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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 1920)
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, SEPTE3IBER 12, 1920 gie Art SsEgatioETM 9 J .Cw sNN '"V - 7r V - zt'j sv ill 1 s -v - ill 4- -4 Ml A Sfuy z'n A2z'Z22ez-z. ByW. B. SEABROOK. IT remained for a very pretty young woman hailing: from a quaint old town in western Pennsylvania to create the art sensation of the present year. She is Cora Scovil. She is from "Washington, Pa., and the particular art creation which is making her fa mous is callel a "patch poster.' The curious thing about all of this Is that the poster had a very modest beginning. Instead of first seeing the light of day in the Academy of Arts and Sciences or even in the studio of a famous artist, it began .its carce on a wash day In a kitchen and on plebeian Ironing board. Today the "patch poster" has a certain field in the artistic world all to itself. Being an innovation and clever, it has "caught on.'" In New Tork City, for example, "patch post ers" are sharing the place of honor in Fifth avenue show windows with priceless works of art. Patch poster ing at present is in the epidemical stage and promises to spread all over the country. In private life Cora Scovil is Mrs. Henry Scovil, wife ' of a colonel in the ordnance department of the United States army. When Co). Scovil was called to active duty, his young wife, who had artistic talent, and who had been a student in the Chicago Art Institute, decided that she would "do her bit" by painting war pictures. She went to New York, fitted out a studio and did some work, which was neither better nor worse than that of a hundred other calendar post er artists who were working along similar conventional lines. It was rec ognized as meritorious, but It brought her no fame, and eventually she returned to the little town of "Washington, Pa., in full realization realization of the fact that while she her work conscientiously, she had created no more than a very modest ripple of interest in the great met ropolis. ' Hags Instead of Paints. She had practically given up her art work when she happened to learn one day that Grant Mitchell, the actor, who was a personal friend of the Sco vils, was to appear i a new comedy role at the Nixon theater1, in Pitts burg. Immediately it occured to her that she would like to do a poster of the actor, and send it to him as a souve nir of his appearance in the Iron city. But there were practical difficulties. She had no poster materials, nor could any be procured in the town where she lived. Even if she could have obtained the paints and brushes. there was no way to get poster card board. . It chanced, however, that her eye caught the smooth, white expanse of her ironing board, which had been re cently re-covered with unbleached muslin. "My, but wouldn't that make a fine surface, if it were only cardboard in stead of cloth!" she said to herself, and then came the happy thought. Unbleached muslin is easy to ob tain anywhere, and soon she had a 43,000,000 PERSONS VISIT NEW YORK'S AQUARIUM IN 20 YEARS TO SEE SHOW Recruiting for Tublic Made Easier in Recent Years Due to Unique Boat, "Seahorse," Which Goes Out Weekly and Returns Loaded With Specimens That Dazzle. THE world record for sustained at tendance is held by the New York aquarium. Over . 43,000.000 visi tors in 20 years testify to the popu larity of fish. No one thinks of visiting New York without taking in the aquarium, and these visitors can testify to the fact that the unique job of acquainting Americans with the fish that swim in our waters, in fact, all the waters of the new world, more of less, is well done. But the question naturally arises in the minds of the 6000 odd persons, from all parts of the world, who daily go there to pay their re- .spects to Mr. Fish how are the multi tude of living specimens procured? ... That is an important feature of the business of the aquarium, not only to constantly put on what is positively the greatest fish exhibit on earth, but to recruit the cast of performers in the show.. Devious neans of procur ing the specimens have been tried, in . eluding exchange and purchase, but the best method has only recently been, put into effect. Realizing that its collection, great as it is, is my no means complete, and that there are still just as many interesting, rare, curious and freak fish In the sea as ever Were caught or displayed in the aquarium, its man agement ias now gone into the sport of fishing on a larger scale than ever before. To do this, through the ef forts of Dr. C. H. Townsend, director in charge of the gigantic ,f ish show, the aquarium is now equipped with its own fishing boat, which shoves off once a week from its New Tork dock and returns loaded down with thou sands of additional specimens of the finny clan. FlMia Safe From Injury. This supply ship, christened "The Seahorse," ".: unique among fishing crrt. Instead of going out to catch uA with hook and line for food, it Just Because Artists' Materials Were Difficult to Obtain This Enterprising Genius Relied Upon Her Needle and Thread and the Contents of Her Rag Bag With Which to Make These Pictures. Corer Scovzl ' &T2cf far Oruf of fS2r Si'o'y&p. rectangular piece of it stretched on a wooden frame. Now