Ugh! Ugh! How!

Workmen hung an enormous banner in Manhattan's Grand Central Station last week. Thousands of commuters who did not know a Pomo from a Pima, a Hopi from a Zuni, a Choctaw from a Cherokee, now knew that the long heralded exposition of Indian Tribal Arts had opened. The exposition's purpose is not only to show that the untutored mind of Lo! the poor Indian has produced a primitive art of the greatest importance for U. S. painters and designers, but also that among U. S. Indians there still are painters, potters, weavers and silversmiths doing important work in the old tradition.*

The exposition at the Grand Central Art Galleries did not lack for potent sponsorship. Honorary chairman was none other than Vice President Charles Curtis, whose grandmother was a Kaw and who shows his interest in Indian art by decorating his imposing office with beaded moccasins and a tribal wickiup. One vice president of the exposition is 78-year-old Major-General Hugh Lenox Scott, who in his youth did his bit toward helping the Vanishing American vanish. Other patrons include: Ambassador Dawes, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr., Mrs. Dwight Whitney Morrow, Editor Frank Crowninshield (Vanity Fair). Mrs. Herbert Hoover lent the show two Indian paintings from her own collection. Artist John Sloan and Ethnologist Oliver ("Laughing Boy") La Farge helped prepare an elaborate ''Intro duction to American Indian Art" to sell to the customers.

On the opening day reporters, greeting each other with soft cries of "Ugh! Ugh!" and "How!", tiptoed among celebrities to look at painted jars, baskets, totem poles, Navajo rugs, blankets, silver bracelets, earrings, belt buckles, turquoise necklaces, beaded quivers. Art critics were most interested in two small galleries where hung water color sketches showing ceremonial dances and hunting scenes by living Indian painters. All were in the native tradition, with brilliant color, splendid sense of design, for the most part excellently drawn. Among the best painters: Fred Kabotie, a smiling Hopi, and straight-nosed Ma Pe Wi, from the Rio Grande.

The exposition will remain in New York for a month before starting a two-year tour of the land under the auspices of the College Art Association. There will be big doings at the exposition the week of Dec. 14. A band of Indians from the Southwest will perform ceremonial dances, demonstrate sand painting.

* For news of some Indian craftsmen who, to their sorrow, left their crafts to go nutting, see p. 14.

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