Back-room Masterpieces

Art dealers, whose business entails an endless succession of free exhibitions before a surfeited public, have an oriental trait: seldom on view, kept in the back rooms of their bazaars for the eyes of richest customers alone, are their greatest treasures. But last week New Yorkers with charity in their hearts and 50-c- in their pockets were able to see more than 100 of these back-room masterpieces, contributed by 33 art galleries. Purpose of the show was to raise money for the Women's Fund of the Emergency Unemployment Committee. Women as well as men are unemployed in New York, but they do not stand in breadlines, they panhandle no pedestrians. State building programs do them no good. Ladies in distress need a specialized, more tactful relief. Urged by Mrs. Mary Woodard Reinhardt of the Reinhardt and Goldschmidt Galleries, 33 firms disgorged their treasures for the ladies' aid show.

It was a catholic assemblage of paintings with just one thing in common: none needed special advertising; all were eminently salable--for the proper price. They were pictures-anyone-would-like-to-own, ranging from 15th Century Venetian Cima de Conegliano to ultra-modern Pablo Picasso. Included were important works by such headliners as Rubens, Fragonard, Van Dyck, Gainsborough. Gilbert Stuart, Cezanne, and those favorites of jocular undergraduates, Neri di Bicci and Pieter de Hooch. It was impossible to decide which was the most important Back-room Masterpiece, but almost certainly the most expensive was the Wildenstein Galleries' Fragonard, Le Pont de Bois, for which they would like to receive about $200,000. Almost alone of New York's important galleries, the firm of Duveen Bros, refused to take part in the show. Reason: Sir Joseph was out of town; his three brothers could do nothing without him.

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