May 28, 1945
Paintings, drawings, watercolors and pen-and-ink work by students from nine to sixteen years of age are on exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum through June 18. These pictures represent the work done in the Museum’s Art Classes for Talented Children, meeting every Saturday throughout the school year under the direction of Miss Ann Brewer.
It is self-disciplined, serious work, far removed from the general impression of “chiid art.” The students in the class are selected by a test given in the Education Department of the Museum, the sole entrance requirement being talent. The exhibition is proof of the great wealth of talent in these young painters. With courage, imagination and vision they paint their daily lives, their dreams and their memories.
The majority of the students are “Saturday’s children” who work for a living. They all go to school, all are up to their necks in homework at night, and most of them are expected to swell the family purse with money earned in after-school jobs. Somehow they manage to sandwich hours into these elastic days for painting and drawing. Most of the students are too young to make any definite future plans. Many, however, have already determined to be painters no matter how hard a row they have to hoe to reach their goal. But it is of little consequence whether or not any of the children devote their lives to painting. In awarding scholarships and supplying the students with materials and guidance, the Museum hopes to help the children enrich their own lives. As lawyers, teachers, shoe clerks or plumbers, their painting will be an endless source of delight.
In addition to the above exhibition, clay modeling, drawings and paintings by children in the regular Saturday morning art classes are being shown in classrooms B and C at the Museum through June 18.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1942 - 1946. 04-06/1945, 025. View Original
