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PAGE 3 It's a right nice show, as a whole, though not nearly so exciting as the one which immediately preceded it in the same gallery,that of sculpture executed on the project. I think that the Federal Art Project has spoiled us. They've been presenting such superb exhibitions all winter long - as a matter of fact, from the time they opened their new gallery on 57th St. - that when they come along with a show that is just good we're not satisfied. I find my catalog double-checked again and again. Rifka Angel's richly pigmented, exotic sensitive panel she calls "Four Dancers" I find starred. Henry Kallem's "Sweat-shops" I had noted for its strong design and its almost abstractly built pattern. Remo Farruggio's "Sicilian Folk Song" is a romantic, mysterious, provactive, finely painted work. Nathaniel Ramer's "Mother & Child" though infinitely more delicate than the Picasso mother and child pieces of his big, rosy, classic period, has something of the same feeling. Marcus Rothkowitz's "Chamber Music" is a very moving, delicately hued composition. Bumpei Usui's "Dahlias", Jack Tworkov's "Subway Diggers", Elsie Driggs' exquisite "Heralds on Parade", with its ingenious linear pattern superimposed on pale color;Manfred Schwartz's Beach Scene" and Ferdinand Lo Pinto's "Flood" are other first-rate works. Worthy of special mention is the hanging of the show. They appear to be developing on the Project, a particular knack for dramatic and original presentation. In this exhibition they have hung all the abstract pictures on the wall you see directly upon entering the gallery. One end of it is curved, and the straight surface is broken up by a protuding panel painted black in contrast to the rest of the wall which is white. Some of the pictures are unframed and set, at different levels, flush into the wall. E. G. NEW YORK TIMES May 1, 1938 FEDERAL EASEL PAINTING In principle one may agree with all that Robert M. Coates says about the spirit and accomplishments of the WPA Federal Art Project, and yet may feel that his foreword in the catalogue prepared for the current oil and water-color show of the N.Y.C. easel division at the Federal Art Gallery does not too happily fit the occasion. The show, considered as a whole, is disappointing - not because, after the recent pyrotechnics of the visiting Chicago easel division, it appears a bit dull, but because so much of the work must be deemed of indifferent or inferior quality. This should on no account be misconstrued as an assertion that the easel show is consistently poor. It contains some excellent can- (more)
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