Thirty-Six Years Exhibiting in Washington Square Art Show

by Joseph Delaney
March 27, 1968

---

These printed remarks and comments about the long experiences as a street artist could fill volumes, but I only want to point out the bright lights. I haven't given any special treatment to the more intimate relationships in the show, which is that of personal friends who never forgot me and who looked me up each show and gave me their warm greetings. I can't name them all, and give each one the individual classification they have in my memory and heart and admiration. However, I can't fail to point out Mrs. Wood, a long and devoted patron and friend, who never misses stopping and spending some time with me through the years. I must point out that my exhibiting has not been confined to showings in outdoor art shows. I have skipped many of the outdoor exhibitions, showing in other places - museums and galleries and special events in hotels. In 1942, I had two paintings in the Metropolitan Museum exhibition of the Arizona Collection. The paintings are in the permanent collection of the University of Arizona. I would like to say that the leading American artists of that period were in the famous collection. In the following years, I exhibited at the Whitney Museum, then on East Eighth Street, also at the Brooklyn Museum and Riverside Museum and many galleries.

---

In May 1931, I registered at the old Brevoort Hotel on East Eighth Street, one step down from the sidewalk into the office of Vernon Porter. A genial executive on the job, I gave the information required and was allotted a spot on Sullivan Street, middle of the block on the east side, which is now the Village headquarters for the Legal Aid Society.

At the time of the first show of 1931, in the same building's basement, was a place called the Gold Coast operated by blonde twins. This era was the dying day of old prohibition. I pointed out this section because Sullivan Street stops at Washington Square Park, the traditional old park with the arch and the central circle and fountain that has for many years been the meeting-place for villagers, visitors, tourists and all couriers. Now the hippies and beatniks and other of that tribe gather around and enjoy the green with festive guitar music, drums, harps and a few new innovations in instruments and fill the air with folk songs and sound from all periods of time - just about - that is the setting today.

Back in the early thirties, only a few wild ones raised eyebrows by letting their hair down and whooping it up in the park, and they were quickly reminded to get to the bowery for that kind of conduct. One of the great treats of the period was to ride the open-air deck of the Fifth Avenue bus and take in the sights. The buses started from the south end of the park and drove around the circle and through the arch up Fifth Avenue and up Riverside Drive and other points in the city. The route today is somewhat changed, there is no automobile traffic in the park at all. Some of the studios of John Brown, the great New York painter, show Washington Square at that period.

Incidentally, Mr. Sloan used to walk around the show and see the artist work from his studio, then in the old Judson Hotel. I think this briefing is good, to work in the atmosphere of the geography and other local color.

From my vantage point in the middle of the block, I had the advantage of looking north through the park with the joyous New York skyline raising in the background including the Empire State Building, and looking south out Sullivan Street, the view is a continuous grouping of old tenement buildings. One colorful event is the spring show; on the extreme end of Sullivan Street south, the lights go on for the Spring Festival.

Across the street where now stand the Law School of New York University, was in those days the Strowsky, two and three-story apartments with iron fences and gates with short lawns in from facing Fourth Street. There was a narrow court between Fourth Street and Third Street in the rear. Middle of the block, there was an old gate, which opened to studios. Gocky, one of the well-known artists of that period, lived in one of the studios. The whole atmosphere was one of a neighborhood of artists and poets. On the Fourth Street side of South Washington Square, in the early thirties, was exhibited the poetry show, between Sullivan Street and West Broadway. The famous Roving Poetry club poet McCruden, of whom I did a portrait, was the head of the group. Mr. McCruden lived on McDougal Alley. Poets met at this studio, such well-knowns at that time as Jennroir Tarseu, Maxwell Brodenheim, the writer Joe Gould, Harry Kemp and others of that group which I can't remember now, but I do recall that an anthology was published in the thirties with leading Village poets in it.

I never entered any of my poetry, or altered any of the forms, but I used to go to the readings at Us! Charles Street, one step down from the street on the wild side in looks, no paint anywhere, seldom-washed floors, pieced-together chairs and leaning tables - all the signs of the depression were in this place. The poets blended well with the setting - shaggy is the most descriptive work I can use. One great name who towers from that period who I can remember hearing poets talk so much about was Enda St. Vincent Millary, who lived on Cornelius Street. Her famous poems were all the rage then.

Hard times had saturated the raw existence of most student painters who were hardly getting by on hand-outs and odd jobs - which was my lot. I posed as an artist's model, did odd jobs in the Village to pay my rent of $7 to $10 a month in a loft on Third Street and Wooster Street and Bond Street to name a few of the lofts I worked.

All of this is setting the stage for my curtain rising, twice a year, the spring and fall exhibition of paintings and drawings. The language of the sidewalk-exhibiting artists is special. Meeting the public with your creations can and is exciting and sometimes frightening. This feeling is strongest when we first exhibit and get the reaction of what we are showing.

Exhibiting studies of people, heads and single figures, one of my very first subjects was a woman pulling a spirited dog, sometimes from my imagination of seeing the subject in real life, a common scene on the streets. The buyer liked the way I had treated the figure of the sultry woman pulling the dog and what happened to the sweater she was wearing, which creased in around her torso. I recall that the buyer was walking a dog. At that early time in my exhibiting, I must confess that most of my subjects had not reached maturity, only the promises of what was to develop later and what I am doing now. I think this idea was considered by the community, which started the show in the first place to encourage potential talent and artists who need the public reaction to their work, which could stimulate their ambition and have them meet sympathetic art patrons. All of this was happening in the shadow of the newly-opened Whitney Museum of American Art on West Eighth Street.

