Great Art

Straphanging in a Manhattan subway train, Horace H. F. Jayne was jostled by an idea. Why should so much of the world's great painting be hidden away in the public vastnesses of the Metropolitan Museum? Why should not the old masters appear on subway car cards beside the catsup and the lingerie ads, and be viewed by the 5,638,000 people who ride New York City's subways every month?

With the speed of enlightenment, Mr. Jayne emerged from the subway, tore into the Metropolitan Museum of which he is vice director (he is also an archeologist and a promotion man), and laid the idea before Director Francis H. Taylor. Director Taylor took fire. He called up the New York Subways Advertising Co. They were even more excited. The Great Art series, they said, would complete the company's subway editorial policy. They offered to donate the car-card space, pay half the cost of the plates.

Soon subway riders found themselves staring at Sir Thomas Lawrence's The Calmady Children, in color on a car card loudly labeled GREAT ART, unaccompanied by any text other than names of artist, picture and Museum director, and the fact that a print of the painting could be had by mail from the Metropolitan for 15-c- (or 10-c- at the Museum).

Every two months subway riders saw other prints (13 in all). Soon the line of purchasers at the Museum turned from a timid trickle into a demand. By last week the Metropolitan had sold 60,000 ("Wonderful and amazing," says Ideaman Jayne) of its gay reproductions ("Bright color sells," he adds), including prints by Winslow Homer (Natural Bridge), Claude Monet (Sunflowers), Edgar Degas (Woman with Chrysanthemums). All prints are without lettering, suitable for framing. Best-seller was the Lawrence lush, sentimental Calmady Children (now out of print). Only modern represented is U.S.

Painter Jack Levine, whose String Quartette is also a popular favorite.

Many of the Metropolitan's print purchasers know what great art is, but they don't know what they like. The Museum has a story about one little girl who was buying a print for her mother, could not find one that suited. "Would your mother like the yellow sunflowers?" asked the attendant. "No." "Would she like the blue sea? The pretty children?" "No." "Well, what does your mother like?" the attendant demanded. "Men," said the little girl.

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