Art: Sculpture in Manhattan

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Sculptors as a class have a minor but reasonable complaint against the world. It is not that their materials are expensive or that they work harder with their hands than other artists. What irks them is that it usually takes a stereotyped kind of public rumpus (see col. 1) to get them their share of attention and criticism. Last year 58 Manhattan sculptors organized a guild to do something about this, and last week they did it. On a vacant corner lot in midtown Manhattan, rented from the city for $5, they put on an outdoor exhibition of about 90 pieces of sculpture which during its first five days attracted 8,000 strollers at 10¢ a head.

If this show offered stiff competition to the city parks, it was partly¢ because Landscaper Aladar Mulhoffer took full advantage of the primaveral weather. The sculpture was set in or against evergreen shrubs or flowering trees and a dozen leafing birches screened a high brick wall in the background. Contemplative visitors could sun themselves on benches. Some of the exhibitors dropped around with their chisels and took final, finicking chips. Despite some absurdities and a monotonous tendency among neo-archaic stone sculptors to leave their forms looking only partly chewed, able and varied work was on hand from Sculptors William Zorach, Warren Wheelock, Harold Cash, Herbert Ferber, José de Creeft, Chaim Gross, Maurice Glickman, Hy Freilicher, Berta Margoulies, Concetta Scaravaglione.