Kenneth Stubbs
(American artist, 1907-1967)

Two Exhibitions: About Prints and Water Colors

[... paragraphs on another show omitted ...]

The Washington Water Color club's Fifty-Fourth Annual, in the National Collection of Fine Arts at the Smithsonian, is the best of these exhibits that we have seen. It benefits by good hanging and a more restrictive selection policy which has resulted in fewer entries than usual and more breathing space for each one shown. The choices were made by the club's executive committee, the awards by a single juror--the painter, Herman Maril, who is on the faculty of the University of Maryland.

The outstanding virtue of the award winners is good design. This is as true of the linoleum cut in the print section by Ralph Della-Volpe (a work which looks simple at first glance, but in fact has a great deal to it) as it is of the paintings by Bose, Boyle, Brown and Maxwell, all of which were among those singled out for special prizes or mention.

The club's shows always attract entries from such veterans of the field as Eliot O'Hara, Henry Gasser and Frederic Whitaker. While a good majority of the paintings are by local artists, there are a number from out-of-town. Members wish to stress the fact that these annuals are open to all artists throughout the country. Queried about the delicate matter of club members getting the ax, one of their number assured me that they did indeed, membership being no sure passport to a place on the wall. However, despite the inclusion of nationally known water colorists, the exhibit falls short of the mark set by the country's major displays in this field.

Among the prize winners, we were particularly attracted to the work of Douglas Brown and John R. Maxwell, the latter one of the few deriving mainly from gouache. Our personal choice is "April From Sugar Loaf Mountain" by Fritzi Morrison, a delicate impression which reveals the character of the medium in its purest aspects. Other works to which we should like to give special mention are Clara Saunders' "Mademoiselle from Abbeville," a sensitive portrait study, Kenneth Stubbs' "Olive Trees," Peter Blanc's "Nude," Belisario Contreras' "Ruins," Tom Lias' "Spatial Equilibrium," Edward Rosenfeld's "The Falls," and Frances McQuillin's "Spring Plucking."

[... paragraphs on other shows omitted ...]

Jane Watson Crane, Washington Post, December 17, 1950, page L3