The Post-Crescent from Appleton, Wisconsin • 60

TV jsT February 14, 1971 Sunday Post-Crescent 8 Where Has Horton Been? s. ffifflW'iy. 7 Gogh. He got acclaim during his lifetime though he didn't especially bask in it but upon his death was nearly forgotten, mainly because his son, not realizing the value of daddy's works, stored most of the paintings and drawings so that there was a William S. Horton painting gap' which wasn't filled until an American couple pointed out to the son, recently, that he was sitting on a gold mine.

So, the works were cleaned and framed and are now circulating, with Paine Art Center the present stop, through the end of the month. As a result of Horton's relative obscurity, his paintings (more than a By David F. Wagner Post-Crescent Staff Writer OSHKOSH Perhaps William S. Horton is the foremost American impressionist painter, but I dare you to find him even mentioned in the current edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Horton (1865-1936) was a native of North Dakota, whose parents discouraged every attempt he made to paint with oils.

Finally, he ran away and, eventually, became a highly-reputed European-based impressionist, with strong influences by Cezanne and Van thousand) are selling for considerably less than his contemporaries' creations are garnering. Where a major Horton oil goes for between $10,000 and $25,000, a major work by better known impressionists may demand between $100,000 and more than a million dollars. From an investment standpoint, a Horton purchase would seem wise, considering the popularity of Impressionism these days. Some of his drawings sell in the $250400 range. The work shown on this page, a 1922 oil titled "Skaters at Gstaad," is the most expensive in the exhibit, $25,000.

Monet felt that Horton was "the greatest painter of snow who ever lived," acclaim which speaks well for the subtlety of Horton's brush. Exactly where Horton rates on the all-time snow painters list, or even among Impressionists, is open for discussion, but it is a certainty that the next time Britannica revises its edition, William S. Horton will be included. mam 4k "Three Musicians," by Blaine Larson, brings Center. In all, 11 artists are represented in the this Washington's artist's strange, organic pat- comprehensive show, "Washington Artists." terns to the display gallery of the Madison Art Washington Color School Shown xkwtr vm ah 4 The value of this oil by American impressionist William S.

Horton is $25,000. At least that is the asking price of the painting, currently displayed at Paine Art Center, Oshkosh. tradition in which the 11 artists are working. Gene Davis, for example, is represented by an untitled work done 10 years ago. A tight, hard-edged multicolor acrylic, Davis' work gives a real feeling of impenetrable space.

In contrast are the efforts of Howard Mehring, whose work of a decade ago shows his free, light overall patterning of almost-faded pastel acrylics. Since then he has moved through sewing straight-line sections of the over-all pattern style to a definite hard-edge idea. Yet he has retained the openness of his earlier works. Perhaps the most dramatic of the Washington school is Sam Gilliam. In addition to the works at the Art Center, Gilliam is one of the American artists currently represented in an international exhibition in India.

Gilliam's paintings leave behind the frame-stretcher in favor of delicately draped hangings. The huge canvases provide three-dimensional space without entering the world of sculpted paintings. Rather, they become an extension of the entire painting process and illustrate the aspect of aesthetics literally billowed into multiple gesture. Paul Reed reveals his shift from By Hayward Allen Post-Crescent Correspondent MADISON A comprehensive, innovative presentation of the range and growth of the Washington Color School tradition is being offered at the Madison Art Center through March 31. Called "Washington Artists," it features the work of 11 of the artists and sculptors who were represented at the Baltimore Museum of Art last year in a similar showing, "Washington: Twenty Years," as well as in "Washington Artists 1950-1970" at Edmonton, Canada.

Included in the group exhibition, first of this magnitude in Wisconsin, are the innovations of Gene Davis, Howard Mehring, Thomas Downing, Paul Reed; plexiglass sculpture of Rockne Krebs; brightly-colored plexiglass works of Ed McGowin; painted wood sculpture of Blaine Larson; poured rubber sculptures of Ed Zerne, and unusual works of William Christenberry, Elliot Thompson and Sam Gilliam. "Washington Artists" is particularly significant for the insight it provides the viewer into the development of the conventional organic presences to geometric structures that just recently led to shaped canvases of a two-dimensional perspective. In contrast are. the mathematical progressions of Elliot Thompson. Blaine Larson offers his own strange, organic patterns.

Two of the artists work with plexiglass. Ed McGowin uses optical patterns distorted under the pressure of vacuum-shaped material. Rockne Krebs infuses colors into triangles of plexiglass, and the effect is one of soft diffusion on the polished edges. Ed Zerne is the most interesting of all the artists, in that he departs most dramatically from the Washington School. Color plays a definite role in the works presented at the Art Center, and Zerne is far from colorless.

