Artist-Dancer

An urbane and well slicked Manhattan mob twittered about the famed Anderson Galleries last week and endeavored to understand the mystic symbolism hidden in the 21 large mural paintings and eight pieces of sculpture there on show. Strange forms of a significance remindful of the tortuous ideas in Novelist James Branch Cabell's Jurgen revealed themselves. Famed Etcher Joseph Pennell was loud in his praise of their originality. Much interest centred about a bust of the famed Spanish Singer Raquel Meller.

The artist whose one-man show was thus fashionably attended is perhaps best known as Dancer Paul Swan. Born in Springfield,Ill., he has achieved distinction in the U. S. and Europe as a versatile and talented exponent of the dance as well as the graphic and plastic arts.

To a pressman he spoke at some length of himself and his artistic conceptions:

"I have had my trials, the trials of an artist who goes unrecognized merely because he has been a dancer. . . . Men always think of me as a female impersonator, and there is nothing I dislike so much as a female impersonator.

"Americans still seem to have the idea that art is feminine and they don't try to appreciate it. . . . Real grace is a result of strength. There is no reason for making it exclusively a feminine thing.

"A happy home is essential to the real expression of art. . . . An artist more than anyone else needs mothering. I call my home a hospital for broken wings. It's not that I believe in temperament either. I think temperament is entirely unnecessary if the artist actually expresses himself. He can get rid of his temperament on canvas just as effectually as on his family.

"Europe is more appreciative of art. The people there know more about it and understand what an artist is trying to do. ... It is the women of America who have all the culture. The men make the money and enable the women to acquire the culture, but they neglect it themselves. And they need grace and politeness and serenity. Serenity is the last word in culture and it is not found in America. It is such omissions that make us look so bad abroad.

"An American is recognized abroad by the lines in his face. It always looks like a battleground of struggle between his real nature and his puritan upbringing."