Whitney, 1952

The big painting annual at Manhattan's Whitney Museum of American Art is one show the critics always study in hopes of spotting a new trend. At the 1952 show, on view last week, the trend spotters needed microscopes to find any changes.

All told, 154 artists from 24 states were represented, and most of them seemed to be doing just what they have been doing ever since the war: abstract paintings in all sizes, shapes and colors. The work bore such titles as Sleeper No. 2, Third Theme, 47, Vibration and Rapt at Rappaport's. The color patterns varied from shades of Tabasco red to jellyfish grey; some were done as geometrical designs, others as waving, leaflike forms, weird blotches of black & white, or blazing skyrockets of paint on canvas.

Nonetheless, some critics thought they saw a slight shifting of the currents in several of the Whitney's ten galleries. There, the work of more objective artists was on exhibit, and there seemed to be more of it than last year. Among the best: a compassionate scene of two old Bowery bums. Under the El, by Manhattan's Jack Levine; a primitive allegory, Fishers, Simon and Peter, by Manhattan's C. Murray Foster; a biting satire, Tension, by St. Louis' Siegfried Reinhardt, which showed a straining rooster, a bird hanging by its neck, a boy stretching a string, and a man twisting the boy's head.

Director Hermon More, who helped put the show together, disagrees with the critics. He sees no strong hints of a swing toward more representational art. He culled some 1,500 paintings for the show, had to "lean over backwards to get more realistic painters." Most of those he found were already established artists; of the unknown good enough to exhibit for the first time, 40 out of 43 were abstractionists. Says More: "It's hard to find a young artist under 30 these days who paints in any style other than abstract."

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