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University Daily Kansas Thursday, May 21 1959
Critic Calls Student Art 'Seeds of New Literature'
By Bret Waller
Prints and paintings by six students in the School of Fine Arts are on exhibition in the lobby of the Kansas Union.
As I was studying one of the paintings in the student show, a mid-age woman stopped beside me. She regarded the painting rather dubiously for a moment, then turned to me. I moved to the next painting but she followed.
Not bothering with the painting this time, she studied my expression intently. Finally, unable to contain herself any longer, she bent forward and, tugging at my sleeve, whispered in triumphant righteous indignation, "I agree."
I am not quite sure with what the lady was agreeing, but I think she must have felt that no person in his right mind could approve of "that kind of thing." This reaction, modified by individual senses of humor, honor, and duty, is probably typical. What sort of painting in this callous age can provoke such a response?
Many years ago artists established their right to make paintings without subject matter. Pictures which were not "of" or "about" anything. They simply existed. Artists claimed for their works, the right to be considered simply as objects which exist by their own laws—beautiful as a flower is beautiful, not because it looks like something else.
Loyalty Oath Draws Protest
A Kansas Congressman has objected to a petition signed by 50 University of Kansas City faculty members protesting the loyalty oath requirement to obtain loans and fellowships.
"I was surprised to get this from a Mid-West university," said Rep. Wint Smith (R-Kan).
The petition received by Smith said in part, "We regard the requirement as unfruitful and discriminatory and we therefore urge our congressmen and the American Assn. of University Professors to promote the removal of the section from the act." They referred to the defense education act of 1958.
In writing a "news and comment" letter to voters back home, Rep. Smith said, "By this petition you have faculty members who indicate that they think it is wrong for anyone to be required to state he is not a Communist or affiliated with any subversive group."
Students Receive Latin-Greek Awards
Four students have been named as recipients of cash prizes for excelling in Latin and Greek the past year.
Martha M. Abel, Clay Center freshman, and Marian E. Hunt, Charite senior, have been awarded the Sterling-Walker Greek Prize. Karlie R. Howell, Kansas City, Kan., freshman, and Carolyn J. Stotts, Havensville freshman, received the Hannah-Oliver Latin Prize.
All awards were $25.
The estimated wholesale value of automobiles, trucks and buses manufactured in the United States during 1958 was nine and three-
KU Barber Shop
The paintings on display in the Union also claim this right, and more. There is, for the most part, a sufficient sense of direction to the show to allow us to discuss it as an entity without too much generalization. The paintings are large. Their titles are nonsensical, composed in the spirit of "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer." The question in this case is "What's the painting about?"
Shapes are simple and tend to be geometric. They are not especially exciting except that the edges are often frayed, tattered or varied in some other way. Colors are harmonious, often tastefully subdued with bright colors. Paint surfaces are fashionably unkempt.
Flattop Specialty Open All Summer
Clarence Adamson
Why, then, all this fuss? Subject matter was expelled from painting because it was a foreign element. Subject tends to distract our attention from the painting itself and direct it to something outside. Painting which relys upon subject matter
Proprietor
for its significance is called "literary"
—and this is a damning term.
It seems to me that in the paintings in the present exhibition are seeds of a new literature. It has sneaked in through the back door. Patrick Aherne's "Why Not?" is a good example. As a painting it is pleasant and successful. The color is harmonious, the composition is stable, the shapes are simple, geometric and nicely put together.
The bundle of lines in the lower right is . . . horrors! Those aren't lines, they are dribbles! Then we discover crayon marks and wall board and oil paint and newsprint! Suddenly our sense of values shifts. Our attention is focused on the artist. What sort of person would do that kind of thing?
We may admire his freedom and wit, or we may feel that he is subverting American democracy. In any case we have forgotten the pleasant little painting that set this off. We are involved in the new subject matter—the artist
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