Lithographer into Water-Colorist

Ever since the age of 14, when he discovered black drawing ink in the artist's materials section of a Sears, Roebuck catalogue, stocky, Minnesota-born Adolf Dehn has drawn, etched and lithographed in black. A specialist in bulging bankers and pneumatic nuns, Dehn went to Manhattan in 1916, got odd jobs drawing for the old Liberator, drifted off to Europe for a spell, soon made himself a reputation as one of the ablest and most individual black-&-white men in the U. S. Half straight, half comic, Dehn's squirming, salty lithographs were prized by art connoisseurs as well as magazine readers, made the grade of leading U. S. and European art museums.

Lithographer Dehn had always nursed a yen to work in color. But he was afraid of leaving the role of bang-up black-&-white man for that of mediocre painter. Four years ago, at the age of 41, white-haired, young-looking Adolf Dehn decided to take the plunge. Teutonically systematic, he began turning out one water color a day. His first tries were not too good; later he tore up two or three hundred of them. But he kept on, upped his output to two and even three a day, gave up lithographs altogether. Last year, on a Guggenheim Fellowship, Water-Colorist Dehn got himself a car and ranged Mexico and the Southwest, turning out water colors like hot cakes.

When the International Water Color Show opened in Chicago last month, 22 of Dehn's water colors were given a room by themselves. Last week, before Chicago's big show had closed, Dehn opened his own exhibition at Manhattan's Weyhe Gallery, showed Manhattan gallerygoers that he had enough subtly colored Minnesota barns, Colorado skies and Mexican mountains to supply two first-class exhibitions at once. Manhattan's critics agreed with Chicago's: that Adolf Dehn's change of medium was a success, that in four years one of the fastest and best U. S. lithographers had become one of the fastest and best U. S. water-colorists.

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