Lyricists

In the confused orchestration of Manhattan art galleries last week two flute parts and a vigorously bowed violin made lyric music:

Flautists. At the Reinhardt Galleries, 26 paintings by Spaniard Hipolito Hidalgo de Caviedes gave Manhattanites their first good look at the work of the Carnegie First Prize Winner of 1935. A specialist in china-clear coloring and slightly rococo composition, Artist de Caviedes brought none of his paintings with him when he hurriedly left Madrid a year ago, last week displayed mostly new pictures done in Cuba, including a starchy self-portrait (see cut). Hard for hard- shelled critics to resist were his cloudless canvases of Jark-skinned Cuban musicians and dancers, bright still-lifes, chic panels entitled Angel Musicians, Voluptuousness of the Rain. Artist de Caviedes left Spain because he had been painting murals in the Vatican just before the Revolution broke out and leaving the part of Spain he was in seemed the prudent thing to do. At the Milch Galleries, a young U. S. painter of romantic renown showed 19 unusual paintings of the Maine coast. Husky Stephen Etnier, Yale '26, married pretty Elizabeth Jay, of Westbury, L. L, and took her to sea on his schooner, the Morgana. Then they bought an island at the mouth of the Kennebec River and retreated from the world. Results: from Mrs. Etnier, a best-selling diary, On Gilbert Head; from Mr. Etnier, more & better clean, sea-breezy paintings of clambakes, sailing ships, ocean. In getting off-shore glitter, cool sky and the white spots of human figures into the right places on canvas, Artist Etnier's new paintings proved him a pleasurable if not a very powerful sea-scapist. Best picture: Rough Crossing, looking down as if from a masthead on a fisherman's launch in a choppy sea.

Fiddler. Friend and onetime teacher of Stephen Etnier is Detroit's first-rate fantasist, John Carroll, whose place in the main stream of U. S. painting has always been a puzzle to pedants. During the last year Artist Carroll, who likes to ride with the Old Chatham Hunt Club, has been kept at his painting by his wife, Georgia, despite the acquisition of a fine white Irish hunter. Last week the Rehn Galleries hung a fresh collection of Carroll's diaphanous, warm, pink nudes, glinting pickaninny-like Negresses, superbly deft drawings. Done with less delicacy and more fire than usual were Blacksmith, a composition reminiscent of Franklin Watkins, and Deep Down Blue, a black girl rolling her eyeballs in a voodoo dance. Biggest & best designed picture: Summer Afternoon (see cut), a wispy girl putting up her hair while her contented swain stretches his toes.

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