Art: MSS.

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No U. S. painter was ever more beloved by students than that rowdy oldster, the late great George Benjamin Luks who was found dead in a Manhattan doorway last month (TIME, Nov. 6). Since then his pupils have been loyally painting by themselves in his ramshackle downtown studio. A few of the more impressionable insisted that they had heard the Master's clumping footsteps on the stairs. Last week more practical ones decided that they needed a new teacher. With the assistance of the artist's widow, they organized the George Luks Memorial School of Painting, chose for its first mentor shock-headed Artist John Sloan.

Friends for 40 years, Artists Luks and Sloan were members of the "Revolutionary Eight" of U. S. painting.* But while Artist Luks lived violently and painted in a solid conservative tradition, Artist Sloan has led an exemplary life while constantly experimenting in modern technique. Both loved to talk. Last week Artist Sloan expatiated: "Mine has been a quiet life. George was just the opposite. He painted on his impulses. I painted after long thought. In fact I think I have been thinking too much lately. ... I cannot continue the supreme contempt George had for the ultra modern school. Painting is sick. It has been getting sicker and sicker for over 100 years. The ultra moderns will cure it. ..."