School Builder

Proud were the friends and admirers of Architect James O. Betelle of Newark, N. J., last week and proud was Architect Betelle. He had just sent out the plans for Newark's new Weequahic High School. With that building up, Architect Betelle could say that his firm had designed and supervised the erection of $100,000,000 worth of U. S. educational structures, an all-time world record.

The story behind his success is one which bald, smiling School Builder Betelle, eschewing the characteristic reticence of most successful architects, takes pleasure in reciting. Born to a disadvantaged family in Wilmington, Del. 52 years ago, he got his early training in a Philadelphia drafting room. In 1900 he went to Manhattan to work for famed Cass Gilbert. He saved his money, worked hard, went abroad in 1905. Five years later he formed a partnership with Ernest F. Guilbert, moved to a small office in Newark. They plugged along until 1916, when Mr. Guilbert died. Builder Betelle went to War as a captain in the sanitary corps. Demobilized, he set out to make a fresh start.

If businessmen prosper by making contacts, boosting, frankly publicizing themselves, why should not architects? Reasoning thus, Builder Betelle associated himself with civic movements, built the

Newark Chamber of Commerce Building, was twice elected the Chamber's president. In 1919, Pierre S. du Pont of Wilmington retired from the gunpowder business, prepared to give Delaware a peerless school system. For him Builder Betelle put up 125 schools. He also planned the normal school at New Britain, Conn., the new State Teachers' College at Trenton, N. J., nine others elsewhere. Among his 56 high schools are those of Greenwich (Conn.). Newark, Great Neck (L. I.), New Rochelle (N. Y.), the George Fisher Baker Memorial High School at Tuxedo Park, N. Y. He has also built eleven junior high schools, six vocational schools, one reformatory. Builder Betelle does not claim to have made striking innovations in educational plant design, but if a town wants a school built his firm has plenty of experience with which to recommend itself. From a man who has earned commissions (usually 6%) on $100,000,000 worth of school buildings in 20 years, James O. Betelle's advice to young architects may carry some weight. "I only know," says he, "when I was a lad about 17, getting $2 a week, I worked day and night. Many a time I longed to eat ice cream and bought milk instead, be cause I was saving my nickels and dimes. "If these youths . . . adapted themselves to their work, honestly did their part and a little bit more, paying less attention to the office clock, I am certain their employers would take notice of them. . . . One cannot play hard a greater part of the night, and then go to business next morning and work efficiently."

Sert at the Waldorf

When King Alfonso XIII of Spain passed through Paris on his way back to Madrid last March he dropped in to visit his good friend Jose Maria Sert. On view at Senor Sert's studio were the great murals he had just painted for the Duke of Alba's elaborate Palacio de Liria. Wrought chiefly in tones of gold, the paintings represented the history of the Alba family, several of whom are saints, since the 14th Century. By the time Alfonso XIII got home, abdicated and got back to Paris, Artist Sert was well along with his next batch of murals. Designed for the new Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, these paintings were to be seen in the Sert studio during July. Last week workmen were gluing the 20 canvases to the walls of the Waldorf-Astoria's swankiest dining room, the Sert Room which looks out on 50th Street and Park Avenue.

Subject of the paintings is the marriage of Quiteria from Don Quixote. Forced into narrow, high panels, the kicking, squealing characters of Artist Sert literally stand on each other's heads to fill the space. Celebrants at the wedding feast include leaping acrobats, hoary strong men, bull tamers, jugglers, drunkards, surrounded by great billows of silver and claret-colored drapery. Other than those which Artist Sert has painted into his compositions, there will be no hangings in the Waldorf's Sert Room. Paris critics credited the paintings with "the potency of a Michelangelo . . . daring of a Goya . . . more than one reminiscence of the great Venetian colorists like Veronese and Tiepolo."

Smart Artist Sert contracted to do the Waldorf job year ago, received approximately $100,000 for it. He is full of honor in his own land: his work hangs in Spanish cathedrals, in the Royal Palace at Madrid, in Barcelona's municipal building. He did the murals for the Joshua Cosden mansion at Palm Beach, now the home of Mrs. Hugh Dillman.

Artist Sert's first wife was a great-grandniece of Composer Franz Liszt. She accompanied Stylist Gabrielle Chanel to Hollywood last spring. The present Senora Sert was once Princess Mdivani of the much-married Mdivanis of Georgia (South Russia). (Brother David married Cinemactress Mae Murray; Brother Serge married Cinemactress Pola Negri, then Soprano Mary McCormic; Brother Alexis married Socialite Louise Astor Van Alen.)

Price Cutters Show

Past the two bronze lions and up the steps of Chicago's Art Institute last week filed a brave little band of Chicago intellectuals to have a look at the museum's latest one-man show. Actually the show was an exhibition of the work of two men -- Martin & George Baer -- but artistically they are Siamese twins. Their paintings are as undistinguishable as the scrivenings of the Brothers Goncourt.

There are several reasons for Chicago's taking the Brothers Baer seriously. In the first place, they are Chicagoans. Second, they are capable artists. Best known fact about the Brothers Baer, however, is that they sell their paintings cheaply. Brother George, shepherding the collection while Brother Martin is in Paris, earnestly declared :

"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!"

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