Many well-known artists today were getting their early experiences showing to the public in the Washington Square Outdoor Art Show. One in particular was Jackson Pollack. I recall very clearly when we were exhibiting in McDougal Alley, three of us who were in the Thomas Hart Benton class. This is around 1933. The McDougal Alley behind the Whitney Museum was considered the last word and cream of locations for an artist to exhibit. On either side of the alley were some of the most exclusive and expensive studios in the Greenwich Village, and is today.

The swank cafe on the corner of McDougal Alley and McDougal Street was in itself a place a bohemian glitter and suave sophistication. My memory goes back on those days as truly the avant-garde of the strength of American progressive intellectualism. Freedom of expression and painting were on display in the cradle of the shrine of historic America. The Jumble Shop on the corner of McDougal Alley and McDougal Street welcomed the artists - the feeling of "you are special patrons" greeted the exhibiting artists. The chatter of fine voices and cocktail glasses being served by starched-coated waiters, there were stacks of white fresh napkins and tablecloths at the reach of the tray tables, and watchful eyes seeing to it that your every need was taken care of. This may be a little over or understatement about the management of the Jumble Shop at that time. One thing I am sure of is that the artist was given the welcome mat. In other words, the spirit of what we were doing and what we were reaching for as artists - to communicate with the public, for the venture of the sidewalks around Washington Square as a showing gallery had not been done before, not on this large or organized scale before. Other special dinners were arranged for the artist by the community. The now Director of the Art Students League, Steward Klovis, was active with the Whitney Club, which sponsored its truly lavish dinner for the artist. One well-known restaurant at the time was Mary's, one flight up over Eighth Street facing McDougal.

I really want to talk about selling paintings and doing portraits on the sidewalk from the experiences of one who has for 36 years been doing so in Washington Park, in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, in White Plain's Germantown, two World's Fairs, museums and gallery shows. Of all the exhibitions, no show is more intimate and free and sensitive as the Outdoor Art Exhibit. I am speaking for myself.

I think I can qualify the later impression by saying if the whole idea for showing is to make money and its publicity and to meet people on a strictly commercial scale, it will begin and end as a business which is stimulating an activity - handling creative art works. But I think the true meaning of the spring and fall show in Washington Square goes beyond any commercial limits, though it is true that expensive outlays are appropriated for each show and the commercial aspect is geared to a high pitch today. Exhibiting costs start at $10 to $15 and up for an artist who can afford two or three spaces. A sentimental gesture for talented artists in the first place - free for the asking - and sincerity was all one needed to show in the beginning. Being realistic, time and growth of operation for so many artists could create a giant corporation like we have today to service all the potential exhibitions.

But I want to talk about the dream of sitting on Sullivan Street looking over the green grass in the park, watching people relaxing and enjoying the spark of nature they find under the trees, feeding the pigeons and walking the dog and amusing the children. Old people enjoying the sunshine. Weary travelers and whosoever so please just passing by and making a comment on something you have dared to bring out and show to the public, like a crude scene of one of the colorful in the Village or Penn Station or a whore room scene.

Perhaps a nature study of the countryside or bridge or caricature study of someone you have told a story about in the painting or drawing just for the sake of expressing yourself. That kind of study will make the public talk to you and you can count on what they say because they are reading you. Speaking for myself, I get more out of that communication than when I've sold something. However, selling a painting has a special feeling that is very rewarding to an artist.

Speaking or writing about relationships experienced with the public is the life-blood of exhibiting to the artist, especially those who don't have agents and galleries or other outlets for their work. Artists who have the proper connections don't rely on the man-on-the-street passing by to get his message.

This is a time in the development of an artist who is working and living with the people in a great city like New York, where his or her work is growing or improving, or say free leisure time and experience and the ever-sudden appearance of some competitive artists shows up with something good and frightening in the subject matter with which you work a great deal.

This can be inspiring and challenging, which is healthy, and keeping one modest, walking through the show after getting my show up and stretching my legs to look around and say hello to some of the artists I have known for a long time. I always desire new talent and new styles and a new world of expression. So much is very new and experimental, until the old school of hard drawing and painting is good to see in spots here and there.

At this late date in the shows, from 1931 to 1967, new faces and new places are in the showing areas.

I am trying to fit into all of this setting something which is always present, as I have been conscious of a common touch and living breath of mutual interest, which the artist brings to the sidewalks.

The handling or demonstrating craft is a real talent for the development of an artist of the realistic school. Doing portraits in charcoal or pastel or any medium is quite a challenge to the ability, to the talent, and such training also brings the expression of your subject to life in a short time; a half-hour or even longer for a pastel. I found that this experience sharpened my ability to see and exercise every detail of my artwork with almost automatic precision. Sometimes I would question the real artistic inspiration to the extent that I would produce 25 or more portraits a day. But I can say with every degree of honesty and truth that the artist who can get a likeness and expression of his subject is doing a creative job, and is worthy of a good price for his work. Those artists who don't do the job as well as the more experienced and talented artists do a service if they can give a near likeness, considering working on the spot with a stranger.

