Art: Hawkeye

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In Washington last week 250 amateur photographs, hand culled from a series of simultaneous contests held by 64 newspapers throughout the U. S., were up on the walls of the National Geographic Society's Hall of Explorers for the final award of prizes totaling $10,000. Curious for an art contest of such value was the list of judges: Mrs. James Roosevelt, mother of the President; Mrs. Emily ("Etiquette") Post; Hiram Percy Maxim; Lowell

Thomas; Editor Kenneth Wilson Williams of the Eastman amateur publications. Mmes Roosevelt and Post were unable to attend the final judging, but the other three took their work seriously. For two solid hours newshawks waited outside glass doors while Inventor Maxim gesticulated with his glasses. Lecturer Thomas propped print after print on an easel. Editor Williams squinted, argued, paced the floor. Finally the judges emerged, smiling amiably and announced their decision. First prize of $1,000 went to Miss Mabel Graham of Lebanon. Ky. whose Portrait of Margaret, a picture of a laughing little girl in a party dress, clutching a balloon (see cut), had been entered in the national contest by the Louisville Courier-Journal. Louisville newshawks found Miss Graham, a teacher in the Lebanon High School, all warm and pink with excitement. Daughter of a well-to-do poultry dealer, a graduate of the University of Kentucky, she has always been interested in photography but was limited to a small Brownie, until last Christmas when a friend gave her an inexpensive No. 616 Hawkeye camera with an F6.3 lens and portrait attachment. With the aid of some floodlight bulbs, she started making portraits of her friends at night. One Wallace M. Kelly, a neighboring artist, helped her with the composition. Margaret O'Daniel is the 3-year-old daughter of another neighbor.

"She was such a beautiful child!" said Miss Graham last week, ''and she posed for me so nicely that I made a total of 17 exposures before she got tired."