for the colors. In the absence of paints she made use of an qld box containing bits of colored ribbons, odds and ends of silks and patches in short a kaleido scopic jumble of fabrics that would have served to reconstruct Joseph's coat of many colors, or to make . a "crazy quilt" such as our great-grandmothers spread over their old-fashioned four-poster beds three gen erations ago. And instead of brushes, she had recourse to thread and needle, sup plemented by a jar of paste. Half whimisically, and half in earn est, she dipped into her "skibbadge box" as a painter would use his pal- hunts them in nets, and the greatest possible care is taken not to injure the catch, but to keep them alive and well. To do this, the "Seahorse" is separated amid-ships by water-tight bulkheads from the fore and after sec tions. The middle section is similar to a well, and is provided with a con stant change of seia water through many holes bored in the hull. The well is 11x10 feet at the bottom, of such goodly size that the fishermen are enabled to catch the large fishes and land them alive in New Tork, which, from time to time, enter the trap nets that are laid in the Long island waters. The "Seahorse" is rot a big boat as fish craft go, being only 35 feet in length over all, but she is thoroughly seaworthy and most scientifically ar ranged. For power she uses a two cylinder, four-cycle Frlsble engine, and in case this ;.hould break down, is equipped with a suit of sails. This boat has only been in opera tion since June but has already proven its value, having been the me dium of bringing additional hun dreds of the finny tribe into the tanks of New York's gigantic fish show. Already the "Seahorse" has made about 20 trips to sea returning from the briny with a total of about 18,000 fishes. The trips are made about once a week and each jaunt is of approxi mately 24 hours' duration, the boat going quite a distance out past the fishing banka, the. mecca for fisher men from the- metropolis. On its most recent trips it has been able to get more Interesting and valuable specimens than was possible early in the summer due to the fact that dur ing the latter part of August and early part of September ' many odd specimens of the finny tribe -come northward from tropical seas. Ponder for a moment, you amateur wielder of the rod, and think of this -- .... - t - if r.af I I all ,1 . an 5 - r : ' 1 V J oJ 'ycfr fbfrz- i sit lette. For the actor's hair, she used brown corduroy, and achieved a start lingly realistic effect. Little, ' bright blue circles of silk for the iris of the eye, and a tiny bright bead for the pupil! With such a start, the rest was easy.' The costume presented no dif ficulties. She simply sewed or pasted day's catch of the crew of the "Sea horse": 1 cow-nosed ray, 3 dog fish, 20 weak fish, 40 puffers, 4 daylight flounders, 3 sea robbins, 3 blackfish, 10 young mackerel, 20 spots, 12 crockers, 11 fluke, 2 bluefish, 1 sand shark, 2 lobsters, 20 rock crabs and 6 king crabs. Tes, many of them are of the ordinary type but the "Sea horse" has Just started to get In Its work. Many a bait slinger would be satisfied with such a catch during a season's duration. On Boats Depends Stock. The aquarium has put its own fish ermen to work at a most opportune time, as due to various reasons it is now dependent almost entirely on the boat for additional members to the cast of the great fish show. This has come about because neither rail roads nor steamships have, due to freight congestion, found it possible to stock its tanks with new fish as in other years. Also many of the boats whloh formerly brought fish to the aquarium have experienced trouble in the matter of hiring help and have consequently quit fishing. But with the aid or the. "Seahorse" the stock of the tanks has been re pleted to such an extent that the aquarium has- just been enabled to exchange some rare and choice speci mens with the Boston, Philadelphia and Detroit aquariums, which were badly in need of them. . Dr. C. H. Townsend, the director in charge of the gigantic fish- show, has tried for some time to have the aqua rium equipped with its own boat. Now that his long looked for desire has been realized he is very optimistic and believes that during the coming year all records for number of visit ors to the aquarium will be shattered, because of the curious and unique specimens he will have to show. Among those freaks now present in , the aquarium tanks, thanks to the t' KJ' - t M?y x;r xhr -f Pf 1 U$K$s I- . AV-Vt l'i Mfc. 1 tlx.-?- ! 