Kenneth Stubbs
(American artist, 1907-1967)

2 Shows in Nearby Maryland

The Art Fair, which opened last week at the Takoma Co-op in Takoma Park, Md., is a fine example of cooperation between professional businessmen and artists which is of benefit not only to them, but to the entire community as well. Arranged by the Greenbelt Consumer Services, the more than 200 paintings on exhibition will be offered for sale, with 25 percent of the proceeds to go to CARE for a community center in the Philippines. Thanks to the active cooperation of the Artists Guild, the Workshop Center and the Society of Washington Artists, the work is of good quality, with a broad range of techniques represented.

The jury of selection and award consisted of Mimi Dubois Bolton, Carl Nyquist and Leonard Maurer. Prizes in the professional class were awarded to Jacob Kainen, Fran Leight and Frances Ferry in oils; to Slavko Bjelajac, Grace Williams and Don Robertson in watercolor and in the nonprofessional class, to Margery MacIntyre and Mildred Dunegan in oil; Lee Gerlach and Janet Simonds in watercolor; Morris Pearson in block print, and Nan Mowry in drawing.

The paintings have been hung in the Supermarket, where they share honors with cabbages and canned goods; in the Superdrug, which, in the manner of modern drug stores, has everything but the cabbages; and in the Suburban Trust Co., which makes the writing of a check for a picture practically painless. The paintings are well installed on high screens so they can be easily seen, and the prices of the works have wisely been kept very low.

Among the most interesting pictures are Jacob Kainen's tensely balanced "Voyage II," Fran Leight's strongly patterned "Back Street" and "Farm," Frances Ferry's spacious and nostalgic "Nazareth Fisherman," and Kenneth Stubbs' "Positano Vista." Two new artists of interest are Evelyn Wagman, who shows two paintings, "Still Life" and "Pink House," where heavily patterned areas of color describe the subject in semiabstract terms; and Judith Weinbaum, who paints thickly layered abstractions with great boldness of color and execution,

Other outstanding works are those by Philip Cocimano, Milton Davis, Richard Dempsey, Mary Ellen Foster, Bent Lane, Norman Lewis, Betty Lowe, Leonard Maurer, and Anthony and Edith Qualia. A further feature of the show is a group of war pictures by official American and German war artists, lent by the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. The Art Fair will continue through July 11.

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

Leslie Judd Portner, Washington Post, July 5, 1953, page L3