Americans Abroad

In three European art centres this summer, foreign critics studied imported shows of U. S. paintings, prints, photographs, found European influences strong in most of them, expressed polite interest but no overwhelming enthusiasm. C. In Venice, the U. S. exhibition of 63 paintings and no prints, including "old masters" like Winslow Homer and moderns like John Sloan, was overshadowed by a big British show. To signalize better Anglo-Italian relations, England, which sent no art to Venice's biennial two years ago, shipped 24 Epstein bronzes, 25 paintings by Christopher Wood, a roomful of work by Stanley Spencer, led enthusiastic Italian critics to call the British show the finest in the history of the biennial. C. In Paris, Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art's Three Centuries of American Art, most extensive U. S. show ever held in Europe (TIME, May 23), drew bigger crowds than any recent Paris exhibition, attentive critical scrutiny of some 200 paintings, 80 prints, 250 movie stills. Gallic critics spoke warmly but vaguely of the show's passionate interest, weaseled on criticism of individual artists, noted that in architecture the U. S. genius was best expressed.

C. In London, an exhibition of contemporary U. S. painters that included the work of Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh, Thomas Benton, Charles Sheeler, John Steuart Curry, Peggy Bacon, left English critics with their bowlers clamped firmly on their heads. Declaring that half the paintings might have been done "by devoted but not very skilful admirers of contemporary French art," critics found the remainder honest but uneven, likened their effect to the blare of trombones.

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