Art: Muralist on Show

Unlike strip-teasers, painters usually do their work in private. But when Pennsylvania State College, last autumn, offered Painter Henry Varnum Poor $4,500 to paint a huge mural on a wall in its Old Main Building, it stipulated that Poor’s working hours should be open to the public.

While Muralist Poor and his daughter clambered up scaffolds and laid on paint with a will, students, townspeople and teachers crowded the spacious hall to watch and comment (see cut). By last week, with Painter Poor halfway through his revelation (a huge, 15-ft. figure of Abraham Lincoln surrounded by scenes and symbols of agriculture and industry), some 15,000 visitors had come to have a look, and State collegians were beginning to think that watching a muralist was more fun than watching a mural.

Meantime the Palace of Fine Arts at the San Francisco Fair announced a similar show. Its main attraction: buxom, brunet Mexican Bombshell Diego Rivera.