Anyone Can Play

Frank Perls, who owns an art gallery in Beverly Hills, got a telephone call from U.S. Customs. It was about three charity-ball posters by France's famed Henri Matisse that Perls was importing for a show at his gallery. They were "not art," said the Customs man, and would therefore be subject to duty. Perls said the posters were art, but the Customs man stood firm. "He told me," said Perls, "that a child could have done the posters.

"I told the Customs man and two of his superiors what I thought. I insisted the posters were superior art by a great painter whose work is displayed by all the major museums of the world." After two days of negotiation with the dogged man of Customs, dogged Exhibitor Perls marched happily back to his shop, posters under his arm, duty free. "It's the principle of the thing," he said.

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