Artists’ Guild 1st Prize

By Mark King, St Louis Post-Dispatch

“The Artists’ Guild’s present show is much like others mounted there with the outstanding exception of John McRee Smith, the winner of the largest cash prize ($300, anonymous) and two honorable mentions. Here appears an artist of mature talents, temperament and point of view.

All three winning pictures are small, crowded but quite still life with a faintly musty air, controlled low-key color and value contrasts, and rich but unobtrusive paint quality. Although realistic, they have a hothouse and surreal feeling.

Such elements as whole or broken toys, dominos, bells, keys, articial roses, medals, and bits of decorative paper evoke the kind of acrid nostalgia of Ivan Albright.

Although “Hearts and Flowers” won first prize, it is the slightly larger, more ambitious, tightly composed and more richly painted “Still Life with Blue Rosary” that is the strongest.”…