Art: Congress

In Manhattan's Carnegie Hall one night last week an angular young woman in black with an enormous white shawl collar gripped a microphone, spoke with warm, smiling emphasis to an assemblage of some 400 U. S. artists and six times as many followers of the arts. Of all speakers of the evening, Erika Mann had the simplest and to many listeners the most significant words to justify the second American Artists' Congress. They were a message from her father, Thomas Mann: "One frequently hears it said that the artist should stick to his own craft, and that he merely cheapens himself when he descends into the political arena to participate in the struggles of the day. I consider this a weak objection, because of my conviction, or rather my clear realization, of the fact that the different spheres of humanity—whether artistic, cultural or political—are really inseparable. And that is why it makes me very happy to see that the art world of a country as large and as important to civilization as the United States ... is taking its stand against those barbaric tendencies which today endanger all that we understand by civilization and culture and all that we love."

Fully as much as any worker or professional man, the average U. S. artist is now interested in politics and deadly serious about it. As a free man he hates the tyrant and despises his addiction to war. As a worker whom his fellowmen have rarely over-burdened with material rewards, he appreciates his $23.86 from WPA, can live pretty well on it and wants to keep it. On the very practical subject of subsistence, the Artists' Congress, to which such noted professionals as William Zorach, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Rockwell Kent, Stuart Davis, Max Weber, George Biddle, were delegates, was eloquent indeed. This practicality distinguished the Artists' Congress from the American Writers' Congress of last summer (TIME, June 21).

Lean, ascetic Painter Biddle, in a suit so wrinkled it looked shrunk, warned the audience that the intelligent supervision of the WPA art project which he helped to found would be as precarious as the project itself while it remained an emergency measure. Discussion followed on what has become a great desideratum of politically conscious artists who want better standing than work relief affords—the Federal Arts Bill, a proposal for an arrangement more permanent and dignified than WPA, introduced in Congress last session by Representative John Coffee of Washington. Thickset, heavy-voiced Painter Philip Evergood, president of the Artists' Union which, with the Cartoonists' Guild, the Commercial Artists and Designers Union, had unanimously voted to join the C.I.O., was all for it. Said he: