Department Store Show

Even more frustrating than the lamp corner in many department stores is the room where second-rate reproductions of third-rate paintings are customarily sold under the name of Art. In the last few years, however, stores have taken steps to make their art departments at least as interesting as their advertising, and last week in Manhattan the John Wanamaker store cut loose with nothing less than the second annual exhibition of the American Artists' Congress. Wanamaker patrons in search of home furnishings were thus led to see some 235 examples of the livest professional work being done in the U. S.

If this was a pleasant change for Wanamaker's, it was no less pleasant for the Congress artists, who would like nothing better than to become home furnishers in their line. Unlike the anti-War & Fascism exhibition which the Congress held along with its Carnegie Hall session last December, last week's show emphasized quality. Sculptor William Zorach's Football Player, a lineman relaxed on his haunches, impressed critics as one of the few successful handlings to date of that oddly difficult subject. Artist Marc Perper's Poverty was an unusually solid work of imagination. On the doctrinal side, Stuart Davis contributed a hopeful catalogue note on Democracy and Art.

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