Art: Oasis in Manhattan

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When the summer sun blisters the Manhattan pavement and the rasp of traffic noise mounts to unbearable decibels, one of the most inviting oases—better even than an air-conditioned movie—is the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art. There, only two blocks north of towering Rockefeller Center, the visitor may walk in peace amidst birches, hornbeams and willows, linger by cool reflecting pools, or sit on convenient benches, looking at sculpture.

Since last April, when the garden opened, its sculpture has been well worth looking at. Maillol's recumbent nude, The River, lies with her hair touching the surface of a pool; in a dominant center position stands a roughly molded, magnificent bronze by Pablo Picasso, Shepherd Holding a Lamb, which proves that Picasso can be a lot more forceful in 3-D than in some of his two-dimensional painted abstractions. There is also Jacob Epstein's majestic, reposeful Madonna and Child, an anguished Horse by Italy's Marino Marini, and a skeletal abstraction, Double Standing Figure, by Britain's Henry Moore. Among the sculpture are evergreens, geraniums and winter jasmine.

The outdoor exhibit is part of the museum's summer show, "Sculpture of the 20th Century" (TIME, Oct. 27), which also includes (indoors) such outstanding pieces as Rodin's St. John the Baptist, poised in mid-stride with arm upraised in beckoning command; a voluptuous Matisse nude and a light-as-air Degas dancer; less representational studies like Constantin Brancusi's shining, vertical Bird in Space and his monolithic marble Fish, which for all its solidity conveys a feeling of watery motion. The high quality of the show has helped keep the ticket-takers near the big glass doors busy all summer. Last week they were checking in more than 1,000 paying customers a day at 60¢ a head. Most of the visitors made straight for the sculpture garden.

But the museum's other floors held more attractions: one of the world's best collections of modern paintings (new acquisitions include a fascinatingly fearsome Dog by Britain's Francis Bacon); a show of postwar European photography; a specialized exhibit showing the 100-year evolution of the modern chair, from the first bentwood model to the tubular-steel jobs of Marcel Breuer and Le Corbusier to the most recent design, which goes right back to bentwood. If the visitor insists, he can even find that air-conditioned movie in the basement, where old film classics are shown (this week: Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise).