Arts: Pennell Rampant

Joseph Pennell, etcher extraordinary, confidant and biographer of Whistler,American by birth, cosmopolite by choice, arch-enemy of democracy and materialism, damned the “standardized product” of the London Royal College of Arts, in a letter to The New York Times. The reason why we have no national art school in America is “because the Government of this country takes no interest in art. We have no minister, no department of art. … In fact, we have no art of our own to speak of, and don’t really know how properly to steal that of other countries. How long will we remain the only civilized country which has no interest in anything but sport, the movies, the comics and the radio? Billboards are our only art and we want nothing else. There is more to be made of foreign art and old art, and we are only after the cash.”