However, the young artist has left the conventional media and has journeyed into the world of wood, metal, and polyurethane foam. His works are macabre, yet they have a sense of statement, as well as carrying off the desired effect of shock. And they are touchable, which is half Zerne's art. The exhibition of "Washington Artists" has been made possible largely by a young Madison doctor, Donald Eiler. Dr.

Eiler came into contact with the artists represented while he was living in Washington, D.C. and working with the Public Health Service. He and his wife waited a year before they began buying paintings of the Washington artists. One purchase led to another, one contact led to another, until Eiler discovered that in the process of a year he had become a major collector. When he moved to Madison in July, the Eiler family was confronted with the problem of finding walls big enough to hang several paintings.

The Art Center was willing to put them to good use, and the contact led eventually to this month's exhibition. After seeing his and his artist's possessions thoughtlessly hanging in the Baltimore exhibit, Dr. Eiler promised that he would provide the best show possible, in Madison. Eiler has made good his promise, with the generous aid of the Madison Art Center, which raised ceilings, painted walls and did everything in its power to provide the artists' works the necessary and proper space. Each work has its own area, thereby making the "Washington Artists" show one which holds significance both to viewer and creator.

AT THE GALLERIES CHICAGO Chicago Art Institute, Michigan Avenue at Adams Street "Durer and His Predecessors" (through March 28). Museum of Contemporary Art, 237 Ontario St. "Murals for the People" (through March 13). GREEN BAY Neville Museum, 129 S. Jefferson St.

"Landscapes of Czechoslovakia" from collection of Mr. Mrs. John M. Rudolf (concludes Tuesday). MADISON Madison Art Center, 620 E.

Gorham St. "Nine Washington Artists" (through Feb. 27). Elvehjem Art Center, 800 University Ave. "The 'English' Me-diam: Watercolors of the 18th and 19th Centuries (through March 21).

MANTOWOC Rahr Civic Center, 610 N. Eighth St. Between major shows. MILWAUKEE Milwaukee Art Center 710 N. Lincoln Memorial Dr.

Water-colors by Wassily Kandinsky. "Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture from Schwartz Collection" (through Feb. 28). NEENAH Bergstrom Art Center, 165 N. Park Ave.

"Designs for the Theater; Drawings and Models by John D. Ezell" (through Feb. 28). OSHKOSH Oshkosh State University Between major shows. Oshkosh Public Museum, 1331 Algoma Blvd.

Paintings by Robert and Shirley Ekholm (through Feb. 28). Paine Art Center, 1410 Algoma Blvd. Paintings and Drawings of William S. Horton (through Feb.

28). SHEBOYGAN John Michael Kohler Art Center "Feathered Splendor" (through March 7). 'Feathered Splendor' Is Kohler Art Show SHEBOYGAN "Feathered Splendor," an exhibition dramatizing man's use of feathers in costume, decoration and ceremony from approximately 900 A.D. to the present, is on display through March 7 at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, 608 New York Ave. Objects in the exhibition were gathered by the Arts Center staff from public and private collections throughout the United States.

Among the museum contributors are U.C.LA.'s Ethnic Collections, the Milwaukee Public Museum, the Birmingham Museum in Alabama, Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History and the Wisconsin State Historical Society. Ranging from the very primitive to highly sophisticated examples of contemporary arts and crafts, the exhibition contains a wide variety of objects created in diverse cultures and countries such as China, New Guinea, Peru, Mexico, North America, Europe and Africa. One of the most magnificent artifacts is a chief's cloak dating about 1883 from a Maori tribe in New Zealand. Orange and peacock eye-feathers have been woven -into a flax material. Among the oldest pieces in the exhibition are the Peruvian items.

All are pre-Columbian. An ear-spool, for example, dates from approximately 900 A.D. Dozens of whole parakeet pelts have been used in a belt of the Piro tribe. Other pieces make use of brilliant beetle wings and woven material with the feathers. Among the more interesting American Indian artifacts in the exhibit are Peyote fans.

Made of eagle or pheasant feathers attached to a leather handle, the fans were and are held by participants of the North American Church, a Plains Indian religion or cult, whose sacrament involves the consumption of peyote, a small cactus with hallucinogenic qualities. Included in the section of "Feathered Splendor" devoted to the contemporary use of feathers are the weavings, ceramics and jewelry of Ken Shores, of Portland, James Leedy, Kansas City, and Megan Lloyd Hill, Santa Fe, N.M. Anne Zemba, of Sheboygan, is represented by a woven three-dimensional hanging and by a necklace of yarn, feathers and glass beads. Elvehjem acquire an important group of English watercolors grew out of an enthusiasm for the art form shared by the English department and the Elvehjem staff. Professor Karl Kroeber, formerly of the UW and now Professor of English at Columbia University, will give a public lecture on the relationship of the watercolors to 19th century English literature.

