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Design for Hall of Legislature:
George Harding

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Design for Hall of Justice:
James Owen Mahoney

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Composite Picture: FRANK REILLY
Flames and Rays Added

ART DIGEST OCT - 1- 1938

Harding and Mahoney Win Mural Awards- and the Flood Descends 

WITH no inflammatory intent, THE ART DIGEST last July commented upon the opportunity to American artists in the new competition for two huge $5,000 murals in the U.S. Building at the New York World's Fair, and urged "the grandstand to fall into that old American custom: razz, cheer -- if necessary 'kill the Umpire.'"
Well, last month the competition closed; the two awards were announced; and sure enough the cry went well up "kill the ump!"
A 31 year old Texan artist, James Owen Mahoney won the commission to decorate the Hall of Justice, and George Harding of Philadelphia won the Hall of Legislature wall space, each thereby snatching a $5,000 commission from a field of 500 entrants from all over the country. The jury of award - the "ump" --comprised Edward J. Flynn and Theodore T. Hayes, government officials, Eugene Savage, Leon Kroll, Reginald Marsh, and Ernest Peixotto, all painters, and three jurors ex officio: N. Max Dunning and Edward Bruce of the Treasury Department, Howard L. Cheney, architect. 
Less than a week after New York papers published the announcement accompanied by reproductions of the prize winning designs, a story broke in the New York World Telegram carrying a stormy protest by five artists against the award to the Mahoney design. Frank Reilly, teacher a the Grand Central Art School, led the onslaught with charges of unoriginality, and he was backed up by Reginald Marsh, member of the jury, who expressed his distaste for the Harding design as well. Supporting the view of Reilly and 

Marsh on the Mahoney design were four other well known New York artists, Robert Brackman, James Montgomery Flagg, William A. Mackay, and Henry R. Rittenberg.
Informed of Reilley's protest, Reginald Marsh said he was "damned glad to hear about the complaints/" In no prissy words he delivered himself of a pent-up opinion quoted by Douglas Gilbert, who wrote the World Telegram story. "I fought like hell against the award," the painter-juryman said, "I voted against the Harding mural, too. I have served on several government juries and, as some witty Senator said about some murals in Washington, they are all going back to the cheesecloth and garter stuff. 
"There is no significance in the mural, and if there is it false and deceitful. I might say that a number of artists agree with me. too, and I don't mean those who are listed as complainants. When they picked up the newspapers and saw what had happened and he reproductions they asked-'for God's sake, what's this?'"
The charge of unoriginality lodged against the Mahoney design was pursued most vigorously by Frank Reilly who pasted up a composite picture drawn from parts of Harry Poole Camden's World's Fair sculpture, and Paul Manship's War Memorial in the Detroit A. C., and let the public judge for itself. He branded the selection of Mahoney's design as "a travesty on justice to the 500 artists who had worked at least a month on the problem for an original design, only to have once picked that shows lack of originality and bears such striking resemblance to other works of art, that is inconceivable that the judges failed to notice this."
Explaining his "composite picture," Reilly said, "I drew in his "composite picture," Reilly said, "I drew in the flames and rays, but the main figures are from actual photographs of Camden and Manship. I do not deliberately accuse Mr. Mahoney of thieving an idea. But I believe that his idea is unoriginal, and I made the composite to show what I mean when I say that."
Joining the other protesting artist, Robert Brackman, painter of the :indberghs, was quoted in the newspaper as saying the incident "seems to me more than a coincidence would be more honorable for a committed appoint an American painter for such an important design than to have 500 amateurs and artist work hard and then be subjected to a careless selection."
The only member of the jury besides Marsh who could be reached for a statement was Edward Bruce, chief of the Treasury Art Project which sponsored the competition. Over the telephone from his Vermont studio, Bruce told the World Telegram, "In a matter of this kind there is bound to be differences of opinion, and it is a good thing, too. Unfortunately we have no yardstick to measure a work of art, no scientific method of approach that would be infallible. But I think the discussion that has been raised is healthy."
No statement has been made thus far by either Mahoney or Harding in defense of their designs. Mahoney, a Yale-Prix de Rome artist who decorated the Hall of State at the Texas Centennial two years ago in his native city, 
The Art Digest