Classroom work from the model is something removed from camera-like copy of a customer on the sidewalk. Studio painting is also, again, in a different setting, whether the artist is painting a portrait or creating some other study of the atmosphere. The difference is one is able to concentrate in quiet and private surroundings, which is the proper way to command all of one's unlimited resources.

I make these comparisons because I don't think the general public is interested in more than what the artist does on the spot. Some very fine artists won't expose themselves to sidewalk exhibiting and portrait painting.

My first experience was in the early thirties on Sullivan Street. One portrait of an exhibiting artist went to Mr. Joe Bazzelli. This pencil study is characteristic of some of the early studies. We would talk a lot about art and other things and being very much in our student years, we would do a lot of drawing and comparing and talking shop about artists and the school of painting among ourselves and prospective buyers and interested people.

Doing portraits just happened as a result a talking with interested people and as a result of the boredom of sitting down with nothing to do. I never did any studies for money, for a long time. The artists on my street at that time had no interest in portrait work, especially sketching for pay. The sketch artist was a novel addition to the show after the fourth or fifth year, as I recall, in McDougal Alley originally.

Today the sketch artist is the big attraction to Greenwich Village. Shops for portrait painting are along McDougal Street and Bleecker Street and Third Street the year round. And on the sidewalk on the Avenue of America from Third Street up to Waverly Place for three blocks, this section for many years has been the headquarters for some of the most colorful artists in the portrait business who go to Provincetown in the summer and other resorts in the wintertime.

In my own case, I do more group studies of New York Street scenes than anything else in my artwork. It is so much related to my canvas painting in group scenes - two studies of the artist doing portraits on the street and I plan to do another large one. The gallery behind the artist at work is very interesting. All segments of our society are getting a close look at the artist at work.

I have found that many poets in common with our own are interested in meeting the artist. Sometimes it's the weather, the sky, and mood of the day that brings these interesting people around. Sometimes they're New Yorkers, sometimes they're tourists; but none of this matters when there is the mutual spirit. If it's a portrait study, the sale of a painting or just plain conversation, either creates a pleasant situation.

A little more than the flavor of the stretch of 36 years of showing and exhibiting in Washington Square I will remember. I must say, some of the highlights were just sitting around and seeing the world changing, generations coming and going, young and old faces coming and going. These give a very sober evaluation of life. The artist's life in these years consists of efforts to free his talents, of exhibiting mature work in portraits and paintings if the craft techniques mean anything.

The artist who continues to exhibit on the street, regardless of his or her stature as a painter or sculptor, is a daring, and I might say, naive person to expect more than luck and blessings of those who go against any organized trade, like the galleries and the institution who have a vested interest to influence the trade of popular art in well-known galleries and museums.

This observation is worth examining for those artists who want to get somewhere in the world of face and fortune. The Washington Square Outdoor Committee is a strong and influential organization and can be of valuable help in the life of an artist if they take an interest in your work. Many artists have gone places and are well-established through showing in the Village outdoor show. I recall the showing days of Jackson Pollack in McDougal Alley. He never stayed with the show, though others who today are big names once showed on the street.

I feel that since most artists are very sociable people, they would enjoy the free atmosphere of the delightful weather and beautiful passers-by and association with the public in a rural but a most personal way.

Showing on the curb is a way of life. New York City is providing the place for artists who need to show and don't have galleries and other outlets for their created works. There have been days when I felt very special for one reason or another/ One beautiful day in the summer when the old Brooklyn Dodgers were having a go with the New York Giants, a group of sketch artists were watching the game on television and having a cold beer at the nearby tavern. Early one afternoon, I was as busy as a bee. I didn't understand it then because most of the time I did fewer portraits than most of the really top-rate portrait artists on my street, namely, Charleston Wilson and Rocky Hayden and Joe Moe and Struversky. They were the real cream of the portrait block. Anyway, to tell it as it happened, I saw Mrs. Bordman standing on the corner of Sullivan and Fourth Street about ten yards from me. I am in the middle of a very short block. Charleston Wilson would ordinarily be there with this display and work easel on the corner. At the time I was doing a study of a most distinguished lady from Baltimore. I looked up again and saw Mrs. Bordman walking toward me. She stopped and asked, "Will you do a quick portrait of Arlene Francis? She is here with her television crew and we don't have much time."

The charming lady of whom I was doing a portrait said to me, "Oh, I have all day, now you go ahead and don't keep her waiting. This seems to be your day." Sure enough, I took my portable easel and went around the corner in front of the old Judson Hotel, now the dormitory of New York University.

It was my first opportunity to meet the well-known actress and television program promoter, whose show at that time was known as the Home Show of Arlene Francis.

She interviewed me with several other artists on West Fourth Street. Before the interview, I did a charcoal sketch in about two minutes. While the cameras were ticking away and the lights were on us, a little more time was needed to sketch the charming expressions. However, it would be impossible to miss out on any of her beauty. Her crew was very pleasant and paid me for my sketch and went on their way. By the time I finished the portrait of the lady from Baltimore, the other artists had returned from the tavern and were informed that I had done the sketch of the famous star. Was I in for some congratulations!

I have watched with great interest many times the talent of those portrait artists I've named doing studies on the street. Sometimes they are all busy at once. Then again, one or two might risk the idea that, depending on the subject they are making a study of, the operation is just about routine, technically speaking. An exceptional personality, like a beautiful woman or child, will make the artist do his or her most to sketch the expression. Usually someone with such an unusual attraction will stop the crowd, and cameramen and all the public will gather around the artist who is really on the spot. The sketch usually comes out in flying colors and everyone is happy.

