TREASURE FROM THE ORIENT

A VERY BRUNDAGE of Chicago made his millions in the building business and his fame in sports as perennial president of the U.S. and later International Olympics. Even before 1936 (when he fired Eleanor Holm from the Olympic swimming team for sipping champagne) and until last week (when he insisted that the East and West Germans field an Olympic team under one flag), Brundage has been a highhanded, battle-scarred figure. But he has a softer side, demonstrated by his consuming interest in contemplative Oriental art. Over the years Brundage has amassed a collection of sculptures, paintings and artifacts from Iran to Japan valued at close to $15 million.

At 72, Brundage is increasingly concerned over the future of his collection, has offered it to San Francisco's M. H. de Young Museum. Last week city officials were debating the conditions of the gift: 1) a $3,000.000 addition to the museum, in the form of an Oriental wing, designed to meet Brundage's specifications, and 2) a Brundage-approved curator and staff for the collection. If the price is steep, the prize is nothing short of fabulous. Best of the lot are Brundage's bronzes, dating back 30 centuries to the almost mythical Shang-Yin dynasty in China. Among the finest is the "Holy Man" or Lohan (opposite), whose peaceful humility especially delights the fighting autocrat who bought him.

'The expression the sculptor got on that fellow," Brundage says, tapping his thick thumbs, "you can think about for a long while. There are lots of stories about the lohans. Maybe this one left his body to go on an exploration of space, and when he came back, his body wasn't there and he had to take the form of a beggar."

Fantastic Animal (overleaf) is one of about 100 Luristan bronzes in Brundage's collection; he calls it the finest he has ever seen. The mysterious horsemen of Luristan (mountainous western Iran) flourished a thousand and more years before the time of Christ, left no ruins of cities but only crude tombs crammed with weapons and splendid bronze harness equipage. Brundage's Indian Parvati is one of many he owns representing the Indian mountain goddess. (Some of the others, Brundage recalls, were held up as "pornographic" by U.S. customs.) Despite its elongated ears, topknot and neat mole like a third eye, Brundage's Buddha looks more classical than Oriental, shows that East and West can cooperate on the plane of art. When and if Brundage's conditions are met, San Francisco, the Gateway to the Orient, will take its place, in one giant stride, among the top U.S. centers for Oriental art.

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