Collections and Critiques

In conjunction with the "Art Week in Boston" program sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, authorities of the Fogg Art Museum, are not only presenting three lectures but are opening numerous exhibits today. These include a special exhibition of water colors by outstanding modern American artists, drawings from the Loeser collection, Japanese prints from the Duel collection, and a display of early American furniture, painting, and silver.

In the American exhibition in galleries four and five, the silver is important because the pieces were given to the University in the early eighteenth century by students who wished to be Fellow Commoners. To become one, he had simply to present plate to the University, and then he could wear lace in his hat, and did not have to do fag duty for the upperclassmen. The portraits on display, which are of the same period, represent people once closely connected with the University, such as Nicholas Boylston, professor of Rhetoric, after whom is named the professorship the Hall, and the street.

The Robert Feke portrait of Issac Royal and his family, which was done in 1741 and is one of the first group paintings we have, has been leaned by the Law School especially for this occasion. Another portrait, that of the Marquis de la Fayette, is the work of Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. There is also a portrait by John S. Copley of Mrs. Robert Hooper, the wife of the merchant, who when Newcastle was without fuel, made his fortune by "carrying coals to Newcastle."

The furniture is loaned and in splendid did fashion depicts the simpler Sheraton style of the eighteenth century. Constructed of mahogany, it is inlaid with maple and bass wood.

Such outstanding painters as Charles Burchfield. Preston Dickinson, Edward Hopper, and John Marin are represented in the display of water colors in gallery 9, while in gallery 14 are a group of oils by such French painters as Dapra Millet, and de la Pena. The majority of these were given to the Museum, and one by Ralph Isham '88, the donor the organ in the Memorial Church. The Japanese prints are hung in gallery 15 and, in gallery 16 are a group of Chinese bronzes, pottery, woods, and other objects jets d'art.