Page:The New Yorker 0002, 1925-02-28.pdf/21

THE exhibit of Eugene Speicher's paintings at There is a dramatic critic who goes dancing in the the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries is one to be streets, throws his hat in the air and shouts from the seen by all those interested in American artists. house tops when a play comes along that he believes Since the death of Bellows, Speicher is undoubtedly worthy of your attention. We are dickering with him the leader of that school of painting in this country. now to do a few turns for us in behalf of Toulouse- Not so bold as Bellows and yet not so imaginative. Lautrec. No such collection of his stuff has been Nevertheless a vigorous painter, walking on his own gathered here before and it is doubtful if a like ex- feet and sure of the direction he is taking. If when hibit will come soon again. Students should go (with- seeing this present exhibit you are seeing Speicher for out their teachers) and see what this man could paint the first time we feel you will come away with noth- by merely leaving out. ing but admiration, for through this show runs a cer- But if you don't like Zola, and you don't like Ed- tain cohesion. That is a quality we found missing in gar Lee Masters, or you don't like reality, disregard his fuller exhibit at Pittsburgh last Autumn. After the above and stay away. Finding life bitter and viewing the man's whole gamut we felt that here finding life baudy, Lautrec painted it that way. This was a painter more clever than sincere. pathetic cripple, deserting his house and caste to live He did two disparate things so very well. There with the great city's off-scourings, must have found were some canvases that would delight the staidest great compensation in reporting life as ugly as he of the old guard and alongside other works bursting found it, for there is great joy in his work. A psy- with the leaven of the new. And as we did not know chiatrist with an unerring brush.-Froid which were the old and which the new, we could not tell which way Speicher was headed. The Rehn ex- hibition leaves no doubt; this evidently is Eugene Echo Speicher at his best. And his best, it may be added, will give no comfort to the old-timers. (An Experiment in Short Story Technique) Personally, we prefer Speicher's landscapes and are '. ND that is the end of my story." reserving wall space for just any one of them. South Slav and Man's Head were the most satisfying of the "And a right good story it is," said the listener others. We don't like the leaden quality of the back- slowly, grounds in the flower groups; they smack of palette "People seem to agree that it's unusual," assented scrapings. And as for the nude, we are too much the teller modestly. renegade Puritan to have pa- "More than unusual- tience with the lace scarf, unique, one might almost dragged in by the neck as it say," the listener expostulated. were, and elaborarely draped "Take that strange coinci- to such an annoyingly suffic- dence of the voice in the for- ient length. We like lace and est, for instance." we like nudes, but we see no "Ah, you may well call it good purpose served in mixing strange." them, the old lady from Du- "And you say he died on buque to the contrary. the very same night?” "The very same. People think it was her name- No exhibit this winter has "If she had only lived to be given us the kick derived there, what a difference!” from the viewing of the Tou- “I still think there was louse-Lautrec exhibition something back of it all." brought over by Paul Rosen- "Well, anyway, the money berg and now showing at the and jewels were saved." Wildenstein Galleries. Re- "All but that one ring. productions we have seen There's another mystery that from time to time in books may never be solved." and yet were in no sense pre- "Perhaps it's better so." pared to walk into this gallery "Oh, there was plenty of hung with fourteen of his scandal while it lasted." paintings. In tempera, most "A strange story." of them are painted on card- "You said it." board wrappings, yet with a "Unique would be the Startling brilliance. Eugene Speicher word."-S, S. COVA RRUBIAS Digitized by Google