under his direction the gallery began to do the same. He knows that even great museums may stumble, that there are other political and esthetic hazards he will have to face as well. About the time America's blacks began to notice they'd been ignored by America's museums, museums began to notice they'd been ignoring blacks. Thomas Hoving at the Met hung "Harlem on My Mind," a show that seemed to many ill-conceived at best. The Modern added Mrs. Kenneth Clark and one other black to its 40-member board. Brown, in contrast, organized an important and exquisite show of African sculpture. His decision was considered by some to be superior, and though he now has begun to act, he will need all his conservatism, his caution and his tack, if he is to safely guide the gallery into "the dangerous waters" of 20th-century art. [[image]] William C. Seitz, who is an authority on contemporary art, will join the National Gallery this fall as Kress professor. Stealing Canada's Grass Reuter OTTAWA-The Canadian government's experimental marijuana farm here is proving too much of a temptation to young thieves and officials have launched a nationwide plea for everyone to "keep off the grass"-in the name of research. After a series of three raids in two weeks, the Federal Food and Drug Directorate made a televised appeal to thieves to leave the plants alone before they do irreparable damage to research programs. The government is growing over 300 varieties of the female hemp plant-cannabis sativia-whose leaves are smoked as marijuana and whose tops are turned into hashish. Their aim is to find a strain with a high content of THC-marijuana's active ingredient-and some of the varieties have been provided by research stations all over the world. The farm covers three cultivated acres which could, under the right conditions, yield 18,000 pounds of marijuana, worth anywhere up to $4 million on the illegal market. "The precautions did not deter one young thief who vaulted the perimeter fence, stripped the leaves of a couple of plants, then vaulted back out again." One of the directorate's problems is that many young people regard thieving from the farm as either a joke or an irresistable challenge or a chance to hit back at marijuana laws they disapprove. One youngster told food and drug officials that their whole appeal for an end to thievery was a red flag to Canada's entire youth culture. Security precautions at the farm have also caused a lot of fun since they were officially reported to consist of one private security guard on a watchtower, armed with an umbrella against the elements, and a second guard lurking in the bushes. Neither guard apparently carried firearms but three guard dogs were also part of the defenses. They were kept in kennels with remote-controlled doors that can be opened from the tower. Security precautions have since been increased, but the federal government will not give details. The early precautions did not deter one young thief who vaulted the permieter fence, stripped the leaves of a couple of plants, then vaulted back out again. Two arrests were made after another raid but a third group made off with some plants without being caught after accomplices caused a diversion in another part of the farm. One of the government's problems is that the crop is growing well and the plants are outgrowing their camouflage. It was originally intended to disguise the crop as corn and rows of corn were planted round the outside. But as Dr. A. B. Morrison, the food and drug director of operations, put it in his appeal. "When you have four foot corn and eight foot cannabis..." Titian Stolen PIEVE DE CADORE, Italy (AP) - Thieves stole a painting by the Renaissance master Titian and 13 other precious works