A Year Abroad

"Now take a boy from the Midwest, from Ponca City, Okla., for instance. Teach him to speak Italian, then put him in an apartment that is 20 years older than his own country's government. Put this apartment in the center of Rome about a block from where Julius Caesar was killed, where from his studio window he can see the church in which the first act of Tosca takes place. Let him become close friends with several Italian families. Let him visit the major museums and cities of Europe, and live the last three months in Venice."

Ponca City-born Robert Camblin thus reported his painter's dream come true, a year abroad with nothing to do but soak up the scenery, visit the museums and paint his head off. The results of his year in Italy--along with paintings by 59 other equally lucky artists--are on view this week at Manhattan's Whitney Museum of American Art. They were picked by the museum's new director, Lloyd Goodrich, from among the 194 U.S. artists who have worked abroad on U.S. Government (Fulbright) scholarships, paid in local currencies from the sale of U.S. surplus property abroad.

The painters used their year abroad to feast their eyes, rather than to pick up the mannerisms of a foreign school. They soaked in "the golden glow of Rome," tingled to the spirit of Paris that "sped up the spin of idea and image." James Harvey in Egypt quarried into Coptic and Islamic art, felt that "through these art forms one sees the landscape of the Near East." Daniel Dickerson painted dhoti-clad Indians in a Rajasthan marketplace, tired porters in a Bangalore railway station.

The life abroad produced few expatriates. Gretna Campbell explained why: "America, young and wild even in the cities, is nervous, soul-searching, self-doubting--a great unexplored region. It's what I want to paint."

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