John Held, Jr., Famous Cartoonist, to Have Residence and Studio in Adams

When John Held, Jr., author and cartoonist who created Marge, the immortal roaring twenties flapper of comic strip fame, began his three month residence in Adams House yesterday, the University for the first time placed before the undergraduates a chance to work with a seasoned and well-known artist.

In a sub den among a maze of pipes in the basement of Adams House, Held is arranging his studio where he will spend the next few months sculpting, painting, and receiving interested student callers. According to a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, he will serve as "artist in residence," continuing his own work and helping students in creative art.

Abandoned Commercial Work

"I am very serious about my sculpture," Held remarked yesterday when he described to reporters how he had abandoned the profitable commercial art field so that he could spend all his time on his painting and modeling.

He served on the staff of the old Life when it was in its heyday. His widely syndicated "Marge" satirized the hip-flask, raccoon-coat days of the late twenties. "Marge" died with the repeal of prohibition and the market crash, and Held obtained a position with the New Yorker, for which he did a series of wood cuts reflecting "on the good old days" and "old American subjects."

"I started out to be a serious artist, and now I am going to be one even if I can't eat," Held remarked. A jack of all the arts, he wrote a play which he hopes will eventually be produced in New York, modeled a series of bronze portraits of various animals, composed several vaudeville acts and sketches, and has done considerable work with oil and water paints.

"The only way to do art is to produce," said Held, whose only job will be to encourage students to follow out their own creative ideas. To those who would make a career of art he offered the dampening advice that "it is suicide to be an artist."