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6 - Sec. Two  CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1955

ART Noguchi Sculpture, Scrolls Shown Here
By Frank Holland

Sculpture and scroll drawings by the famed contemporary sculptor Isamu Noguchi comprise the striking and brilliant exhibition on view through Dec. 7 in the Arts Club's quarters at 109 E. Ontario.

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"Large Walking Box" by Isamu Noguchi.

Since Noguchi himself supervised the installation of the 36 pieces of sculpture and the seven huge scrolls, the show has extraordinary coherence and as a unit seems quite as much a creative work as any of its many parts. Moreover, it is interesting to discover how the sculptor desired his works to be viewed. Some he placed at eye level and many are on the floor, while others are on pedestals of greatly varied heights.

The son of a famous Japanese poet and an Irish-American mother, Noguchi first studied medicine, attending Columbia University from 1922-24. However, he soon switched to sculpture and was extraordinarily successful almost at once. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1924 and went to Paris to study with the renowned modern sculptor Constantin Brancusi. After his first one-man show in 1928, Noguchi found his work recognized for its originality in contemporary circles. He is now considered one of the most creative of present day artists.

NOGUCHI IS no stranger to the Arts Club, which gave him shows in 1930 and 1932 at the beginning of his brilliant career. In the present exhibition is a large group of ceramic sculpture executed in Japan in 1951 and '52 as well as a half dozen or more examples of earlier and more formal works, among them the handsome abstract "Slate" of three movable parts that combine to form arresting spatial patterns.

In the ceramic works Noguchi caught the spirit of clay folding, piercing and modeling it with directness and characteristic vigor. Particularly handsome are the scroll drawings - huge white wall hangings with rapidly brushed figures in black ink and wash.

TWO MEMBERS of the Chicago Society of Artists - Frances Foy and Alice Mason - are displaying recent oils and water colors in a joint show at the Cromer and Quint Galleries, 615 N. State. Both exhibitors have been represented in many important local and national exhibitions and have won numerous awards. In their painting both stick closely to realism. Miss Foy paints in a quiet semi-decorative mural-like style, Mrs. Mason in a very personal but quite representational manner.

Among works included in Miss Foy's share of the show (she is exhibiting 21 paintings in all) are "Lake Front," an intriguing and amusing pattern of bathers, large rocks and the lake; an excellent canvas, "Little Hunter," a colorful and decorative oil of a striped tiger cat among detailed ferns; "White Mushrooms," a sprinkling of white umbrella-like forms against the black-brown mass of a tree stump, and "A Farewell," a tender moody painting of a young couple at late evening in a garden surrounded by trees and city buildings. Water colors by Miss Foy include the crisp and sharply delineated "Hydrangea" and the purple and blue "Egg Plant."

INCLUDED AMONG Mrs. Mason's works (29 in all) are the delightful "Country Tenement," a bird-filled tree; the brilliant orange and yellow "Michigan Dunes"; the very sensitive brown and gray "Queen Anne's Lace," and the small, well painted head, "Child Study"- all oils.

Among water colors are "May in Illinois" of green ferns and grasses and white spring flowers, and "Golden Rod," a splash of yellow against warm gray tones. Mrs. Mason is also showing a number of color-lithographs of flowers and grasses as well as several from a series called "Impressions of Spain" - "Willows," "Olive Trees" and "Old Castle."

The 35th annual exhibition of oils and sculpture by artist associates of the Chicago Galleries Assn. is on view in the organization's new quarters at 30 S. Michigan. Fifty-eight works by as many artists make up the affair, which will continue through next Saturday.

Conservative to an extreme degree, the show looks much like the annuals of other years. There are many softly painted "pretty" landscapes - brooks, fall foliage, sand dunes, snow scenes - flower still lifes, portraits, etc.

One of the portraits, a realistically painted likeness of a young girl in a white dress by Marilyn Bendell, was awarded the Municipal Art League prize of $100 - the only prize so far decided upon. Paintings selected from the show by governing members of the association (every three years a governing member is allowed to choose for his permanent possession a work from the annual) include Jeffery Grant's impressionistic street scene, "The Sign of the Red Lobster," Charles Vickery's view of a lake, "Along the Shore," and Karl Plath's decorative bird panel, "Macaws."

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"Vase - 1952" by Isamu Noguchi.

THROUGHOUT NOVEMBER the Main Street Gallery, 642 N. Michigan, is showing a large and unusually interesting collection of African sculpture. Included are rare examples from Sudan, the Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa and the Ivory Coast.