Shows in Manhattan

Miro. At one of the Museum of Modern Art's first exhibitions three years ago people stopped in front of a small black canvas entitled "Dog Barking at the Moon." On the right, in strange iridescent colors, was something that might be a dog. Above it was another shape that might be a moon. On the left there was definitely a ladder, shooting up into infinity. As a work of art it only annoyed most people. Yet last summer that same canvas, now the proud possession of an eminent Union Club member, Mr. Albert Eugene Gallatin, was listed by Chicago critics along with Rembrandts, El Grecos and Manets as one of the greatest paintings at the Century of Progress art exhibit. Last week Manhattan had its first chance to see a representative exhibition of the work of the man who painted it.

Joan Miro, 40, was born in Barcelona, studied painting in his native city. That Artist Miro should get a better sense of shape and volume in his painting, his instructor made him draw from objects that he could only touch, blindfolded. About 15 years ago Joan Miro first appeared in the Paris art world, and in 1925 headed the most obscure group of modernists, the Surrealists. His early canvases were obscure enough, strange blobs of color against neutral backgrounds cut across by careening black lines.

Artist Miro is still an abstract painter more interested in getting emotions on canvas than creating recognizable designs. But in late years critics, hardened to modernists, have come to realize that he is also a serious, thoughtful painter with a vast grasp of the technique of his craft and an uncanny sense of color. His strange de signs have the quality of holding attention and spurring imagination which, in its essence, is the final aim of surrealism. Wrote conservative Critic Henry McBride last week:

"Joan Miro is a sincere and gifted artist. . . . Miro's way with color is first class, in fact he is about the most thrilling colorist in the world today. ... In the new compositions facts are almost dispensed with completely. There remains however a color so lovely that the pure in heart must yearn to employ it."

Speicher. Poles apart are Joan Miro and Eugene Speicher who last week gave his first exhibition in five years at Manhattan's Rehn Galleries. With his feet firmly on the ancient tradition of graphic arts, Artist Speicher has grown firmer in his draughtsmanship, more sure of what he wants to say with each passing year. In 1929 he seemed an able, uninspired follower of the late great George Wesley Bellows, without the latter's vivid interest in living problems. In 1934, as in 1929, Eugene Speicher remains wrapped in the penciled brows of his statuesque beauties, though technically he is now his master's master.

Sloan. Also giving his first one-man show in four years was impetuous John Sloan, friend and contemporary of Bellows, Henri, Luks. At the Montross Galleries was a representative group of his work for the past 30 years, divided sharply between his atmospheric, human scenes of pre-War New York that everyone likes and a bevy of strange bright-colored nudes, hatched and crosshatched in red, green, black. With these nudes he has been stubbornly experimenting in late years. They gave conservative Critic Royal Cortissoz "a positively painful sensation," but for Critic McBride they proved that "John Sloan has kept his youth." Doyle. In the eminently respectable Newton Galleries was exhibited a series or black & white pencil drawings and colored caricatures, signed for the most part H. B. To knowing London Victorians H. B. stood for John Doyle, an artist that modern critics have learned to classify with his more famed contemporaries, George Cruikshank and John Leech. His son Richard became the famed Punch illustrator. Every week at least 200,000 people look with lacklustre eyes on "Dicky" Doyle's best-known drawing--the cover for Punch, designed in 1844. John Doyle's little grandson grew up to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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