Art on Trial: from Whistler to Rothko by Laurie AdamsReview by: Sharon ChickanzeffARLIS/NA Newsletter, Vol. 4, No. 4/5 (SUMMER 1976), p. 126Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27945658 .

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Art Gallery of Ontario. Exposure: Canadian contemporary photographers/Exposure: Photographes canadiens con

temporains. Distributed in Canada by Gage Publishing, 1975. S24.95. Published in the United States by William

Morrow, 1975. $29.95. ISBN 0-688-03052-1 (U.S.) 0-919-87606-4 (Canada) CIP not included.

Exposure is the catalogue of a jury-selected exhibition of Canadian photography that was produced by and held at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto in November, 1975. The exhibition itself was controversial in all aspects of its

organization, for such reasons as the lack of participation by important photography groups and the seemingly biased selection process. Thus, the dust jacket claim that the collec tion ''represents the best of Canadian contemporary photo

graphy" is not quite true.

However, all in all, the exhibition was a fair exposition of

approaches to photography in Canada, which have received little exposure in the past, except in the limited circulation

Image Nation and Impressions magazines. The catalog cannot be faulted on production quality;

its designers have achieved a considerable success in reducing the exhibition to book form with particular care being given to the special ambiance of the book medium. Works by different photographers on facing pages complement and balance each other. A few of the photographs have been

reproduced elsewhere, including in finely produced National F m Board books and occasionally a photograph has been

slightly cropped at the crease. However, none of the details or subtleties of contrast are lost in Exposure.

Exposure is not a representative collection, but it has

exciting and highly competent moments which make it a legitimate expression of innovative approaches to con

temporary Canadian photography. For a complete over

view of the topic, the reader is referred to two publications of the Canadian National Film Board, Between Friends and The Female Eye (Toronto, Clarke Irwin, 1975), and to issues of Ovo, the Quebec photo essay magazine which sets Quebec photographers squarely in the 19th century European social commentary tradition.

-Mary F. Williamson

York University, Toronto

Adams, Laurie. Art on Trial: from Whistler to Rothko. New

York, Walker, 1976. 236p. $9.95 Photographs. LC 75-36535 ISBN 0-8027-0517-0

Since the art market has become such a prominent part of the financial world, increased attention has been focused

upon artists' rights and the law. Laurie Adams' Art on Trial

provides a basic introduction and somewhat grim view of this

topic in the presentation of six cases concerning aesthetics, forgery, patriotism, and most conspicuously, money. Orga

nized in a highly readable format, each of the six chapters is devoted to an indepth summary of trial proceedings. All cases date from the 20th century except for that of Ruskin v. Whistler, which can be considered as the first case of mo dernism on trial. Also included are: Brancusi v. United

States, Hahn v. Duveen, Van Meegeren v. Dutch Government,

the People of New York v. Stephen Radich (a case of defa

cing and defiling the U.S. flag) and the recent Rothko litiga

tion.

The author, an art historian who has thoroughly re searched each trial, offers varying degrees of interpretation and analysis, including lengthy testimony from the procee dings. In some cases the transcripts themselves possess the

engaging absurdity of an Ionesco dialogue. For example,U.S. customs officials classed Brancusi's "Bird in Space" (impor ted by Steichen) into the category of kitchen utensils and

hospital supplies, which made it ineligible for duty-free entry. Incredibly, the U.S. government pursued the case, attempting to prove that Brancusi's bird was not a "bird" and was thus not a work of art. The resultant testimony is

stranger than fiction?art literally defending its status as art

revealing a seemingly unbridgable chasm between the U.S.

judicial system and the art world.

Although the author's scholarship and insightful analyses are to be commended, there seems to have been a conscious

attempt at popularization, to create, as the book jacket states, "an invaluable source for art historians and a rare

entertainment for the layman." To this end the text occas

sionally oversimplifies the complex set of issues evident in the trials considered. Tom Wolfe's introduction, a diatribe in

support of his The Painted Word, does not seem particularly relevant nor illuminating to the author's concerns. Moreover,

implications of the various cases to the development of art law are not emphasized. An appendix and bibliography, or at the least a mention of current developments in the area of art and the law (artists' contracts, etc.), would have been useful.

Despite these shortcomings, the work is indeed a rare entertainment and a mind-boggling display of the inadequa cies of art law, especially in America. For a basic summary of notorious art trials of the 20th century, Art on Trial is a worthwhile source.

-Sharon Chickanzeff

Sasowsky, Norman. The Prints ofReginald Marsh ; an essay and definitive catalog of his linoleum cuts, etchings, en

gravings, and lithographs. New York, Clarkson N. Potter, 1976. 287p. LC 75-45374 ISBN 0-517-52493-7 CIP included. $15.00

Despite many changes in "officially approved" styles of twentieth century art, the work of Reginald Marsh (1898 1954) has never suffered from total neglect or lack of appre ciation. As a young man, fresh out of Yale Art School in the

early 1920s, Marsh was quick to find steady, and quite lucra

tive, employment as an illustrator, first with the Daily News

(1922-1925) and then with the fledgling New Yorker (1925 1931). This experience provided him with both the subject

matter?the public life of New York's citizenry?and the

style?an essentially linear one?that would dominate his later career as painter, muralist, and printmaker.

As a"realist" and an illustrator of intensely urban life, Marsh could be accepted both by old-fashioned apologists for

1930s-style American regionalism and by a younger genera

tion of the 1940s and early 1950s who reached maturity in an art world centered about the same lower-Manhattan

streets that Marsh found so fascinating. During his lifetime Marsh was the subject of numerous periodical articles,

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