A MASTERPIECE need not lie behind locked doors to be effectively hidden from the public at large. The Laughing Child, one of Frans Hals's most engaging pictures, hangs on public view the year round in Cincinnati's Taft Museum. The museum in itself is a small masterpiece of selection and display, should be a mecca for the entire Midwest yet only about 100 people visit it on an average day. (Out-of-towners automatically head for the more famed Cincinnati Art Museum instead.)
Newspaper Publisher Charles Phelps Taft (half brother of the President) and his wife built their collection to fit the museum when it...
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