Art: Abstract Baptism

Manhattan's Fine Arts building on 57th Street has been hallowed for years by the conservative exhibits of the National Academy of Design. Last week it was baptized in extremism by the first pontifical show ever held of U. S. abstract art. The showrooms were filled with 150 constructions, ranging from an arrangement of amoeba shapes, wires and an electric headlight, to round and oval salad bowls stuck on a chaste grey background. They were the work of some 50 members of the American Abstract Artists, a two-year-old and growing group which takes itself very seriously as the nucleus of a new...

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