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Women Painters and Sculptors 
Special to The Christian Science Monitor 
New York

It is curious that artists should adopt distinctions precluding participation of both sexes in an exhibition. But the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, whose forty-sixth annual show is now on at the Fine Arts Building, has arrived where its exhibitions are fairly complete in their justification of themselves as exclusively women's affairs. No longer do they represent, as could once be said of them, merely a proficient segment of the art profession, skillful preeminently in the pleasant arts of flower painting and decorative design. The display at the Fine Arts Building is more than that; it is a vigorous demonstration of painting in many forms, alert in its awareness of changing taste courageous in its investigation of new ideas regarding both subject material and methods. It maintains at the same time a quiet composure and dignity.

The same may be said for the sculpture on display as for the paintings, though to a less degree. Sculpture is always costly to produce and difficult to handle. Thus the 40 or so pieces in bronze and marble make a less imposing show than the paintings which fill three large galleries with more than 300 examples. They are small or of medium large proportions, and it is obvious that there is no great creative talent at work among them. Single figure pieces for the most part they are, straightforward, honestly made, but with the exception of a small "Diana" by Marion Sanford and a graceful, decorative figure, "End of Summer," by Silvia S. Kodjbanoff (both of them prize-winning pieces), they are generally unimaginative.

Women painters are not usually addicted to imaginative flights in painting, and the few examples of this kind on display are not particularly impressive. On the contrary, they confine themselves mostly to recording observable facts and phenomena with excellent taste, with abundant talent for flower subjects and sensitively brushed landscapes and figures. Also, they work freely in the midst of everyday life, with a growing ardor and interest for actualities. Prominent in the show is a large painting of negro singers, the "Twilight Quartette" of Ruth Star Rose, and not far away is Hortense Ferne's "Clown Alley," a picture of clowns "making up" in a circus. Both are typical of new trends in subject matter, well painted and instinct with life.

It is in the large Vanderbilt Gallery that many of the best paintings are shown, though the hanging committee, it must be said, has taken pains to make each room attractive. Among the portraits, two of special distinction are Lois Williams's "Portrait of an Old Man" and Cecil Clark Davis's decorative portrait.

Not even the venerable National Academy of Design has filled the large galleries with more ease and with less perfunctory space-filling than the Women Painters and Sculptors on this occasion. The fact is, the organization has built up its membership strongly during recent years, extending its representation to various remote parts of the country, and is well entitled to speak for American women in art. The forty-sixth annual is among the most attractive shows, certainly the most ambitious, the association has held since it began exhibiting several years ago in its present setting.