(See front cover)
Artists, art critics and ordinary people were going over the hills to Pittsburgh this week to the 29th Carnegie Institute International Exhibition of Modern Painting. There was plenty to see. The Pittsburgh show has become the most important annual exhibition of modern art in the U. S. Stretching on through gallery after gallery are 439 paintings representing the work of most of the well known modern painters in the world today. Over 1,000 U. S. paintings were submitted, 152 were hung. In all, 137 European and 99 U. S. artists were represented. The two heroes of the Pittsburgh show were French. Neither was present at the Founders Day opening: Henri Matisse and Pablo Ruiz Picasso.
In 1927 the Carnegie International jury awarded first prize ($1,500) to Henri Matisse. This year it was Matisse's turn to award the prize. He gave it to Pablo Ruiz Picasso's calm masterly portrait of Mme Picasso. The other judges: Glyn Philpot of Britain; Karl Sterrer, Austria; Bernard Karfiol, Horatio Walker, Ross Moffett, U. S., made no objection. Most critics' lists of the ten greatest living painters contain both Picasso and Ma-tisse.*
Until last March grizzle-chinned, wrin-kle-browed Henri Matisse had never felt it necessary to visit the U. S. Even then he did not stay long but rushed abruptly across the country on his way to Tahiti. He returned three weeks ago to perform his duties in Pittsburgh and have fun in a Manhattan round of dinners, receptions, studio teas. Reporters, hostesses found him silent behind his whiskers, only occasionally willing to act the oracle. "I do not like Tahiti," said he. "I am not a Gauguin,* I could never paint there. New York—that is different, I should like to paint in New York. American artists should not be ashamed of their country, it is magnificent. Why do so many American painters continually go abroad when they have at home scenes of such varied beauty?"
Of course he liked U. S. skyscrapers? news gatherers asked. Henri Matisse did. "But I do not want to see them in Paris," he added abruptly, "Absolutely! Here they have developed from necessity. There is no necessity for them in Paris. Paris would have to be built all over again to make such tall buildings suitable."