The University of Arizona Gallery of Modern American Paintings

ALL OF Arizona's riches are not mineral or agricultural; some of its greatest wealth was acquired recently by the University of Arizona. It happened because a friend and former student decided that although a stamp collection had given him pleasure, an art collection would have meaning for everybody. This new wealth which the university shares with the state is a collection of modern American paintings. It establishes a precedent now known to the country as the Arizona Plan. It is the donor's wish that the collection speak for him, so he remains anonymous at his request. The paintings, 100 in all, are to be housed for the present in the university library. The reference to the collection as the Arizona Plan grew from the hope, emphasized by museum and leading art magazines, that the Arizona collection would serve as a pattern for establishing collections in other universities; and, that in time other civic-minded donors would give paintings to other universities. It is expressed in the donor's words: "I wish that all men with the love of art in their souls would take these words to heart. Help build collections in every corner of our land. Yes, for the benefit of others, and thus build our native cultural renaissance."

One hundred paintings by living American artists make the collection the largest of its kind owned by any university in the United States. Since the paintings are by artists living today, and still painting, they show current trends in feeling and observation: we get "the beauty of it hot." The donor's con-

"MONDAY NIGHT AT THE METROPOLITAN," by Reginald Marsh. Verges on social comment as well as portraying the American scene.

ception of modern art is that it serves to revive an interest in the primitive painters, claiming that they do not know how to paint, forgetting that the primitive genuinely feels the need to paint sometimes more than the conservative. Patsy Santo, Lawrence Lebduska and Samuel Koch are the best representatives in the collection of this important branch of painting.

Modern painting has made for higher blood pressure for 50 years. That is a long time, and to admit that one simply does not understand modern art may soon mean that one does not understand art at all. Modern art claims that if we have any need of an artist, we want someone who adds to what the eye sees. Otherwise we are confusing art with perfect eyesight. The artist selects, and any selection that is made will of necessity neglect some aspects of a subject and emphasize others. This fundamental process of creation can be thought of as distortion because of the necessity of making a certain truth stand out clearly. The essence of a form in nature, stripped of its ordinary visual appeal, is strange to us at first, but the modernist serves to enlarge our ideas of art and beauty. The paintings of Stuart Davis, Herbert Barnett, Stuart Edie, Rice Pereira, and Anton Refrigier are examples of this kind of thinking, in paint.

Art feels the impact of the world state, and often takes advantage of its ability to give the heightened reality of that world condition. Such reality may take one or another form. Art can make a documentary report or it can indulge in social comment. Documentary painting has existed since the beginning of the art, but the conditions favorable to the strong growth of this phase of art are not always present. The horrors of war provoked the superb art of Goya; the depression years in America gave impetus to our artists, and at this time they discovered that America had all the elements of painting that existed in France. Haystacks were the same color; American small towns were as fascinating as French towns and as American as the French ones were French. They found that we were wealthy in painting material. Painters gave up looking over the shoulder of the great School of Paris; they set up their easels on the street corners of their own home towns. This is the American scene.

The University of Arizona collection is well represented in these latter phases of art. Names of great exponents of the type subject are George Grosz, Charles Burchfield, Joe Jones, Edward Hopper, Philip Evergood, Benjamin Kopman, Jack Levine, John S. Curry, George Picken, Bruce Mitchell, Reginald Marsh, Aaron Bohrod, Arnold Blanch, William Gropper, and others.

Portrait painting and figure painting have a separate problem; to portray means to reveal, so the painter must stay closer to the visual aspect of his subject. There is the limitation of a likeness; let the likeness go and you may have a painting but not a portrait. Good portrait paintings are done with close attention to the form requirements of composition and the essential characteristics of the sitter, which is not easy to do. The collection is fortunate in its excellent portraits: Andreas Andersen's "Susan," Don Freeman's "Carl Sandburg," Raphael Soyer's "Self Portrait," and John Sloan's "Self Portrait." If the artist paints a self portrait he has fewer complaints from the sitter, hence it is a popular subject.

