24 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
ANITA GRAY CHANDLER 
7 Edison Avenue. Tufts College, Mass. 
Page Editor 
AT THE SIGN 
OF THE 
BRUSH AND PALETTE 
This is Ye Old Art Inn 
where the worker of Arts and 
Crafts may rest a bit and par- 
take of refreshment. 
WHERE is all the poetry our women painters were going 
to bring into the world of art to elevate mankind ?" 
inquires the critic of The Art World in an acid discussion of 
certain nudes in the Spring Exhibition of the National Academy, 
painted by three Boston women, Gertrude Fisk, Helen Turner 
and Harriette Clark. "Where is the moral superiority that 
they were to contribute to save a race from slipping back into 
the tophet of animalism, of which we have heard so much? 
If our women painters can't do better they had better go back 
to china painting or washing dishes, then they will at least be 
doing something really useful and not make their own sex 
blush for them." He inserts one drop of balm into the acid — 
china painting is "really useful," as useful as dish washing. 
He probably has not seen an exhibition of china for a decade, 
and the names of Callowhill, Cherry, Mason, O'Hara and 
Paist mean nothing to him. 
In an interesting article entitled The Rise of American 
China Painting, Lida Rose McCabe tells of Dorothea Warren 
O'Hara's conversion from the naturalistic to the conventional 
school of decoration. In the course of the interview Mrs. 
O'Hara is reported as saying, "When I think of the atrocious 
things I painted in response to popular demand, I wonder how 
I can ever be forgiven! I taught china painting in Kansas 
and Montana. Money was imperative and it was the only 
way I could earn it. But while I taught and perpetrated I 
felt intuitively that I was doing wrong. Subconsciously, I 
knew I was sowing seeds of ugliness where flowers of beauty 
were possible. How to bring about the latter miracle was 
mystery to me. There were no museums or collections, no 
art journals, illustrated magazines or text books accessible 
to art gropers of the Western country. While teaching in 
Montana my crimes in the name of art got on my nerves! I 
broke away and came East. At the Philadelphia Centennial 
Exposition I met a friend. Passing a case of china she said, 
'Was there ever anything so horrible?' Glancing over her 
shoulder I saw the work of my Montana pupils. 'Horrible,' 
I repeated. 'Let's not look at it!' And I dragged her away." 
From the East Mrs. O'Hara went to study in Germany and 
England. "In the European galleries," she continues, "I 
wakened to the beauty of Chinese, Japanese and Persian 
potteries." It is of interest to note that the Museum of 
Tokio has since purchased two of her enameled jars for its 
permanent collection. 
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has recently acquired 
through the generosity of Denman W. Ross his priceless col- 
lection of Chinese and Japanese pottery, porcelain, silk hang- 
ings and jewelled sword cases. These have been in the 
museum as a loan collection for some time. 
♦ ♦ ♦ 
The Metropolitan Museum gives a course of lectures that 
is a little out of the ordinary, to say the least. It is designed 
especially for the interests of sales people, buyers and design- 
ers of the department stores. Professor Grace Cornell of 
Teachers' College conducts a seminar every Saturday evening 
at 8 o'clock. These are most informal and questions are 
solicited. The course tries to show how to recognize good 
color, good line, and the other qualities that give value to art. 
The 21st annual celebration of Founder's Day was ob- 
served at Carnegie Institute on April 26. 
An exhibition of the art of color printing was opened at 
the Rhode Island School of Design on April 24. 
Graceful example of Japanese pottery, Korean influence. The first pottery 
made in Koda bears the date 1632 and was the work of a Korean named 
Sonfcai. Early pieces have white brush marks under the glaze. Later 
the decoration takes the form of lines in Mishima. Both of these meth- 
ods are Korean. Finally a true Japanese method developed, bringing 
in designs of natural objects, impressed, of plum-blossoms and bamboo. 
This jar has looped handles, a pottery cover, and is decorated with a large 
peony in white Mishima. It is five inches tall. 
(Courtesy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) 
An exhibition of lustrous gold china and decorated glass 
by Sidney T. Callowhill attracted a number of visitors to the 
Arts and Crafts Shop, Boston, during the months of April 
and May. Mr. Callowhill's lustres are so well known it is 
useless to describe them here, but his glass decoration is some- 
thing new, taken up within the past year, and quite probably 
enforced by the scarcity of suitable shapes in white china. 
He uses both transparent and opaque colors with excellent 
effect. All the designs are simple, flat, delicately colored, 
and decidedly pleasing. The entire exhibition was posed 
against effective backgrounds of hand-made linens and black 
velvet. 
There has been a long felt need for just such a text book 
as Henrietta Barclay Paist has given to china decorators in 
(Continued on page 37) 