This kind of experience is one of the species that is a daily occurrence in the show. Many different kinds of paintings are hanging all around. On the other side of the street against the fence of the Law School of New York University, are artists with paintings of all descriptions from street scenes, clowns, sea scopes, landscapes, still lifes and about most any subject. Some of the work is very outstanding, depending on what you like as a personal opinion. Through the years, I have seen a lot of painting and artwork of most medias on exhibition in the outdoor show, and at this late date I am as anxious as ever to see what is showing. As a painter and a sketch artist I will not say what is good or bad in art or defend conservatism or extremism is what they are showing. I will say that at this period in my looking and working as a creative painter, my reaction is very sensitive to what I see. Change is an element in New York in all schools of expression. When the rules of the academy have been observed in good drawing, that is, realistic copying of the subject and adding good design or composition or color, if the artist has a great deal of imagination, the story told on the canvas or paper or sculpture will catch the eye of the public. Today, everything that has been devised by man can get away with the label of art. I feel sure that every dreamer is an artist in their own right; the scientist, the mathematician, the astronomer, the inventor, indeed, are some of the greatest artists. However, their world is one of poets and proven conclusions more or less, whose end product contributes to the balance of our great mechanical system of our modern times. The eye and mind is sometimes overstrained to get the story of some of the latest innovations in art. Again, the mind is capable of most anything. All of these exercises in ... how do you figure what that is on that canvas and what do you call that ... or broken glass or please explain the position of that figure in space. This is exciting, to walk around and take in just for looking. But what really kept me coming back all through the years was the beautiful sunshine in the spring and the fresh green in the park, the pigeons, and all the life of the friendly season. Nature is on the move outdoors in the spring, also in the fall. The artist and the people can get together. Sometimes, the artist can protect himself from the uninterested people who want your time and services at the same time. Sometimes those who were interested and want a portrait or want to buy a painting are in a hurry and have some other problem at the moment. Sometimes this person will contact the artist later at the studio of the artist.

The fact that the artist was there and the works were on display is a great opportunity for the artist and patron in the atmosphere of the festival, the charm of an interesting cultural outlet for the neighborhood and city to which flock millions from in and out of town twice a year in the summer and fall.

I didn't know that the show was given such wide publicity until I was taking a plane in May and one of the guest brochures was a color folder with pictures and details about the Washington Square Outdoor Art Show. Seeing some of the familiar scenes of Fifth Avenue and around the Square gave me a feeling of being close by and also was a talking piece with the passenger sitting next to me who was incidentally going to the same place as I was, Knoxville, Tennessee, which was his home and my home also. My seat guest and traveler was a serviceman gong home from Camp Dix in New Jersey. Anyway, we had a good talk about art while we were getting into Knoxville from New York far above the clouds. I did a rough sketch from my window.

This story will be rambling and sometimes unconnected; to piece together the parts as they have fallen in 36 years of the open exposure to the world, with what you think is art and what the public thinks is art will give the artist something to think about. One thing remains - people to me are all that matters, and they take it or leave it in the broad sense and keep coming and going. In the 36 years of sidewalk-vending pictures and peddling talent, the novel has caught on. Something about the open market is close to the instinct of the browser who wants to just walk and take in the sights and be on his or her own and be lost in the great crowd. I have had the advantage for these many years sitting in the middle of a short block where I can see people from two directions, crossing north and south and east and west in all numbers and out into the street - on both sides of the street. Really, the human traffic is so thick, back to back and front to front, until sometimes pushing yourself is the only way to get through the crowd. Baby carriages and babies in arms and sitting on daddy's shoulder and around his neck is one way of seeing the art show. The family dog is on his leash following along. This mass of humanity will move in around Third and Fourth Street areas, verging on Washington Square Park where playgrounds are for the little ones and seats and grass for the parents. On weekends in the spring and fall, the show will have the congested traffic on clear days from 12th Street on Fifth Avenue down to Third Street through Washington Square Park.

Up and down the Avenue of Americas from Eighth Street to Third Street on the east side of the street, exhibiting artists and from Washington Place to Third Street which is three short blocks, sketch artists are lined up with their display of portraits, and are seated with an extra seat for the customer to be comfortable while they are being immortalized before the world to witness. At this section of the show, which is the most intense and exciting demonstration of talent and craft at work, the frozen crowd stands and gazes through the entire development of a portrait, especially if the artist is one like Stewart Anderson, who is a great artist. This is high voltage blood and nerve power on display, plus the experienced know-how of how to humanize the camera within the human figure and a trained sensitive eye. I have seen through the years artists set up easels, artists who didn't have any experience in working on the spot and who didn't have much potential to draw on. And I have watched some artists grow into good portrait artists after trial and error under the eyes of the impartial public who won't spare you if you don't deliver, but will give you a big hand and loud applause if you do a good job and keep you working.

One main attraction to the artist is the pretty girls and women who love the show and keep moving around from display to display, meeting the artists and enjoying the work. Some of these charming beauties are wearing the latest outfits from the scant hippy and beatnik styles to the last word in the other extremes in fashions, from the more conventional to the Village outfit of casual wear and hand-made jewelry and sandals. One thing most of the girls do is wear as little as possible, especially when the weather is hot.

