Art: Oil Water Colors

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Two notable art trends have lately appeared in the U. S.: 1) the discovery of South America, 2) the discovery of recognized artists by U. S. industry. Last week, at Manhattan's Downtown Gallery, both trends met in a one-man show of 36 water colors by black-haired, soft-spoken Chicago Artist Rainey Bennett. The water colors were of Venezuela. Their commissioner (and owner of 24): Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. Their merits: sufficient for the Metropolitan Museum to snap up two of the twelve that were for sale, a fortnight before the show opened.

On the recommendation of chunky, art-patting Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, who is not only president of Manhattan's lively Museum of Modern Art but a director of Creole Petroleum Corp., one of Standard's Venezuelan subsidiaries, Standard Oil last summer sent Artist Bennett to Venezuela. Bennett's commission was to paint whatever struck his fancy. Plenty did, from golf courses to jungle camps. So pleased with his adroit jottings are Sponsors Rockefeller and Standard Oil that his water colors will be sent on a year's tour of the U. S.

One of his favorite Venezuelan hosts was eccentric Painter Hernandez Reveron, who paints almost entirely in various tones of white. Artist Reveron first tests the tightness of his canvas by "getting the feel of the tension," next tightens the belt of his burlap shorts, the straps of his sandals and his arm muscles to the same degree. When all the tensions are equal, he attacks the canvas like a tiger. After four hours' work, he is so exhausted that he must go down to the beach, swim out and gulp sea water.

Now 32, Rainey Bennett got his first artistic recognition as a high-school cartoonist in suburban Oak Park, Ill., helped pay his way through college by playing tenor banjo in a jazz band. He studied art in Chicago and Manhattan, now teaches it at Chicago's Art Institute. His favorite expletive: "Blue eggs!"