The tune and place of the lecture will be announced. The exhibition will run through March 21 at the Elvehjem Art Center, 800 University Ave. Travel Notes Hie world's longest and fastest man-made toboggan run is at Grayling, according to the Michigan Tourist Council. Speeds up to 100 miles an hour are possible on the slide. 1 English Watercolors af Two pieces of fabric, cut, sewn, painted and draped, comprise Sam Gilliam's "Carousel." Gilliam, who was present at the Madison Art Center for the show of which his work is a part, returned recently from India, where he represented the U.S.

in an international exhibition. Guggenheim Exhibition Included among the works purchased through Anonymous and Humanistic Foundation Funds are watercolors by Richard Bonington, Muirhead Bone, Peter de Wint, Miles Birket Foster, William Gilpin, John Abbott, Edward Dayes, John Varlcy, Julius Caesar Ib-betson, and William Payne. David Cox's "The Mill at Porth Llwyd, Wales" was a gift of Miss Charlotte Gregory. In addition to this core of Elvehjem watercolors, important examples have been lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Museum of Arts and the Toledo Museum, including works by Gainsborough, John Sell Cotman, and John Robert Cozens. One main purpose of the exhibition is to serve an academic department of the University, in this case English, by supplementing its program through the pictorial arts.

The Elvehjem's decision to MADISON A group of English watercolors recently acquired by the Elvehjem Art Center are displayed for the first time in a show entitled "The 'English' Medium: Watercolors of the 18th and 19th Centuries." The exhibition focuses on the water-color medium developed by English artists who elevated it to a major art form uniquely their own. Books in Demand FICTION Love Story Erich Segal QB VII Leon Uris Rich Man, Poor Man Irwin Shaw Islands in the Stream Ernest Hemingway Passenger to Frankfurt Agatha Christie NEW YORK Among the 46 works in the Sixth Guggenheim International Exhibition are several pieces created in the Guggenheim Museum itself which make use of the building's spiraling structure. The exhibition fills the entire museum through April 11, focusing on the late 1960s and with heavy emphasis on the most recent work of the 21 participating artists from eight countries, the majority of whom come from the United States. The Guggenheim Internationals, which have been held at the museum since 1956, traditionally were confined to works of a single medium selected on the basis of a national quota system. Given this format, each International held to a different aim with the last event, in 1967, conceived as a collection of 20th century sculpture.

According to Peter Lawson-Johnston, president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the current International, then, represents a departure from the more rigid framework of previous exhibitions. The '71 International contains painting, sculpture, environmental, conceptual and process art Instead of showing a maximum number of artists through single examples, the few artists chosen are represented through as many works as can be placed. A number of purchase prizes may be awarded and announced in the course of the exhibition. Thomas M.

Messer, director of the Guggenheim Museum, assigned the selection of the Sixth International to two associate curators. Diane Waldman traveled throughout the United States, Canada and Western Europe while Edward F. Fry visited South America, the Orient and Eastern Europe. The overwhelming artistic development of the last five years which the exhibition serves to establish is the displacement of the finite object in favor of the idea. The current trends toward earth and process art are rooted in the premises established hi the middle 1960s by the minimalist sculptors Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt.

Diane Waldman concludes in the exhibition catalogue: "What seems to be at issue at the outset of the 1970's, is no longer the question of whether one can still make a painting or sculpture, in conventional terms, but the larger definition of what, indeed, is art." Artists in the exhibition are: Carl Andre, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Donald Judd, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra and Lawrence Weiner, United States; Victor Burgin and Richard Long, England; Daniel Buren, France; Hanne Darboven, Germany; Antonio Dias, Brazil; Jan Dibbets, Holland; On Kawara and Jiro Takamatsu, Japan; and Mario Men, Italy. Walter De Maria will be represented in the exhibition in part by a half-hour color film titled "Hard Core," made in 1969. It will be shown in the museum every Saturday and Sunday at 2, 3, 4 and 5 p.m. There't no better way to relax after a jousting day at the office than by painting. On your way home, pick up tome art supplies at Stfmfott ART DRAFTING MATERIALS OFFICE FURNITURE SUPPLIES 213 E.

College Appleton Phone 739-9431 NON-FICTION The Greening of America Charles Reich Inside the Third Reich Alfred Speer The Sensuous Woman li Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex Dr. David Reuben Future Shock i Alvin Toffler "The Mill at Porth llwyd, Wales," is the title of this by David Cox which is included in the current at Elvehjem Art Cener, Madison..