Groups of boys and girls enjoying the warm weather locked in arms make a familiar scene taking in the sights. The girls alone don't see the show. Some of the male crowds are, in these days, wearing long locks around their shoulders and only for the mustache and beaver beard can you make them out from the girls. The fashion-type of boy and girl still exist, conventional in style, friendly, easy-going and very observing and taking things for what they are. This type, alone or in groups, is a vital spectator. On the other hand, we have the troubled characters who live out of bottles of cheap wine and on other drugs. They are many of all ages. The sad part of it all is that so many young people are on display, overdone, something different from the average person. Those in groups drinking, passing by, making remarks, and passing the bottle from one to another might give you a nervous strain for a few minutes until they get around the corner or move over into the park and join the other part of the happy crowd and continue the convention until most of them have gone to sleep or passed out. This everyday scene, too, is a way of life for a large percentage of those who have lost the direction with reality and are on escape routes like most people in their own way. Our social dilemma is a very real expose of all the unrealized dreams of freedom for men and women in these times.

As I have for so long sat around and watched everything in the book pass me, so to speak, meaning togetherness of people. You name it and we have it in the Village. The charm of some of these scenes like black and white and white and black and all degrees of race and color defy all reason by anybody's standard, and the show goes on. I am basically a religious man, and I know that the divine plan for mankind is revealing the truth to the world now as always. Except today our communications have made the world and smaller place and all of us are living in a glass cage. But for all of the changing scenes in the Village during the weeks of outdoor show in the spring and in the fall, one thing remains around the park and the streets flanking the square. So much of life is the same - schools and churches and other organizations have a restraining atmosphere on the adventurers who prey on the tourists and other observers who are getting a close-up of the much talked-about life in Greenwich Village. I don't think more than the overdone scene to be different and carry some of the extremes too far - that is, exhibitionists everywhere you turn, sometimes panhandlers, young and old, will, out of the dark, walk up at times when we are doing a portrait and ask for whatever you can spare. This is routine and a part of the show. My mind looks back through the years at the peculiar times when these disturbances have happened and all of the artists shake off any distraction and see life for what it really is on the street, all of which is material for painting and each scene on the street is a way of life.

One of my studies, which got so much attention, was a painting on Coney Island, an 18" by 40" canvas. The skyline of the old Coney Island before the very latest face-lifting; I have the beach scene of all the bathers also. I have enjoyed, more than I can say, seeing people and hearing them speak about a spot they love and enjoy. All types of people would stand and point out things about that place so much a part of each one.

The curtain goes up on the stage of life every time we walk into the street. Our role is not always sure or rehearsed, for the great drama we may play is any part just for being on the scene. In spite of New York's being the most congested city I have been in and know about in its most crowded areas - Coney Island, all the parks in the summer-time, especially Central Park and up and down Broadway and Fifth Avenue - by and large, it's just people on the move. If there is any difference in the Village with what I can compare with other parts is that artists are always on the scene one way or the other.

The tradition goes way back in years before any time in the early thirties, when the poets as well as painters used to exhibit their poems for the public to read. The East Village is a new school in the overall life of the Greenwich Village proper. Tompkins Park is so alive in a different way until Washington Square Park is dull in comparison. Several times last summer, I was in the park in the early afternoon and I saw the real hippy crowd gathered around and they are something void of any inhibitions from all I could see. I was impressed with the new freedom they expressed in most of their communications with each other. They all seem to get the message, whatever that is. I confess I felt outside. One of two things - bashfulness or being square on romance - was not in evidence.

I did feel the evidence of the third party somewhere on the scene to bring out this jumping life. Music, instrumental and vocal, was in the air and hearts of these young people. I got a charge from looking on and feeling the vibration. I don't know if in the future I will spend much time sitting around in the park in the Village or doing portraits or showing my paintings. I feel very much the need to get to Europe and have a fresh breath of art air in Paris and the other cities of the Old World. One thing I know about America - this comparatively young nation - its fiery spirit is always blowing hot and cold between one or more of its national problems from the many sides of our political life, economic and domestic. During my exhibiting years in the park, many slogans have been heard to point up change in our national life - the New Deal for three decades on the sprawling home-front whose impact was felt around the world, and the Second World War which found us exhibiting as usual and avoiding the war.

Historians, whose accounts of those years will have more to say than I can, will be talking for years to come on the social and domestic and political structure of our present times. The painters of those years will have commentaries in paintings and drawings; what reactions were registered by sensitive artists, not unlike Goya and many others. All through history, the American artist has told a very real and exciting story of the broken trails of lives in this country and especially in our most modern era. As an Afro-American painter, I exhibited recently in an all Afro-American collection of painting from 1800 to 1950. Included in the exhibition were very mature artists, some of this period and others of earlier periods, truly masters in their day who remain on the list of great painters of all times.

The life of the show in general to me was the story told of a people who are looking and searching and fighting their way back into the society of people of this democratic life in America as we know it. It would be naive to say that the American way of life has reached full maturity. I think every American knows that. The beauty of this country and what keeps all of America strong and great is that we can take any side we choose and respect the other fellow for doing the same. Where, in the many extremes and points of view from all quarters, freedom guides us through the sometimes hopeless situations and we emerge stronger and more together. Trying to live with freedom of our land, which is born out of a sense of justice, sometimes becomes so utterly hopeless and confused that we almost lose faith, when at that point, a great rallying spirit is felt again and we keep moving ahead. I am sure the painters and other creative people of our times feel what I am saying and continue to tell the story of our pilgrimage into the new light of world hope for all men.

