Art: Gershwin Show

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A peculiar memorial to the late George Gershwin appeared last week in the form of a record made in England by Columbia. Gershwin—King of Rhythm is distinguished by sweet & low singing of The Man I Love by Hildegarde, tremolo rendering of a Gershwin tune on the harmonica by Larry Adler, and the cultivated, funereal tones of an English master of ceremonies paying tribute to the composer in odd counterpoint to the smooth, Hebrew melodies of the Jazz King. While this curio was being put on sale in Manhattan phonograph shops, one of the least sentimental and most interesting events in the commemoration of George Gershwin since his death was an exhibition, at Marie Harriman Gallery, of his own paintings.

Gershwin became fascinated with painting in the late 1920s. He began by buying pictures that appealed to him, works by Picasso, Rouault, Derain, Utrillo and by his friends Max Weber and Maurice Sterne. By 1933 his collection was big enough to rate an exhibition at the Chicago Arts Club. Gershwin himself started painting in 1929 and came along fast with a few tips and encouragement from his artist cousin, Henry A. Botkin. He liked to paint so much that in the year or two before his death he actually preferred it to composition at the piano, even thought of giving up his music.

The one-man show which opened last week was a year ahead of the time the artist had planned to give it. Among 37 paintings and drawings were the first Gershwin still-life, done in 1929, several pen-and-ink drawings which showed that the Jazz King had made himself a sensitive draftsman by 1931, and later work in oils. Good pictures:

Grandfather with an East Side Background, a thin-faced, sallow figure with resentful eyes, in a black Sunday suit and derby, angled against a sad line of shops, a huckster, a synagogue.

Self-Portrait in a Checked Sweater: probably the best portrait ever made of George Gershwin.