International studio (31.1907)

National Academy Exhibition


IN THE PINES
than he did the old masters on that now famous
first trip to Europe with that trenchant interview
in its wake.
Take a look at C. Y. Turner’s portrait of Walter
Shirlaw in the centre gallery. Whether you know
the subject or not it will interest you as a picture
and as a vital work in portraiture. And speaking
of Shirlaw, one is moved to wonder that the com-
mittee should have solicited from this artist a
picture which does him so little justice as the large
Sheep-Shearing in the Bavarian Highlands, which
hangs hugely and heavily in a conspicuous place in
the Vanderbilt gallery. It is one of those many-
figure posed effects from humble life which used to
be presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or
even were bought by it—if the painter was a foreign-

BY BEN. FOSTER
er. Shirlaw outgrew that picture years ago. Near
it hangs a fine still life by William M. Chase, Fish.
This notice cannot aim to give more than a bird’s-
eye view of so large an exhibition. These shows of
the National Academy of Design have very few
solicited pictures, the policy being, very properly,
to make them representative of the current art of
the city and vicinity. That the exhibition cannot
be national in scope is due to the limited gallery
space. Even as it is, however, with its scope re-
stricted by considerations of space, the Academy
shows accomplish more for the artists of the
country than do those exhibitions de luxe which
consist so largely of “invited” pictures that the
submitted ones have little or no chance of being
hung.

L