Show NEWS THIS WEEK by lem lemuel uel F parlon parton N EW YORK it seems possible 1 that rockefeller center was trying for a delicate cultural balance in getting three alien artists to do its murals right left right left and and cent center er center in the or represented Represent cd der named jose maria sert diego rivera and frank brangwyn were the muralists there was an inevitable clash and now after five years a compro comero mise lenin s head by the hard boiled hard bitten mexican rivera blocked out in 1934 has been re placed by a conventional mural by the spanish sr sert with the ortho dox theme of america americas s continuing development along the old lines the comp compromise amise appears in sr sert s restrained sepia monochrome in stead of his usual lavish outpouring of gold and scarlet verdant green and ecstatic blue sr sert is the most of all living painters here he pipes down if we didn dian t go left with len in our new era isn t going to be as gaudy as the last one it will be a sober industrious thrifty monochrome age with no more high kicking and low think ing that seems to be what sr sert and the rockefeller center people are saying when the big booming sixty one year old spanish painter is going strong he makes Vern onese just a wet net wash with a touch of bluing he was a regular stand by and emergency painter for his friend king alfonso con mucho gusto he can swing the whole spectrum with bold regal effects which are the delight of kings he has done many magnificent rooms in europe including the ma adrid chapel of the duke of alba now franco s commercial envoy to england and sir phillip sassoon s resplendent ballrooms his first exhibition in this country was in 1924 when he received prolonged critical salvos he was born in barcelona of the ancient spanish gentry and studied in pans paris in his ear serf sert swings ay iy youth spectrum from the first with gusto he developed bold ness and ance both in color and technique briffault s pre war europe which was to have gone on forever but didn dian t knew him for its very own his new monochrome fits an age 0 er with the pale cast of thought in the current argument between government and business it is in te resting to note that the temple of business gets back to the muses and the classical symbols of work and labor after its brief leftward deviation in 1933 in washington such bold innovators as henry var num poor and george biddle still state tortuous new themes in the government murals but there s not so much splash in those rockefeller center murals as there might have been in say 1928 young BURGESS MEREDITH 1 at the age of twenty eight is picked to run actors equity assoria tion for a time at least A star on broadway a coun meredith try squire a hoi hol was tossed lywood success on upgrade he has had more t tossing 0 s s i n g around than a roller coaster addict with the up upgrade grade all in the depression years in lakewood a suburb of cleve land his father was a doctor and his grandfather an evangelist his uncle joe whom he greatly ad mired was in vaudeville he washed dishes and tended fur naces during one sad and lonely year at amherst ran a haberdash ery shop with his brother in cleve land went bankrupt was a reporter on the stamford advocate until they caught him at it sold roofing vacuum cleaners and cosmetics worked in macy s department store sang in church choirs for 4 a sun day lived a week on breakfast food samples and was for a time one of the migrant army of jobless youth the depression brought him luck in 1929 he got a letter of introduce intro duc tion to eva ie gallienne Gal henne and a pay less job as an apprentice actor his climb was slow depression he first attained was really high visibility in lady luck she loves me not in 1933 he clinched his gains in his three max well anderson plays winterset 1 high tor and star wagon his estate is near that of mr an derson in rockland county new york where he is very busy with house building dogs and books he has an eager avid mind buzzing with new ideas he is a faithful intellectual under study of the older mr anderson and his genius chimes in perfectly with mr anderson s exalted blank verse dramaturgy he is five feet seven inches tall weighs pounds and is no matinee idol listed briefly at booking agency as blond and homely when he first went after a job in the theater his wife is the distin actress margaret perry ad C consolidated news feature features service |