When I think of the canvases of such artists as Reagan and Marsh and Thomas Benton, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White and many other painters of the American scene, I know that the painful observations of many of my contemporaries were inspired, as I am, that the truth is marching on, as we sing in the Battle Hymn of the Republic. These remarks I am making in this story of me sitting in the street for 37 years as a sketch artist and painter of the life in the street speaks of an intimate close-up of the artist and the American public, two World's Fairs in Flushing Meadow as an exhibiting artist, and also a sketch artist in many other exhibiting places like hotels and parks, especially Washington Park. Washington Park will come to be the meeting place of the world - as well as national and local - traffic of people taking in the sights of artists and the neighborhood of Greenwich Village. The telling of this story is in a time of American history which is undergoing all kinds of changes, especially in the great efforts of the government and the local groups to bring the underprivileged and minority percentage of the American populace up to economic and cultural status of the standard of living which has the workings of self-help and individual pride in pursuing the things in our society which offer the best life. With education and employment to fill our times with occupations, in the many which we have to develop in all kind of skills and creative pursuits ... the arts of stage, screen and painting, all fields of physical and out-of-doors games and sports in the city and countryside. Never before has the nation and nations of the world become so interested in the total development of mankind as today, in spite of small wars in parts of the world. In 1968, now, we in America are working together on all levels because of the great need to combat whatever may undermine our trends of progress as they continue through the years in spite of the setback of times by the hard fights in all of our endeavors to build in education, labor, industry and social climbs which take twice an education and understanding.

Seeing and hearing and feeling are the tools of the artist craft, and we take them from the people and the way they live and cultivate around them to sustain their lives. Sometimes I think the artist might look very hard to find beauty if he or she is looking for that - the kind of beauty that is pleasant and without question in people and surroundings in a conventional way. But beauty is not always good to look at. It might have ugly looks in reality, in hard knocks of life on poor devils who are wretched and mad with the world as they know it, but, in their ways of expressing themselves, tell a story of the other side of reality, which is suffering. The artist will understand the subject of life in all its expressions because he is always looking restlessly at life regardless of the picture, speaking for myself. But I do know that there is a fraternity with creative people of all forms of expression. We are busy capturing life as we see and feel it, whether we are sitting around Washington Square Park 37 years, hanging up and taking down paintings and doing portraits of people and admiring the passing public, especially in the spring time when so many pretty girls are strolling along taking in the sights. Many of them don't mind being talked into sitting for a study. Sometimes very shy young ladies suffer to get the nerve to sit down, others are made to order for the asking, something always right and in the spirit of the show to have someone sitting for a portrait.

I have found that new life comes when we go to the public each time. People love each other almost regardless when they have something in common like any of the arts.

One aspect of the show is being ready, like showing space and transportation. I always rely on a cab to get me to the location on Sullivan Street. Most of the artists in the same block who have been showing for years have cars and have storing and moving convenience and some privacy in their cars. They can take a rest in the car and keep on close look at their work and talk to prospective buyers at the same time they are cooling it with a soft drink listening to the radio. Meantime, some have an exhibition in the tail end of station wagons or leaning on the side of cars. Some of the out-of-towners have some well-equipped cars and station wagons especially for the exhibiting conveniences including a built-in sleeping arrangement, all the works and ready for the road. I never owned a car for the show or to get around in the city, as I limit myself to showing in the later years to Washington Square and I can walk home in the evening. I enjoy so much doing that after sitting around in the sun and seeing the world go by and trying to make a buck and just be on the road.

The feeling of the open road is everywhere in the spring. Once a hobo in your early years, the feeling will drop around again come spring to take off somewhere ... anywhere ... get moving, a good strong urge. During the depression years, in the early thirties, I had a studio on Downing Street, a three-floor walk-up in a very old rear building. I had to walk through a very short court to get to my place in the rear - one big room with windows looking out on Sixth Avenue, a fireplace and gaslight in the hallway, running water in the hall and the toilet down in the yard. Truly depression times - the floor below me was vacant until some hobos moved in.

But they were no ordinary hobos, they had class and published the Hobo News and wrote poetry and discussed world politics and dreams of things to come, like molasses fountains and pork chops growing on the vine and milk and coffee dipped out the spring and apple pie trees growing all around, while the sun shone every day and peace was in the valley.

One dear member of the syndicate was a small fellow who knew his way around on a guitar and would strum of the lonely freight trains times and sing the hungry songs. My mind would go back to the days of the old B&O Baltimore and Ohio freight line somewhere between Parkersberg, Virginia and Athens, Ohio, in the hot summer under the stars at night, just riding, listening to the screech of the old car and the thick sound of a smoky engine slowly pulling around the winding curves. Only one-hundred ten miles, but on a slow freight, the ride takes forever to come to a stop. I didn't have anywhere to go, so it didn't matter. Wandering youth, during those peaceful years of the early twenties, was a luxury.

