International studio (60.1916/1917)

A Group of American Etchers


HARBOR COVE, GLOUCESTER

BY ARTHUR COVEY

A GROUP OF AMERICAN
ETCHERS
BY TROY KINNEY
Exhiibtions, and public demand
for them, are an expression of interest on the
part of both artists and laity. This season finds
four important exhibitions of etching added to
the familiar schedule of former years. The art is
progressing toward the recapture of its proper
position.
Contrary to custom that has prevailed hereto-
fore, these new exhibitions are open to American
work only. Perhaps the impulse for this inhos-
pitable departure originates in the nation’s cur-
rent self-query as to its ability to supply its own
needs. The cause doesn’t matter. The interest-
ing thing is that, attention once called to the
Americans collectively, and their work seen de-
tached from complicating interests, it becomes
evident that there is among them a highly re-
spectable national group. A group, in fact, which

need not dodge comparison with any national
etcher group in the world to-day.
All but one of the new exhibitions are yet to
come. But their general quality is sufficiently
guaranteed by assurances, and prints already in
the hands of exhibition committees, to make pos-
sible their discussion without the use of clairvoy-
ance. The one that is past, that given by the
Brooklyn Society of Etchers at the Brooklyn
Museum, probably has the distinction of being the
first ambitious showing of American work exclu-
sively. One hundred and ninety-seven prints
were hung, representing sixty-five artists. Medi-
ocrity was as nearly as possible absent, the number
of genuinely distinguished prints the occasion of
comment. The winner of Helen Foster Barnett
prize was a dry point by Alary Cassatt, carrying
to a happy extreme the point of view in which it
was conceived. Almost in a single look one col-
lected impressions of such antitheses as Haskell
and the Congdons, Benson and Higgins, Roy
Partridge and Andre Smith. Here were architec-

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