Collections & Critiques

Containing such widely diversified subjects as a tragedy by Euripides and a modern social drama, an interesting and unusual display of color drawings and sketches by the brilliant young American designer, Robert Redington Sharpe, is now on exhibition in the basement of Widener Library. These pictures, being shown to the public for the first time, are a portion of the collection given the University last August By Hugh Henry Sharpe, H, a nephew of the late artist.

Although only thirty-four years old at the time of his death in 1934, Sharpe had already achieved an international reputation for his original contributions to the art of stage designing. In his dramatic settings, he has combined vivid coloring with striking creative imagination. He consciously strives to make the surroundings fit the mood of the play. The settings, costumes, and lighting synchronize like the different themes in a piece of music. The artist endeavors to weave an intricate pattern of emotional stimulus, accompanying, but never over-shadowing, the central dramatic action.

This underlying motif finds expression in the sinister blacks and purples of the costumes "Othello." In distinct contract are the gay and fanciful "Peter Pan" settings. In a few instances the author's vivid imagination carries him to the verge of the surrealistic. The lurid orange drapes and the swirling green backgrounds of his designs for "Salome" harmonize with the voluptuous sensuality of the dramatic action. Perhaps the ultimate in bizarre impressionism, however, appears in Sharpe's fantastic rendition of the "Dope Fiend's Dream." The artist here portrays the weird apparitions of the subconscious, blended together in a terrifying, chaotic nightmare.