Congress

In Manhattan's Carnegie Hall one night last week an angular young woman in black with an enormous white shawl collar gripped a microphone, spoke with warm, smiling emphasis to an assemblage of some 400 U. S. artists and six times as many followers of the arts. Of all speakers of the evening, Erika Mann had the simplest and to many listeners the most significant words to justify the second American Artists' Congress. They were a message from her father, Thomas Mann: "One frequently hears it said that the artist should stick to his own craft, and that he merely cheapens himself when he descends into the political arena to participate in the struggles of the day. I consider this a weak objection, because of my conviction, or rather my clear realization, of the fact that the different spheres of humanity--whether artistic, cultural or political--are really inseparable. And that is why it makes me very happy to see that the art world of a country as large and as important to civilization as the United States ... is taking its stand against those barbaric tendencies which today endanger all that we understand by civilization and culture and all that we love."

Fully as much as any worker or professional man, the average U. S. artist is now interested in politics and deadly serious about it. As a free man he hates the tyrant and despises his addiction to war. As a worker whom his fellowmen have rarely over-burdened with material rewards, he appreciates his $23.86 from WPA, can live pretty well on it and wants to keep it. On the very practical subject of subsistence, the Artists' Congress, to which such noted professionals as William Zorach, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Rockwell Kent, Stuart Davis, Max Weber, George Biddle, were delegates, was eloquent indeed. This practicality distinguished the Artists' Congress from the American Writers' Congress of last summer (TIME, June 21).

Lean, ascetic Painter Biddle, in a suit so wrinkled it looked shrunk, warned the audience that the intelligent supervision of the WPA art project which he helped to found would be as precarious as the project itself while it remained an emergency measure. Discussion followed on what has become a great desideratum of politically conscious artists who want better standing than work relief affords--the Federal Arts Bill, a proposal for an arrangement more permanent and dignified than WPA, introduced in Congress last session by Representative John Coffee of Washington. Thickset, heavy-voiced Painter Philip Evergood, president of the Artists' Union which, with the Cartoonists' Guild, the Commercial Artists and Designers Union, had unanimously voted to join the C.I.O., was all for it. Said he:

"The collector has had his eyes opened to a wealth of new talent. The museums also have responded . . . many purchases have been made of the work of young and hitherto unknown artists. The commercial gallery has benefited greatly by this newly developed public interest in art, and last but not least ordinary people are beginning to adorn their homes with original works of art instead of the old atrocities. . . . But the WPA artist who has served the public faithfully on this great Government art program has done so under the constant threat of dismissal. . . . The nation is desperately in need of legislation which will assure the permanency of this culture--legislation which will make American culture a permanent impulse in the nerve centre of its government. . . ."

Big event of the evening was to have been a message from Pablo Picasso by transatlantic telephone, amplified for the Carnegie Hall audience. But Picasso was ill in Switzerland, sent instead a cable proudly assuring them, "as director of the Prado Museum,* that the Democratic Government of the Spanish Republic has taken all the necessary measures to protect the artistic treasures of Spain during this cruel and unjust war."

If stirring anti-War sentiments were lacking in the Congress' open meeting, the exhibition of paintings by 138 Congress artists held concurrently on Fifth Avenue more than made up for it. Dedicated "to the peoples of Spain and China," this show was devoted almost exclusively to excoriations in paint of the contemporary conquerors and their technique. Most were better as expressions of hot feeling than as paintings. A few, by Max Weber, Nathanial Dirk, Arnold Blanch, Victor Candell, William Cropper, Mervin Jules, were excellent as both. None equaled a set of etchings by Picasso called Dreams and Lies of Franco, caricaturing El Caudillo as an inhuman, hairy nightmare. Favorite painting of a group of Amalgamated Clothing Workers who showed up at the opening was Two Generations, by Alexander Z. Kruse: the Kaiser as a kangaroo carrying a baby kangaroo earmarked with swastikas.

*Appointed last year.

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