Gallery 56 is a typical modern American room, with good landscapes in the work of Breuer, Borg, Davol, and Stokes.
Gallery 65 contains some of the best American figure paintings in the building. The finest group is that by Cecilia Beaux on wall D, which well displays that remarkable artist's brilliant technique and "flair." It is notable how many of the really virile paintings here are by women -many of them of the younger groups. From Marion Pooke's polished but free "Silhouettes," and Alice Kent Stoddard's appealing "Sisters," to M. Jean McLane's joyously brilliant canvases on wall C, there is a wide range of achievement and promise.
Gallery 85. On walls A and B are five canvases by Horatio Walker that are worthy of attention. But finer are Charles W. Hawthorne's four paintings on walls B and D. Their bigness of conception, sincerity and soundness of technique mark a coming master. Wall C is given up to a display by Charles Walter Stetson, which shows, more strongly than any other in the American section, that tendency to the decorative and the idyllic which is to be noted as so strong in recent painting. On wall D are three works of George deForest Brush, a man who has been but little influenced by the more radical tendencies. "The Potter" is interesting for the painstaking and minute finish of varying surface textures.
Gallery 66-Central Hall. Although the important places here are given to sculpture, there are a few very interesting paintings: some representative landscapes, and at the ends decorative panels by Alexander Harrison and by Howard Cushing.
Gallery 80 is notable for the work of painters who have followed rather closely the old academic traditions: for the smooth and polished canvases of W. M. Paxton and Philip Leslie Hale. There are also seven landscapes by Willard L. Metcalf, fresh attractive work of the "plein-air" school.
Gallery 67 is rich in fine landscapes, and contains the best of the exhibition's marines. Here are the only works of Charles H. Davis, a notable follower of the poetic Inness School, and of Leonard Ochtman and Ben Foster, who stand well to the fore among the more vigorous landscapists. Also worthy of attention are the landscapes of Braun, Borg, White, Wendt, J. F. Carlson, Rosen and Browne. The marines represent well a department of painting in which Americans have long excelled; on wall A are four by Paul Dougherty, on B and C three by Frederick J. Waugh, and on D one by Emil Carlsen. Of the other paintings the most interesting is the idyllic bit by Hugo Ballin on wall C, representative of the decorative tendency.
Gallery 68 contains as its most important exhibit three portraits by J. C. Johansen, on wall B, all typical of the brilliant fluency of this remarkable painter. Among the landscapes here the most important are the two Schofields on wall D, typical of the best and sanest phase of Impressionism in America. Very important too are the canvases by Daniel Garber on wall C.
Gallery 69 contains a mixed collection, with such different good things as Lawton Parker's polished figure studies (wall B) and J. Francis Murphy's poetic landscape (wall C). On wall C is a painting by John W. Alexander, one of the leaders in American art, which is typical of his method of subordinating subject interest to line arrangement and color composition.
Gallery 70-Portrait Room. On wall C are three portraits by Irving R.
Wiles, and on D two by Julian Story-both names long well-known in
American art. But the surprising thing is that several of the canvases
by less known men stand up with, or even surpass, these.
Gallery 71 is notable chiefly for some good landscapes.