Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1916 (Heft 48))

On the other hand the danger to Miss Beckett’s work lies in a too great facility which she
uses in a purely instinctive way and which will never reach the highest possible result until she
succeeds in intellectualizing it. Her appreciation of comparative values is so quick that some
of her compositions affect us as conclusions too easily reached and show an occasional triviality
that is out of keeping with their firm workmanship. Her feeling for form is as pure as that of
Degas but a consideration of this great artist’s work will clearly illustrate what Miss Beckett
lacks, for in his work the instinctive aesthetic emotion is subjected to the dictates of his mind
and the result is a fine discrimination, and restraint, a certain inevitability of selection which
more than any other single quality makes him one of the supreme masters of all times.
Agnes Ernst Meyer.

THE EVOLUTION OF MARIN

From February twenty-third to March twenty-sixth, both rooms of
“291 ” were occupied by watercolors, oils, etchings, drawings, recent and old,
by John Marin. The work exhibited included the complete evolution of
Marin.

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THIRD EXHIBITION OF CHILDREN S DRAWINGS
From March twenty-seventh to April seventeenth the walls of “291”
were covered with children’s drawings. We herewith reprint the text of the
leaflet which accompanied the exhibition:
Two shows of children’s drawings have already been held at “291.” Both of these dis-
closed, in a most illuminating manner, the invaluable quality of individual observation, and the
equally valuable impulse towards individual expression, that is present in the un-selfconscious
child.
Both these shows were entirely composed of unguided work of untaught boys and girls,
whose ages varied between three and eleven years.
The present exhibition consists of a collection of drawings done by boys between eight
and fourteen years old. In producing these drawings the boys work under the influence of a
system.
Their teachers, Dr. Joseph Cohen and Miss Eda L. Puckhaber say:
These drawings were made, after school hours, and when their time was their own, by
children of one of the city’s public elementary schools. The drawings are not spontaneous
productions. They have been influenced by the suggestions of teacher and fellow pupils.
But of that active direction which is commonly advocated in children’s textbooks, in teachers’
manuals, and in school curricula, syllabuses and courses of study, there has been none. The
goal to which prevailing art instruction aspires is the attainment of a collective mediocrity. A
uniformity of result and perfection of finish has been its chief aim. To this end, the instability
of changing standards and the restlessness of new conceptions have not been allowed to disturb
the serene complacency of the schoolroom. Everything there has been prescribed and set in
order. The mechanism of instruction has been so perfected that it operates, no matter who
the teacher is, or who the learner. It has been rendered fool-proof on the one hand, and genius-
proof on the other. And, to us, the purpose of this process appears at once ambitious and not
altogether worthy. Our decisions affect the children—why may not their decisions move us ?
These drawings—the work of everyday boys, distinguished for no extraordinary gifts or native
endowment—are the outcome of a frank departure from the scholastic norm, undertaken in the
hope that the results might disclose something of what the children themselves might wish to
say to us.
PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS BY OSCAR BLUEMNER
The 1915-1916 season of “291” began with an exhibition of paintings
and drawings, based upon New Jersey landscapes, by Oscar Bluemner, of
New York. The exhibition opened November tenth and closed on December
seventh. This was Mr. Bluemner’s first exhibition in America.

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