Circulation

In Los Angeles' Art Center School last week, paintings by 31 U.S. contemporaries were aligned like bottles in a hypochondriac's medicine chest. Alongside them hung slick-paper reproductions showing how each picture had been used as a magazine ad "health message" by the Upjohn Co. The artists had not had health particularly in mind; Upjohn had bought the pictures plus commercial rights, invented their own labels.

Artist Dean Fausett had painted a creditable landscape of hills, trees and varicolored underbrush. The health message, tacked on by Upjohn: BREEDING PLACES FOR SNEEZES--WHEEZES. Earl Kerkam had painted a lugubrious gentleman, tired and mistrustful. Upjohn had labeled it, HAVE YOU LEARNED TO LIVE WTH A STOMACH ULCER? A painting by Alexander James was captioned SKIN TROUBLE IN MEN AND WOMEN. Fletcher Martin's painting of a lovely, pearly-skinned girl was titled ANEMIA?

Few modern artists could expect their work to be seen by so many; few, happily, were likely to see such odd interpretations of their work. Millions of Americans had already seen the reproductions in U.S. magazines; Upjohn hoped to keep the show traveling until some 10,000,000 people had seen the originals.

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