"THE PEOPLE," by David Fredenthal. Free discussion is an American privilege, and the artist describes it simply, and with dignity.

Painters firmly established, in both museum and private collections, whose work in the Arizona collection falls into some group of the above classification are Isabel Bishop, Briggs Dyer, Lucille Blanch, Federico Castellon, Nic-olai Cikovsky, Karl Fortess, David Fredenthal, Harry Gottlieb, Mervin Jules, Doris Lee, Waldo Pierce, Doris Rosenthal, Zoltan Sepeshy and others.

Significant appreciation of the Arizona collection and its importance was shown recently by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City which gave it the honor of being the second great exhibition of contemporary American painting to be held in the museum. As a Godfather, the collection could have a no more highly respected well-wisher than the Metropolitan with its rich treasures of art of every period.

The reaction of civic-minded donors was immediate. While the collection was on exhibition in New York, another generous friend of the university gave a painting. This one hundred-and-first painting in the university collections is "Pines and Fog," by Morris Kan tor. It was given by Mrs. Andrew Pizzini of New York, a former Tucsonan. Mrs. Pizzini's particular generosity in turning over to the Arizona collection a favorite painting will be appreciated by the state as well as by the university. Morris Kantor is one of the outstanding painters of America, his work sought by collectors. The Metropolittan, the Whitney, the Museum of Modern Art, the Lewisohn Collection of New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of Art, Phillips Memorial Gallery of Washington, D. C., and many private collections include Kantor's paintings.

The university is confident that others will add the works of local artists to the collection of paintings. Upon local artists the effect of the collection is bound to be stimulating. Having no funds from which to make future purchases, the development of the collection will depend upon the generosity of the many friends of the university.

The proximity of the collection to the university's art department means that the paintings and teaching may be closely correlated. The collection will be put to immediate use in the course on the history of modern painting. This will be the opportunity that every instructor longs for to have actual paintings at hand to prove his points. Slides seem remote from the students' ideas of art; and unless the slides are in color, most of their value is limited. Art history classes attract students from other departments of the university, so the collection will have a wide effect. Like the spreading rings of an object dropped into water, these students will carry out and renew over and over again the value of the paintings.

The collection will serve as a cultural force to widen the art horizons of citizens of the state as well. Paintings are valuable additions to anyone's life; and whether they hang in private collections or in public halls, they intensify by enlarging ideas of beauty.

It is vital to art that the public share with the artist his world vision. It is not within our power to change ourselves at will into the different people that we feel are inside of each of us. Neither is it in our power to change quickly the world in which we live; but both of these desires are reasons for the artist's existence. An artist may work with tone, color or words; he is making a different world for himself, but it is a real world too.

The effect of the collection of modern American painting upon Arizona, which is the real interest, is that, having the reputation for encouragement to the arts, we in turn benefit both in new paintings given by friends, and in having established Arizona as the place for an artist to live and flourish.

The critical acclaim created by the University of Arizona collection better than anything else indicates its worth. Juliana Force, Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, in the foreword to the catalogue issued when the collection was hung in New York this spring, said: "Collections such as this can be of the greatest service in the field of education, and the students of the University of Arizona are fortunate in having an opportunity not only to learn about pictures but to know them by actual experience."

Great approval also was expressed in a letter from Francis Henry Taylor, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Alfred A. Atkinson, President of the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.

Mr. Taylor wrote in October 1942: "It has come to my attention that a collection of American paintings, by living artists, is being formed in your institution. "I am greatly interested in the quality and intelligence with which these pictures have been selected and I congratulate you particularly on the acquisition of these paintings for your University. I look forward to the time when galleries of this kind will be the common practice of the colleges and universities of this country, not only for the encouragement which this will give to native American paintings, but for the general cultural value which such a movement will exercise over the students of this country."