Uncle Sam to Uncle Sam

Two and a half years ago when the late Capitalist Andrew William Mellon made his last grandiose gesture and presented the nation not only with a fabulous collection of art works but money and plans for a National Gallery worthy of housing them in Washington, he expressed the hope that it would "attract other gifts from other citizens who may in the future desire to contribute works of art of the highest quality to form a great national collection." First notable collector to live up to Andy Mellon's expectations is 5-10-25-c- Storeman Samuel Henry Kress, who last week came forward with a donation of 375 paintings and 18 pieces of sculpture valued at about $30,000,000--more than half as costly as that made by the unfinished Gallery's founder.

In accepting what is reputed to be the world's greatest private Italian collection, in the name of the U. S. people, President Roosevelt thanked Storeman Kress for setting an example that is "a decided step in the realization of the true purpose of the National Gallery." No new thing to self-effacing Philanthropist Kress is example setting. For some years now he has been giving and lending noteworthy pieces from his collection to small but deserving museums throughout the nation. San Antonio, Charlotte, N. C., Montgomery, Wichita, Seattle, Memphis, Phoenix, Savannah and Macon have received permanent additions to their collections. New York, San Francisco, Milan and Brescia, Italy are currently exhibiting temporary loans of Kress art.

So unobtrusive has Mr. Kress been in the assembling, lending and giving of his masterpieces that the announcement of the gift to Washington came as a popular surprise. Only persons long associated with him in this undertaking have been Stephen Pichetto, the Metropolitan's restorer and technical adviser of painting, Florence Art Dealer Count A. Contini-Bonacossa, and for a period, the late Lord Duveen. A merchant who cultivated his mind while he was accumulating his chain of 240 stores, Mr. Kress did not need much help. It was about 25 years ago that he first started making large-scale purchases. Every summer he took time off to visit European spas and ferret the art centres. Always he came back with some important token, which he personally hung on the already crowded walls of his rambling duplex penthouse on upper Fifth Avenue. Unmarried, he called his pictures his "children."

As head of a huge clan, he often has his home overflowing with relatives, is called "Uncle Sam" by the kids. No tottering oldster, Uncle Sam Kress at 76 is an erect, handsomely preserved, almost white-headed figure who daily keeps himself in condition at his private gymnasium, credits his clear eye and physical fitness to lifelong moderate habits.

When the Kress collection at last comes to its resting place, the National Gallery will be richer by works from the brushes of almost every important master in the Italian school: Giotto, Fra Angelico, Perugino, Filippo Lippi, Pietro di Cosimo, Ghirlandajo, Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini,

Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, et al. If pressed to name his favorite Uncle Sam will smile; he doted on all of them, but might admit that Duccio di Buoninsegna's The Calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew (purchased for $250,000 through Lord Duveen four years ago from the Clarence Mackay collection) was perhaps his best-loved "child."

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