One Way to Sell Books

The sales-minded new management of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has been busy for years on direct and indirect schemes to spruce up its volumes of knowledge ($198 and up). This week, the latest indirect scheme--some $200,000 worth of contemporary American art-- was on display at Chicago's Art Institute. The show made news on its own.

The Britannica's new status as a U.S. art patron was no overnight achievement. When Sears, Roebuck & Co. gave its famed, unprofitable stepchild to the University of Chicago in 1943, along went Sears's Elkin ("Buck") Powell as the Britannica's president. An ex-Sears adman and art buyer, deaconish Buck Powell soon found a man he could do business with: Britannica's new board chairman, suave William ("Bill") Benton, onetime head of Benton & Bowles advertising firm. To illustrate their encyclopaedia, they began to buy paintings. Their 121 purchases turned into one of the best collections of contemporary U.S. art, ranging from John Steuart Curry's melodramatic John Brown to Salvador Dali's surrealist Madonna (see cut).

Buck & Bill plan to send their show on a five-year tour of the U.S. Already the ex-admen had: 1) launched a project which will probably bring the Britannica more good will than it has had in all its 177 years, and 2) definitely proved that $200,000 makes a big splash in art circles. Just how many sets of books their show would sell is still the $198 question.

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