For Joe Bloake

Museum guards live constantly with art, but they are not considered experts on the subject. And, perhaps because they look bored, their artistic views are seldom consulted. Last week the San Francisco Chronicle published a "Guard's-Eye View of the Arts" by one who was not consulted but spoke up anyway. He was 26-year-old Worth Graham Seymour, a rolling stone reporter, seaman and law student who has worked for the last month in the Palace of Fine Arts at the San Francisco Fair.

This exhibition, besides being rich in almost every department of art (TIME, March 6), surprised the authorities by drawing 169,260 visitors at 25-c- each up to April 15 (the Sally Rand Dnude Ranch drew 228,356). Sharp-eyed Guard Seymour nevertheless found plenty to criticize from the standpoint of the common man, whom he denominated Joe Bloake and furnished with a wife and four children. Main points:

> "Imagine Joe's surprise when he finds that he has to buy, not one but six different catalogues for an aggregate cost of $4.75. Oh, well, it will make the old lady happy, so what the . . .?" > "Mrs. B. reads the catalogue to find out all about the picture. What does she find? What made the artist famous, or why the picture is so valuable . . .? Of course not. There is something about references and where the picture has been shown before. . . ." > "He finds he can't get lunch in the building; and, if he leaves, he has to pay another admission. . . ." > "It would cost very little to give each patron a leaflet with a small map of the building and a brief sketch of the most important things to be seen and where to find them. . . ."

Guard Seymour happened to be wrong on one point: one of the six catalogues (Oriental) has precisely the kind of explanatory material he suggested. In his other observations, many a Joe Bloake agreed that he was right as rain. Next day, however, by his own request, Guard Seymour was transferred to duty on a Fair parking lot.

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