Thesis in Paris

The hit of Paris last week was an art show with a lofty label--"Masterpieces of the 20th Century"--and a thesis. Among the 114 canvases and twelve sculptures on display were major works by Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Klee, Marcel Duchamp and scores of lesser lights. The thesis: "Such cultural achievements are possible only in a climate of intellectual freedom."

Show and thesis were part & parcel of May's International Exposition of the Arts, sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom.* Said the show's director, James Johnson Sweeney, U.S. art historian: "I wanted to assemble a number of modern works, known by reputation throughout the world, but not seen in Paris for many years or never at all. Most of the pictures shown here are of the kind that are blacklisted in Russia, and that were prohibited as 'degenerate' in Nazi Germany."

Director Sweeney canvassed collections as far afield as Florida and California. A collector in Fort Lauderdale sent Joan Miro's Dancer Listening to Organ Music in Gothic Cathedral; a San Franciscan contributed a sculpture by Britain's Henry Moore. From Switzerland, Norway and The Netherlands came such prizes as Henri Rousseau's The Hungry Lion, Edvard Munch's The Cry, and Marc Chagall's Homage to Apollinaire.

Paris art lovers trooped in to see the show at the rate of 1,000 a day. Consensus: a thumping success. Even the left-wing Franc-Tireur was full of praise: "The show is a festival of rare quality, a festival both for the eye and the heart." The only Frenchmen who took no pleasure in the whole thing were the Communists. Asked why he didn't go and have a look at the exhibit (which contains eight of his paintings), old Party-Liner Pablo Picasso said: "I have no time."

* Among the honorary chairmen: Philosophers Benedetto Croce, Jacques Maritain, Bertrand Russell and John Dewey.

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