Pleasure in Pittsburgh

Thanks to the Carnegie Institute's well-known "Internationals,"* Pittsburghers have had a good chance to watch the tides of modern art. Last week Fine Arts Director Gordon Bailey Washburn opened his first big show there since he took over the job last fall.

The show illustrated eight centuries (1100-1900) of French art in 172 paintings, drawings and illuminations. They filled four galleries on Carnegie's top floor, gave a chronological picture of French art from Romanesque frescoes to Cezanne. Gallerygoers could pick out the contrasts for themselves from clear, strong Pietas to a frowzy Toulouse-Lautrec chorus girl kicking up her heels in a smoky turn-of-the-century nightclub. First & last, the show was full of French vitality--and reassuringly unmodern. With mild understatement Washburn says, "People in general are pleased to see something they can understand."

Director Washburn, 46, seemed to have most of the 2.000 opening-night visitors on his side. Said one: "It's certainly nice to see something that you don't have to stand on your head to figure out."

Washburn had thought of something else: half a dozen wheelchairs for the footsore. Said he: "I see no reason why a person who wants to spend a couple of hours or so shouldn't be comfortable."

*Held each year before the war, now every two years; next one, in 1952.

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