Jewett Jape

Rarely outside of Paris is an art critic so stimulating to his readers as to get himself burned in effigy. Last week Eleanor Jewett, art critic for the Chicago Tribune, very nearly achieved that distinction as the climax of a long career.

When Eleanor Jewett came to the Tribune in 1918 her qualifications consisted of kinship (first cousin) with Owner Robert Rutherford ("Bertie") McCormick and a fresh, girlish point of view. To these gifts 20 years in harness have added a dogmatic turn of mind. Miss Jewett soothes the suburbs but sometimes puzzles the well-informed by her propensity toward ticketing all art in terms of "beauty" v. "modernism."

At Chicago's lively Art Institute, juvenile howls go up at little Miss Jewett's dainty vocabulary ("delightful, fascinating, exquisite"), her poetic prose: "In our ears the hurricane roars and silence knows us not. Out of confusion do we come and into confusion do we go. . . . Thus speaks the modern--he who has lost faith in the good, the beautiful, the true." But dissent remained private until, fortnight ago, Critic Jewett dismissed the paintings in the Art Institute's annual student show as of 'comic valentine persuasion."

Last week a Montmartre-like mob of about 200 gay students gathered in Grant Park, just north of the institute, around a huge clownlike dummy in rompers, silk stockings and a Victorian, plumed hat. Young Daniel Catton Rich, director of the institute, ran over to plead with them to disperse, and so did popular Dean Norman Rice. But suddenly four ringleaders in black hoods hoisted the effigy to their shoulders, shouted "Let's go!" About half the crowd followed, chanting lugubriously, carrying signs which read: NERVOUS HYSTERIA IS NOT ART CRITICISM; SEND E. JEWETT TO ART SCHOOL; JEWETT IS 70 YEARS BEHIND THE TIMES; CHICAGO TRIBUNE, MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE, MEDIEVAL ART CRITICISM BY ELEANOR.

About seven blocks away, at the Tribune Tower, a cop stopped the procession, made it turn about before the effigy could be burned beneath Critic Jewett's windows. Content, the marchers found a city refuse box and ceremoniously stuffed her in. From conventional Critic Jewett there was no comment.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.