I see reflections of those times when I look over into the park from where I am sitting on Sullivan Street, the green grass and trees and people enjoying the summer. When the better part of our maturing life is spent watching the people go by while displaying paintings and doing portraits of those who like your style and want a study of themselves. Also in the life of the street show are those unsung heroes who make up the crowd and take in the fun, passing comments while the portrait is developing and giving off some reaction to some of the work on display, whose reaction might upset someone who has other ideas. That can be very interesting to hear. Maybe the difference between the artist and the hot dog vendor or shoeshine boy and toy peddler is that the artist is making you think and feel about life, as the artist has expressed his impression about a subject in his display of painting or drawings or portraits. The artist is helplessly exposed to the opinion of the public, which is natural because his work is a definite statement on some subject which is individual to his creations, being the leisure of the artist. The merchant with a comodity is appealing to a domestic need, like a shoeshine boy, or hot dog vendor, etc., This line of thinking and comparisons about art and other vallues in the market can go on and on. The point I am trying to make is if the artist has something different from the machinist of other merchandise, he is communicating beyond the language of craft into the world of feeling ... where the techniques of mechanics blends with the feeling, creating a likeness or a mood around a situation in some composition of most any subject matter.

Somewhere between these extremes of the artist exercised in his life and work are the most interesting and stimulating personalities found among the exhibiting artists in Washington Square and their groups of painters. I could continue to draw on the subject of art and mechanics in the comparisons I have given and not have the authority and clear illustration to make the issues aesthetically different; in as much as art and science are inseparable, science and mechanics offer some proof for their products, creations of art are independent of any research. Of course, the endless theory of which cam first, art or science, I prefer to leave at the doorsteps of time. A closer look at the escape into the abstract world of tricks and gimmicks I don't think will help the honest student who is looking for a guideline in fundamental rules and principles in the study of drawing and painting.

At this date, February 21, 1968, I am reflecting back through the years. As I have said before, from 1931, which was before World War II, peace as we know it had just about run its course. We all know what followed in the years ahead. Today, we have Viet Nam, an unnamed war. Call it anything, call any war by name, it winds up saying one thing: killing men, women, and children. This experience on earth is as old as the human race. Is peace an illusion or is war a constant fact of life in all the manifestations of living? The artist sitting on the curb selling his pictures feels a part of what is going on around the world, good and bad.

I would be an ideal escapist to romanticize and blend with the great charm of nature so beautifully blowing over the Village, and especially Washington Square during the spring outdoor art exhibition, without at the same time failing to realize that as we enjoy painting pretty girls and basking in the pleasure of our national pastimes, many of our loved ones are on the frontiers of more defined lines of crossfire and exposed to attack every and any moment. The real mass of that war in Asia is a part of our consciousness and responsibility. The freedom we know and enjoy is guaranteed by young and brave Americans fighting and dying for this kind of life to continue.

As an African-American at this point in American history, which is very young and is at the same time trying so desparately to adjust to the population blends of all races, some are enjoying the full opportunity of being an American by reason of racial advantages that are a tradition in this country which is slowly overcoming the scourge of slavery of the black minority. This evil has been matched by the great opportunity provided in the constitution for all people who are equal and free in this country like nowhere else. The ideal state is so perfect in its inception until the fear of it being realized by all Americans has been vigorously undermined by bias and discrimination and other un-Christian ways to keep the black people shackled by all the subtle and deliberate refusals to be equal and just in all relationships. This minority of evil-doers in the design to retard the advances of a people coming out of dark is not without challenge and conscientious friends and loyal supporters from white groups of all kinds who are working tirelessly to create an environment healthy for all people to live in and work and play. The black has the responsibility, as well as the white and anyone else, to give his best and all to make life fuller and better for all. This, of course, requires being prepared to fulfill our task in a fields even to the same degree of efficiency that our competitor does.

The time is now when Negroes and all of those who have grievances to use the energy and every impulse to organize with that power which in indestructable and the skills needed in their professions and techniques of science in all crafts in the competitive atomic and space age to be second to none in preparedness for all kinds of jobs and opportunities. Don't be afraid to pray to rely on the Divine Power as did our ancestors when they were in the cotton fields and in chains and bondage and could only call on their Lord who in time could come and deliver them. Today is not different in spite of so many technical developments. As a race in this country, we as black people must never forget that we were saved through great spiritual power and faith in the Almighty.

We can't indulge in the folly of revenge and impatience or emotional instability, as human and as normal as these reactions might be to a long overdue share of the stakes of fair play down the line. Law and order and a cool head is the better part of valor. This is a hard doctrine and reason for people who have been weakened in struggle and hoped for time and equality in their time. Falling apart and loosing our cool would be less than proof that we are made of the good stuff that does not break under burdens which we can remove by stretching out all the way, and love for ourselves and others who must join us in our fight to service, because no one group can service without helping and loving the other. This persuasion has developed over the years sitting on the curb, watching people of all groups pass in endless numbers, giving and taking of the bread of life with the common of trust and hope.

These printed remarks and comments about the long experiences as a street artist could fill volumns, but I only want to point out the bright lights. I haven't given any special treatment to the more intimate relationships in the show, which is that of personal friends who never forgot me and who looked me up each show and gave me their warm greetings. I can't name them all, and give each one the individual classification they have in my memory and heart and admiration. However, I can't fail to point out to Mrs. Wood, a long and devoted patron and friend, who never misses stopping and spending some time with me through the years. I must point out that my exhibiting has not been confined to showings in outdoor art shows. I have skipped many of the outdoor exhibitions, showing in other places - museums and galleries and special events in hotels. In 1942, I had two paintings in the Metropolitan Museum exhibition of the Arizona Collection. The paintings are in the permanent collection of the University of Arizona. I would like to say that the leading American artists of that period were in the famous collection. In the following years, I exhibited at the Whitney Museum, then on East Eighth Street, also at the Brooklyn Museum and Riverside Museum and many galleries.

