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"We don't want money. All we want is the wages of workmen. . . . We want enough money to go on painting without worry about our food and our housing. . . . The last time we had an exhibition in Chicago several school teachers coming to the Art Institute wanted our pictures and offered to pay for them on the installment plan. My brother and I cut the prices for them because we believed that they really appreciated our work and understood it."
The Baers studied in Germany and France, went to Africa four years ago to paint Moroccans. Chicagoans viewing their present show were impressed with their brilliant coloring, not so impressed with their apparently hurried technique. If they have a god it is El Greco. Among those to take advantage of Baer bargains are the curators of eight U.S. art museums, a curator of the Louvre, and Prefect Jean Chiappe of the Paris police. Baer prices: $125 to $375. George Baer is 38, Martin one year older. Aged 13 and 14 they were graduated from Chicago grammar schools. Then they went to the Art Institute. Temporarily their art studies were obstructed when it was discovered that Illinois has a law prohibiting children under 18 from attending life classes where they are apt to see someone without any clothes on. Eventually the Art Institute's directors got around this by hiring the small Baers as janitors. Whenever inspectors ap peared, the boys dropped their brushes, picked up brooms, started sweeping. The Baers left Paris "to get the hell out of civilization." They joined a Berber caravan, traveled for several years around the desert. George became enamored of three Berber sisters to whom he intends to return next year. Asked which one he will marry, cries he: "Hell, all three!"