Art For Sale

The unobtrusive red brick building at 100 Pinckney Street, with its neatly black lettered sign "Pinckney Street Artists' Alliance," doesn't look like much of a threat to what is rightly called "the gallery racket." Yet here in a few small rooms is exhibited work that vies with any of the established galleries in excellence, and sells at prices thirty to fifty per cent lower. The dozen or so members of the Alliance operate on the theory that selling three pictures at $50 apiece is better than selling one at $150. Alexander Eliot, great-grandson of Harvard's President and himself a well-known young artist, has given part of his home as a gallery. Together with his wife he carries on the business end of the enterprise. By economies such as racks for additional pictures, to save on wall-space, they have been able to reduce the dealer's percentage considerably.

The Alliance opened on January 28th, and has been running three week shows since that time. The current one is of black and white prints all under $10. It includes offerings by eight members, and several guest artists. The members take part in every show, while the guest artists are invited for specific exhibitions. On April 21 the prints will be replaced by a showing of pictures suitable for wedding presents, which is run to the end of the season, when a giant auction is planned. The wedding present show will probably include the work of five or six guest artists from various parts of the country. All the artists included have shown several times before and at prices two or three times the Alliance scale.

Among the member artists is Howard Turner '41, organizer of the Harvard undergraduate exhibition recently held in the Germanic Museum. Turner's line drawings are notable for their simplicity and sharpness, and their effective use of contrast, while his watercolors are no less excellent. Samuel M. Greene, another exhibitor, was a former Harvard student and instructor. The other members are King Coffin, Richard deMenocal, Laurence Kupferman, Arthur Louges, and Elizabeth Titcomb. Current guest artists' are John Gregory, Diane Nemerov, and Alphonso Ossorio.

Art in America has always tended to be too far removed financially from any but the wealthiest audience. Both the public and the artist suffered accordingly, and both should be glad to hear of an attempt to bring them closer together.