Growth of Taste

From Bar to Castle

On New Year's Day 1895, the proprietor of a Manhattan saloon at Third Avenue and 130th Street greased his hair, breathed on his diamond stickpin and departed to pay his New Year calls, leaving the bar in charge of a 17-year-old Russian boy who was working nights in order to study art by daylight. It was a rough night, and to the Harlem barflies the boy looked easy. Shouting, swearing they demanded free drinks. The young bartender set up one on the house. That only made things worse. The boy, thoroughly frightened, snatched a revolver from the till and fired wildly over the crowd's heads. First shot sprang a delicate golden fountain from the side of a whiskey barrel and reversed the riot. The barflies rolled on the floor with gaping mouths and tore at each other's clothes. Somebody upset the lamp and started a fire just as the proprietor walked in the door.

"Boss," said the young bartender, "I quit!"

Thus ended the last completely commercial job ever held by Maurice Sterne. He had executed his first commissioned painting a few weeks prior: a portrait of a gigantic stein of beer, overflowing, above the device 5-c-. Last week the Museum of Modern Art gave Maurice Sterne its first one-man show for a living U. S. artist, one of the most complete reviews of an artist's work ever held in Manhattan. On three floors some 200 separate drawings, paintings, bits of sculpture showed the progress of 30 years' work. Maurice Sterne has never been a headliner for art publicity, nor has he ever lacked customers. Of all the works on view last week, less than 60 are still available for purchase. Lenders include almost every important modern museum from the Wallraf-Richartz in Cologne through the Corcoran, the Metropolitan, the Carnegie Institute, to the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego and most of the important collectors in the U. S. In good times his canvases bring as much as $10,000 or $12,000 each.

Much has happened to Maurice Sterne since the barroom brawl of 1895: He studied under the late great Thomas Eakins. Lived and painted in Germany, France, Italy, Egypt, India. Spent two years in Bali 20 years ago (and produced the best paintings yet to appear from that overpainted paradise). Married and divorced the late D. H. Lawrence's friend Mabel Dodge. Made an artist of importance of his lawyer, banker, publisher friend Edward Bruce. Became the unofficial lord of the little Italian hilltown of Anticoli. In Anticoli he lives in a 48-room castle, spends most of his time and does most of his work, sitting in judgment on the peasants who bring him offerings of fruit and flowers. He is 54.

It has been said that Maurice Sterne has reached the highest point to which intelligence and technique, without genius, can bring a painter. His color is excellent, his drawing impeccable, he studiously avoids the academic. But Maurice Sterne is never quite satisfied with his work. He constantly pesters his dealers to let him dab at his old canvases again. In the introduction to last week's catalog he wrote:

"I feel that I have emerged from the Selva Oscura [gloomy wood]. If I should have the good fortune to live 25 years longer I hope to come much nearer to my goal."

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