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House & Garden 
Childe Hassam’s work is so colorful 
that few other pictures would be re¬ 
quired in the room. Milch Galleries 
The Proper Portraits for Rooms 
(Continued from page 72) 
put together and his firm probably had 
done more for the cause of American 
art than any other agency in existence. 
“Of course, you want first to have in 
mind what you are going to do with 
the portrait. First of all, a portrait is a 
picture, and by the same token, it can 
be a beautiful decoration and can fall 
into whatever decorative scheme you 
wish. There are a great many good 
portrait painters in this country, but 
no two of them paint exactly alike, 
and where the work of one would be 
suitable the work of another would not 
harmonize. 
For English and Colonial Rooms 
“Let us suppose, first, that you want 
something of a decorative character for 
an Old English type of room. For this 
you will want the work of a tonalist— 
a man whose art is more or less founded 
on that of the old masters. Louis Betts, 
Irving Wiles, and, among the younger 
men, Eugene Speicher, would probably 
be especially successful with portraits 
of women. Of men, I can think of no 
one better than Mr. Betts, August 
Franzen, or Joseph De Camp, of Boston. 
“Perhaps Miss Cecilia Beaux would 
also come into this group for both men 
and women, although I should be in¬ 
clined to think the character of her 
work would better fit in the lighter type 
of architecture, such as our Colonial 
type homes furnish. In addition to 
Miss Beaux in this group, which is dis¬ 
tinguished for lighter keyed effects, 
would be Frank Benson, of Boston, Jean 
McLane and Richard Miller as painters 
of women, and Gari Melchers and again 
Louis Betts as good painters of men. 
The Vigorous School 
“There is another group character¬ 
ized by exceedingly vigorous work 
which resembles in its strength the can¬ 
vases of Hals and some of the old 
masters, and this school is composed 
of George Luks, Robert Henri, George 
Bellows and their followers, of whom 
there are several. The portraits of 
these men are appropriate almost any¬ 
where, but on account of their strength 
and individuality one has to be careful 
not to place them where they will ‘kill’ 
another picture of quieter key but equal 
merit. They are the broadest in tech¬ 
nique of all our American painters, par¬ 
ticularly Luks and Henri. Bellows’ 
landscapes and genre work are very 
broad, but he is inclined to be a bit 
more finished when he comes to por¬ 
traits, and his touch is exceedingly sym¬ 
pathetic and full of understanding. 
“Lydia Emmett’s portraits of children 
are usually extremely successful and are 
very charming in their pose and deco¬ 
rative quality. In this field again Mr. 
Betts has done splendid work, as has 
also Maurice Fromkes, whose palette 
knife method of laying on his pigment 
and the light, crisp tone of his pictures 
make them particularly well adapted to 
the Colonial room. Ivan Glinsky is one 
of the younger artists whose portraits, 
both of men and children, have been 
very satisfactory. 
After the Old English 
“To generalize once more, the work 
(Continued on page 76) 
“Primrose", by Charles W. Haw¬ 
thorne, is an example of American 
work suitable for decoration 
