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Times 2/15/35

22 L

WILLIAM GLACKENS HAS ONE-MAN SHOW

Retrospective Pictures, Dating From 1905, Displayed at Krasuhaar Galleries.

GROWTH IS VIVIDLY SEEN

Assimilation of Methods of Manet and Renoir Followed by His Own Lustre.

By EDWARD ALDEN JEWELL.

Paintings by the well-known American artist, William J. Glackens, who has not had a previous one-man show for several seasons, have been placed on view at the Kraushaar Galleries. They will remain there until March 2.

This group of twenty-seven canvases, to which a few early drawings are added, is retrospective, carrying us back to about the year 1905. It was at that time that Glackens painted "Luxembourg Gardens," making use of a dark palette and showing himself to have been considerably under the influence of Manet. This is not surprising, since most of the youngsters in Paris during that period found it impossible to resist the fascination exerted by a master who was then esteemed very modern. There is perhaps some Manet also in the "Portrait of Miss Olga D." and the influence is inescapable in a large "Nude With Apple," which is dated 1910. This nude seems a very much purified, a desensationalized "Olympia."

But still more potent, certainly more lasting, is the influence that brings Renoir into the retrospective survey. For many years Glackens painted so faithfully in the Renoir manner that one began to despair of his ever achieving anything that could be considered distinctively his own. Then by degrees assimilation softened the delimiting effect of this entente too cordial. Glackens slowly emerged, and finally, at any rate in the field of landscape painting, he was seen rather to have bettered the instruction.

Today Glackens can make a canvas glow and sing with a luster as alluring as it is unique. No doubt the link that connects his art and Renoir's will never entirely disappear. Nor need it, so long as the American artist retains and enlarges his now rich and individual style. What paintings in the present exhibition best exemplify this development? Decidedly the two you face as you enter the room in which most of these canvases have been placed: "The Soda Fountain," just completed, and "Child in Chinese Costume." Yet, that the style we feel expresses the essential Glackens has been of slow and protensive growth is proved by the fact that the "Child" in the latter work represents the artist's daughter Lenna (now a rising young painter) as a little girl. It must have been done as far back as 1920.

Both of these canvases are magically lighted, their harmonies and rhythms most deftly weaved, the forms softly yet firmly modeled and glimpsed as through a tinted mist. Mention should likewise be made of "Lenna and Imp," which was shown earlier in the season at the Carnegie International. There is a charming evanescence in "Annisquam and in several flower subjects.