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8 X ART-DANCE

A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK

Brief Comment on Some of the Recently Opened Exhibitions in the Galleries

By HOWARD DEVREE
FOUR interesting exhibitions of work by sculptors figured in the attractions opening last week and still current. One of these was of work by an American woman; another, of work by one of our foremost ceramists; a third, by a Scandinavian sculptor already known in our museums and galleries, and the fourth, of drawings and photographs of monumental work by a Russian.
The first of these four artists is Cornelia Van A. Chapin, whose show at the Fifteen Gallery is sponsored in a foreword by Mateo Hernandez. "She has had the daring, the energy, the discipline to practice the technique of direct carving from life in blocks of hard stone and wood." These pieces are no cut and dried representationalisms: there is humor in her resting pelican; there is a jocose dignity in her elephant, and her huge granite frog would dominate fittingly the damp end of a stream fed garden. Some of the low reliefs, notably the nude in red sandstone, reveal moreover, the artist's sense of linear balance. Directness and simplicity pleasingly characterize her work. 
Russell Barnett Aitken, who is showing recent work and the Walker Gallery, needs no introduction to American sculpture and ceramic lovers. The current showing included, besides small sculptures, two punch bowls strikingly decorated and a series of attractive service plates, "Adventures of a Fawn." Some of the enamels, particularly the polo and hockey plaques, are among his most colorful work.
The work of Frederick Hammargren, now on view at the Douthitt Gallery, includes pieces on loan from the Brooklyn Museum and other public and private collections. The artist is described as specializing in patriotic and memorial statues; but some of the small pieces currently shown are arresting bits of sensitive decoration. Hammargren belongs rather to the eclectics than the individualists, and essentially to the decorative division of sculptors. "Enigma," a somewhat Florentine portrait in marble; "Oriental," in mahogany; and the torso from marble from the Brooklyn Museum might very well be singled out from the show.
Roman Verhovsky is represented at the Architectural League chiefly by drawings and detailed sketches for various works, among the most important of which have been monuments to the defender of Belgrade and to the Russian soldiers who died for the allied cause in the World War. Mrs. James Delano Roosevelt, the Grand Duchess Marie and Constantin Fotitch, Minister of Yugoslavia, are among the honorary patrons.