Art: Midland Marvel

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Bloomington, Ill. is one of the small (pop. 30,000) midland cities that stud the great U. S. corn belt. A pure example of its type, it functions as the business and social centre of a rich farming county. Like other prairie towns in Illinois, it is leafy and fair to the eye in summer, drab as a dead horse in winter. Distinguished for its two universities, State Normal and Wesleyan, Bloomington has also a symphony orchestra and a good ear for music, but education in the visual fine arts has not often been available to it.

Swelling therefore with just pride and joyful ballyhoo, Bloomington last week demonstrated a new civic concern for Art. McLean County farmers and their children flocked to town to see the biggest & best exhibition of fine paintings ever held in a U. S. city of that size. In central Illinois, where merchants, teachers and club members in 97 towns have been boosting art for months in anticipation, the event was as exciting as a little world's fair.

Chiefly responsible for putting it over was green-eyed, dark-headed, infectious Harvardman Loring Chase ("Bud") Merwin, 32, publisher of the kinetic Bloomington Daily Pantagraph. Last October he and three other Bloomington businessmen got to talking about a possible stunt for bringing an even greater crowd into Bloomington than the Daily Pantagraph's annual Farm Day. Raymond Wakely, manager of the W. H. Roland department store, suggested an art exhibition. Publisher Merwin drew up a prospectus; Storeman Wakely went East and engaged Alan Gruskin of Manhattan's Midtown Galleries to interest museum directors and select pictures. Bloomington citizens put up $10,000 and the drive was on.

Contact Man Gruskin had tough going at first. First big break came when the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Kansas City consented to lend El Greco's great Penitent Magdalene and one of the few good Chardin paintings in the U. S., Bubble Blowers. Thereafter Director Gruskin was able to get what he wanted to hang in Bloomington's Scottish Rite Temple: a selection of 47 simple, characteristic and first-rate paintings by European artists from Rubens to Modigliani, 59 paintings by U. S. artists from Eakins to Benton.

Meanwhile, Loring Merwin's Daily Pantagraph whipped out stories and sent mats to 102 Illinois newspapers in a publicity campaign such as Art has rarely been accorded. Fourteen bespatted legionnaires with gilded rifles guarded arriving master pieces. Last week Bloomington flaunted "Welcome" banners from every store and telephone pole as the great visitation began. Amazing fact: the show was not free.

Twenty-five thousand school children got passes, but adults plunked down two-bits to see the 106 "hand-paintings"— and a catalogue cost a dime. In spite of this, 2,000 spectators came the first day and the happy sponsors were already talking of making the event annual. Said Bud Merwin:

"People no longer appreciate second-rate entertainment."