Milles on Tour

Down steep Art Hill in St. Louis's Forest Park last week went vanloads of crated sculpture. Forty of the works of Swedish Sculptor Carl Milles--ranked by many a critic as greatest in the generation following Rodin--were en route to the second stop on their U. S. tour: St. Louis to Detroit, to Cleveland, to Toledo, to Brooklyn. They will tarry in the art museums of each city about six weeks. Never before have art lovers in the U. S. had the chance of so long or so extensive a look at Milles' handiwork. In fact, nowhere else except in his own garden outside Stockholm has such an array of Milles ever been seen. At the 56th Street Galleries, Manhattan, last year there was a small exhibition. George Fisher Baker Jr. bought a fountain -- similar to one in the sculptor's home -- for $20,000. Banker Baker set his fountain up in the garden of his Park Avenue town house. Intelligent observers who visit the Milles work this winter will have no trouble in dividing the subjects into two groups. First group exemplifies a tortured Norse brooding. Prime example is the central figure from the Folkunga Fountain at Linkoping, commemorating the legendary Swedish hero Folke Filbyter, progenitor of the royal Swedish house of Folkungarna. According to legend. Folke was a harsh man who incurred the wrath of the Church. Monks spirited his grand son away. For years Folke roamed the countryside on horseback, looking for the boy. After 24 years, as he was dying, he found his grandson well and happy, serving as the King's secretary. The Milles Folke Filbyter grips a weary horse between his knees. The horse, swinging sideways to avoid rough going in the road, is balanced by the figure of Folke, who leans outward and downward, searching the road in another direction. There is a tragic bend and twist and movement to the piece seldom found in an equestrian statue.

Other phase of Milles is jolly, lighthearted, northern Gothic. A good illustration was erected last year on the Stockholm waterfront. Massive, of polished rose granite, it shows little influence on Milles by his teacher Rodin. Two figures, a merman and his mermaid, intertwine in funny fat folds. She is doting; he, looking like the pneumatic Michelin Tire man ("Bibendum"), is highly amused.

Carl Milles is 56, short, broad-shouldered, stocky, clean shaven. He has brown hair and big hands. With his big hands he likes to do sculpture of heroic size. He has prospered; his house is one of Sweden's showplaces. His wife is an Austrian who paints. They like to travel, particularly in the U. S. where they have many a friend and admirer. He teaches part of the year at Stockholm's Royal Akademie, goes to see Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf with whom he is intimate.

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