EDWARD SIMMONS, ROBERT BLUM, AND OTHERS

In addition to these was a painter who has also been one of the most prominent of the decorative men, Edward Simmons. Years ago he won the competition for a decoration for the Criminal Court room in New York, a prize awarded by the Municipal Art Society. A pupil of the Paris schools, a master draftsman, a singularly capable man, his three panels of the Fates won him instant place, and when he further made two decorations for the Massachusetts state capitol there was opened to him a field which he has since followed with distinction. Decorations for the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, panels for the Appellate Court, for various state capitols and public buildings, and finally enormous embellishments for the Panama fair in San Francisco, place the man in the front rank.

For pure beauty of invention, for charm of drawing and delicacy of vision, no American decoration has surpassed the two lovely panels executed by the late Robert Blum for the frieze of the assembly room of the Mendelssohn Glee Club in New York. They attracted enormous attention when they were first completed, and have been reproduced in many forms. Blum was a highly original painter, and these many figures representing “Music” and “The Dance” have a grace quite their own.

Reproductions of these paintings made by The Detroit Publishing Co.

THREE PANELS, by Maxfield Parrish

These three panels are part of a series called “A Florentine Fête,” which decorates the entire front of the dining room of the Curtis Publishing Company’s building in Philadelphia

Thomas W. Dewing, more identified with easel work, has nevertheless executed several charming decorations, one in the Imperial Hotel, New York, “Dawn,” ranking high indeed. It has all the man’s personal color vision, and is exquisitely dainty and graceful.

Several men were concerned in the wall decorations of the Appellate Court, among them H. Siddons Mowbray and Willard L. Metcalf. The first named chose for theme “The Transmission of the Law,” which he rendered in a scholarly as well as artistic manner. Mr. Mowbray has executed a ceiling for the library of the University Club of New York, a large work for the Newark courthouse, and many private commissions.

The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel gave early opportunities for the work of Will H. Low and Frank Fowler, both of whom carried out interesting schemes of decoration; while work in the church of the Paulist Fathers in New York offered a similar chance for William Laurel Harris. Fred Dana Marsh showed the possibilities of large engineering achievements for decorative material in a large panel in the rooms of the United Engineering Societies. It is an apotheosis [3] of labor, of the pick, the shovel, and the iron and steel worker, and Mr. Marsh was singularly original in the composition.

[3] An apotheosis celebrates and exalts a subject in ideal forms of expression.

THE CITY OF NEW YORK, THE EASTERN GATEWAY OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENT

By Taber Sears, in the New York City Hall

John W. Alexander, better known as a portrait painter, also chose similar themes with which to decorate the Carnegie Institute of Art in Pittsburgh, a successful piece of work. Robert van V. Sewell, for the home of George Gould, at Lakewood, did a fine frieze representing “The Canterbury Tales.” And a later man is Barry Faulkner, whose panel for the home of Mrs. Harriman, “Famous Women,” is a happy arrangement of the many celebrated feminists. The work of Albert Herter is specially noteworthy. Hugo Ballin has executed large decorative work, and Howard G. Cushing has made strikingly original panels. Other men are Taber Sears, with altar pieces, Joseph Lauber, Charles M. Shean, Douglas Volk, and William B. Van Ingen. Walter Shirlaw occupied himself at times with decorations, and Abbott H. Thayer has likewise executed a few notable mural paintings.