from the local church overnight, stripping this birthplace of the Venetian painter of its single work by him. The value of the stolen art was put by experts at well beyond $1.6 million. The theft was discovered when priests opened Pieve's archdeaconal church early Tuesday. They found three large canvases of the Venetian school abandoned on the floor. The thieves, police said, obviously had failed to detach them from their heavy frames. Titian's "Madonna with Saints" disappeared from a chapel where the local residents had admired it for centuries as the only work the great master had left in this Dolomite village where he was born around 1477. The altar piece was 31 by 55 inches. It is signed by Titian and carries the date 1560. Show Times STAGE FORD'S-"You're A Good Man Charlie Brown," 7:30 MERRIWEATHER POST-Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians, 8:30 NATIONAL-Dark. OLNEY THEATER-"Child's Play," 8:30 SHADY GROVE-"Coco," 8:30 SMITHSONIAN PUPPET THEATER-"The Waywardly Wandering Wagonful of Banjo and Jack," 11,1,3. SYLVAN THEATER - Dark. WASHINGTON PUPPET THEATER - Dark. WASHINGTON THEATER CLUB - Dark. WAYSIDE-"Stop the World-I Want to Get Off," 8:30 WOLF TRAP-Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band, 8:30 EXPERIMENTAL THEATER BACK ALLEY THEATER-Dark. THEATER LOBBY-Dark. DINNER THEATER BLACK CIRCUS-"I Do, I Do," dinner 7, show 8:30 BURN BRAE-"Music Man," dinner 7, show 8:30 CEDAR KNOLL INN-"Barefoot In the Park," dinner 7, show 8:30 COLONY 7-Dark. "Anything Goes" resumes Fri. GARLAND (Columbia)-"Natalie Needs A Nightie," dinner 7-8, show 8:30. MARRIOTT-"Damn Yankees," dinner 7, show 8:30. VILLA ROSA-Dark. "Play It Again Sam," opens Friday. FILMS AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE-Dark. APEX-"Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice," 1:30, 4:55, 8:20; "Cactus Flower," 3:10, 6:40, 10:10. AVALON-"Carnal Knowledge," 1, 2:50, 4:40, 6:30, 8:20, 10:10. AVALON II-"Bananas," 1, 2:30, 4, 5:30, 7, 8:30, 10. BIOGRAPH-"Groupies," 8:25, "Yellow Submarine," 5:30, 9:30; "Let It Be," 7, 11:20. CERBERUS I-"McCabe and Mrs. Miller," 5:45, 7:45, 9:45. CERBERUS II-"Le Mans," 6:25, 8:20, 10:15. CERBERUS III-"Tillie and Gus," 3:25, 6, 8:35, 11:10; "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man," 2:05, 4:40, 7:15, 9:40. CINEMA-"The Hellstrom Chronicle," CIRCLE-"If," 4:35, 8:15, 11:55; "The Strawberry Statement," 2:50, 6:30, 10:10 CIRCLE-"Room Service," 12:40, 4:45, 8:55, 12:55: "The Circus," 1:55, 6:05, 10.15; "Help," 3:10, 7:20, 11:30. EMBASSY-"Little Big Man," 1:30, 4:05, 6:40, 9:20. FINE ARTS-"The Go-Between," 2, 4, 6, 8:05, 10:10. GEORGETOWN - "Klute," 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 INNER CIRCLE-"The Clowns," 1, 4, 7:05, 10:15," "The Producers," 2:30, 5:35, 8:40, 11:45. JANUS I-"Blue Water, White Death," 1:15, 3, 4:45, 6:30, 8:20, 10:10. JANUS II-"Blue Water, White Death," 2:15, 4, 5:45, 7:30, 9:20. KEITH'S-"Adios, Sabata," 11:15, 1.20, 3:25, 5:35, 7:40, 9:50. KEY-"Summer of '42," 6, 8:10, 10:10. LINCOLN-"Shaft," 1:05, 2:45, 4:30, 6:15, 8:05, 9:50. MacARTHUR - "Anne of A Thousand Days," 7, 9:30. OUTER CIRCLE-"On Any Sunday," 12:40, 2:15, 3:50, 5:25, 7, 8:35, 10:15. OUTER CIRCLE II-"The Nun," 1, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45, 10. PALACE-"Soul To Soul," 12:30, 2:20, 4:10, 6, 7:50, 9:40. PENN-"Adultery For Fun and Profit," noon, 1:40, 3:20, 5, 6:40, 8:20, 10. PLAYHOUSE-"101 Acts of Love," noon, 1:40, 3:20, 5, 6:40, 8:20, 10. PLAZA-"Hot Pants," noon, 1:40, 3:20, 5, 6:40, 8:20, 10. REPUBLIC-"Soul to Soul," 1, 2:45, 4:30, 6:15, 8, 9:50. TOWN-"Shaft," 12:15, 2:15, 4:15, 6:15, 8:15, 10:15. TRANS-LUX - "Language of Love," noon, 1:40, 3:20, 5, 6:40, 8:20, 10. UPTOWN-"Gone With the Wind," 2, 8.