Museum and gallery showings are worlds apart from showings on the street. Conventional dignity and exclusion from riff-raff that we have no protection from on the street makes quite a difference. Other features of showing are important invitations, all the formal customs of private entertainment that might feature the opening of a gallery or museum exhibition.

Some of the first viewers at an outdoor show in the Village on the south side of the park might be a human chain of winos or gaged up "hop-heads" floating in the wind on any kind of drugs or empty stomach asking for a handout. These people make up a large percentage of the passer-by by moving from the mellow spots on Bleecker Street and Third Street over to the park. Let me point out that the free-swinging district between Eighth Street and Bleecker has most of the attractions for the young and wild in bars and coffee-shops, also far-out clothing shops, artist-sketching portrait galleries and off-broadway theaters, restaurants, and most of all, an easy-going feeling about the streets. McDougal Street shops and spots of window color from the coffee shops from 4th Street to Houston Street are like nowhere else. Crowds out of control swarm through the streets, off and on the sidewalk, looking for what (nobody knows), only something exciting is in the air and everybody is breathing some of it, which comes from each other, and that might be what is so powerful and indestructable about people together, especially when they are getting along enjoying the same thing, looking and wanting each other just like they are - for whatever that is. You name it and there it is. Kind of showplace for unconventionality on a big, big scale and the show "done" stop, if you can take people wearing everything, and sometimes not much of anything, with and without dogs of all description - girl tramps and boy tramps.

One of the myths of all of the make-believes in all that is sometimes frightening, one of the super controls of their behavior is surprisingly more-so today where the very young make up the majority of the crowd than in the old days of prohibition and right after repeal. Today, these young people are looking for something and saying something. (A quote from the Bible) " I will take it from the wise and prudent, and reveal it unto the suckling babes." The youth of today, being the product of the scientific and space age, living by almost pushbutton machines, are asking for and want the other part of life that is not mechanized, which is love and human feeling - still free and uncontrolable always, and now knocking at the heart of every human being on earth and saying let's get together. The truly free stop the clock and break up the show. Behing closed doors, or what used to be, is now on the street. Something has happened to the fabric of our social structure. Can it be that truth is eating away at our very roots and we can't stand up under the light of reality - false values, lies, make-believe money gods, for standards and the frail fortress of ancestral heritage - every device to cheat the way of life. Time has run out on such tricks, for a time anyway. People from the other side who have been blazing a trail of honesty and sweat, prayer and tears, and struggles on all levels and fronts have been heard by the Divine Power. Today is new. Thank Heaven! The new day, however, will last only if love and mercy and humility can live in the lives and hearts of everyone. Truly peaceful, in our times, is there to stay if we can have a common language and work and play together - communications going around the world, not only ticking away by cable and beaming electromagnetic waves through space and coming in by every conceivable mechanical device. Now the message has gotten through to the heart and conscience of men everywhere.

High and low, small and great, the breakthrough is in no uncertain words speaking in one voice, I am your brothers. This language is not fully interpreted because some restraint remains by reason of a very valid question - how can there be? I am of a different race. My eyes and features and color are different from the person next to me on the subway or bus or walking down the street. Or I live in a different neighborhood and have an education and a good job or I am fortunate to be born rich in this world of goods and live easy, having no earthly cares. How can I be the brother of that "cat" sleeping in the gutter, the park bench or all of those poor devils hanging around on the outpost of the bowery or some other forgotten street where the lonely and hopeless find consolation together in their despair for whatever reason that has overcome them and moved them from the ranks of society as we know it.

I see some of these people trying to fight their way back into a world which is too much for them like the structure is. But these unclaimed people have a defiance for something which they sense is unjust, and they can't adjust to the order of a controled way of life, which the majority of the human race does the prescribed outlines - getting the proper education first, keeping a job and being self-supporting, obeying the social tenets of clean living, etc. The golden rules of living give the best in life to those who follow them. I can count all of the wars of the human race in my time and before my time, and history will show that the golden rule has been the best path to follow for individual success and also collectively. The minority of those who can't go down that good old highway of clean living and doing the dutiful assignments of conventional homework in school and jobs and society, these people need much more study and patience, for I say whatever makes them tick at all.

When I am sitting in the street dong a portrait or talking in the crowd, I see these people coming and going. It looks like to me that today's premier of the world's stage is co-starring two great actors in the leading roles of truth and love. These great stars have been the understudy for much too long of the power game of human dreamers. Now, today, love and truth are taking over and cast with the complimenting supporting actors of justice and mercy, using the technical knowhow of science and technology. The script is written from the pens of the language of all people in every walk of life. I hear passing remarks about life from the great scholars and those not so learned and also the talk from the gutter. One thing they all have in common is what's wrong with us now that we know how to do everything, just about. Why don't men get the message across to each other and have a working harmony together?

The new show is a spiritual production and we all are in the cast. The young and old, the good and the bad, white, black, yellow, brown, green and all the colors of the rainbow blending a rainbow of love around this world.