Prix de Rome

To 24-year-old A. Clemens Finley, Jr., of West Virginia, was awarded, against 14 competitors, this year's Prix 'de Rome--a three-year fellowship with a residence and a studio in the American Academy in Rome and a yearly allowance of $1,000. Artist Finley's personal history includes a great variety of jobs, as "adjusting electric metres, running a coffee house, working in the Art Department of The Washington Post, finding lost baggage for tourists in Paris." Of the 15 applicants the jury retained 3 for further consideration--A. Clemens Finley, Jr., T. C. Richards, both students of the National Academy of Design (Manhattan) and M. J. Mueller, of the Yale University School of Fine Arts. These three were given four weeks to submit a mural on the subject Spring. Although his painting was not completed, the jury (composed of E. H. Blashfield, F. C. Jones, Douglas Volk, Eugene Savage and Russell Cowles) voted for Finley because of the soundness of his composition. He will sail shortly for Rome. "Magic Needle''

Throughout the U. S. will soon be exhibited an educational cinema entitled The Magic Needle, demonstrating the art of etching for the first time in complete visual form, from beginning to end. William Meyerowitz, famed American painter-etcher, in a narrative setting, goes through the process of etching, from posing the model, a ballet dancer, to drawing off the first proof from the press. The Magic Needle may prove a boon to those persons who frequent print rooms and constantly become involved in violent altercation trying to distinguish between engraving, etching and dry point.