Hollywood Art

Least arty of all arts is the Hollywood cinema. But many a famed movie star, toiling under the burden of Hollywood's glamor and high salaries, has cursed a secret craving for the higher things. How great this craving has grown was made evident last fortnight when Los Angeles Art Dealer Robert Gump put on an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, photographs and ceramics by celebrities of Southern California's social and cinema world--"important contributions to the Fine Arts by 30 outstanding personalities whose significance in their avocations is little known." Most presentable piece was a craftsmanlike etching, San Pedro, by Cinemactor Lionel Barrymore. Other items:

>Scorpio, purple-shaded portrait of Cinemactress Hedy Lamarr (Ecstasy, Algiers), complete with a horsewhip, a rose and tinted toenails, by Comedian Reginald Gardiner, painted in the days when Artist Gardiner was her most devoted escort.

>A drawing of Cinemactress Maria Ouspenskaya by Ginger Rogers.

>The stream-of-consciousness street scene by Gracie Allen entitled Dogs-Gather-on -Street -Corner -to-Watch -Man -Fight, shown two years ago at Manhattan's Julien Levy Gallery (TIME, Oct. 3, 1938).

>Sculpture by Anna Sten (Nana) and Vincent Price (Victoria Regina).

Opening-day visitors found all this art pretty impressive. Critics were less polite. Growled the Los Angeles Times's Arthur Millier: "Famous actors and actresses can be very bad artists."

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