In Paris' National Museum of Modern Art last week the competition for the newest and biggest prize in art reached the finals. Nineteen national and international juries had selected 95 works from 19 countries to vie for the $10,000 grand prize, established this year by Manhattan's multimillion-dollar Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, whose new $3,000,000, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum is now going up on Manhattan's upper Fifth Avenue.
To narrow the overwhelmingly abstract field, the three-man jury, composed of the directors of the national museums of France and Belgium and Yugoslav Painter Marko Celebonovic, studied and argued for a heated five hours. Then...