1 ;fe;iT'5tc4 -- " W on the surface of the muslin the proper fabrics, first carefully traced out and cut into the proper shapes. And as a final touch, ..she cro cheted a flower in the coat lapel. Mr. Mitchell, when he saw the "patch poster." was immediately struck with the originality of the Idea, and suggested to her that she might develop it into a new and work of .the"Seahorse," may be men tioned the puffer fish, well named because upside down or right side up he can relax to normal or blow him self up to four times his natural size. Then there are the shark suckers, very odd chaps, which somewhat re semble a flotilla of submarines in dead storage. They take, their im prisonment on indeterminate sentence philosophically. Mr. Prickly Ray, a somewhat angu lar freakish specimen of the deep, must not be overlooked, as he has such a very human look that visitors go into peals of laughter when they witness his antics. Then there is the mud puppy, a rdog of the deep. With a set of curious Mnd'leg3 to match those up in his bow, this spec imen might pass as a marine version of the Dachshund. He is never muz zled, however, not even in dog days. Canada-Cuba Are Linked. ST. JOHNS, The Cuban consul at St. Johns announces that he is in receipt of advice from the Cuban consul-general at Ottawa that the Gulf Navigation company of New Or leans has Inaugurated a steamsnip service between Canada and Cuba. The head office for Canada will be n Toronto and will be presided over by Ceasar Barranoco. The first steamer to be placed in the service the S. S. Gonzaba, 2500 tons, recently launched from the Dominion Ship building company's yards, 'Is now in Cuba- The regular ports of call will be Toronto. Montreal. St. Johns. Hali fax and Cuban ports, with Halifax andi St. Johns as the Canadian ter minals in the winter months. Economizing Fuel Necessary. PARIS. New ideas for economizing coal and other fuel are sought by the authorities and 100,000 francs in prizes have been offered by the Seine department for Ideas and inventions this fall. Under the provisions of the Spa conference agreement, France will have, from all sources, slightly less than 60 per cent of her needs in coal and now, in the sultry heat of summer, the people are beginning to worry about the shivers of the com ing winter. Vv -a1- 'a successful form of poster art. On his advice, 'she had the process pat ented, and did a number of- more elaborate "patch posters" (several of which are reproduced on this page) and took . them to New Tork. They created a furor of interest. Her success was immediate and com plete. Her work began to appear in windows along Fifth avenue, and now she has entered into negotiations with leading theatrical managers who wish to make lavish use of the ONCE WEALTHY SAVED Career of Charles Beresford, Said Man Is Found by Police and NEW YORK. Sept. 11. Charles Beresford, reputed to have been wealthy when he retired 25 years ago from the iron manufactur ing business, who says he is related to the late Admiral Lord Charles William de la Poer Beresford, is re covering from a condition bordering on starvation in . the Kings county hospital, Brooklyn- Although the tall, . wliite-baired man who is registered at the hospital as "67 years old, no home," made an effort to hide from his friends of better days his present deplorable plight. It was his story of his recent experiences In England and Ireland, and the statement of an associate of Representative John McCrate of Brooklyn, Beresford's lawyer, that es tablished his identity. His statement to a reporter that during a recent visit to England he was robbed of 6000 and that he was forced to borrow money for his re turn voyage to this country was borne out in a measure by Representative MoCrate's associate last night. After a successful career as an iron manufacturer with properties near Albany, he retired with a considerable fortune. Mr. Beresford told a reporter. From that time up to a few months ago he lived in boarding houses and hotels. He was nevex married and has no relatives in this country. Sev eral months ago he went to Man chester, England, to settle up some business affairs, and from there to Ireland to take care of property mat ters. He said conditions in Ireland were unbearable while he was there, and he was glad to get out of the country. One night, he said, a woman who lived next door to the people he was visiting sold four pigs. That night the raiders former soldiers called at the house and demanded the money, he said, and when the woman said she had none they dragged her from . "patch poster" in the lobby displays this fall. The most startling effect of the "patch posters," aside from their nov elty and decorative value, is their astonishing realism. At a consider able distance, they resemble oil paint ings, but come closer, and you ob serve that the button which you imagine is lined with a realism ri valling Goya looks real because it Is real, and that the pair of crumpled gloves which suggest at a distance STEEL MANUFACTURER IS FROM STARVATION BY FRIENDS to Be Related to Prominent British Family, Singular One Fortune Gone, Placed in Hospital in Brooklyn, Where Now He Is Recovering. the house and searched her home un til they found the "pig money" hidden in a mattress. Beresford said that was enough for him and that lie went back to Man chester intending , to return to this country. While there, he said, he was robbed of the 6000 pounds he had gone to England to collect and left with only a five-pound note, at the present time much less than $25. With this money he went to Ire land, he said, and from friends bor rowed enough to come back to the United States. "In England and Ireland at the present time a man's life Isn't worth a nickel, if he has a nickel, as the raiders-take anything and everything they can get their hands on," said Mr. Beresford. Later it was learned that Beres ford's legal affairs had been taken care of by Congressman McCrate. and the reporter went to the Congress man's law office. There an associate said that six months ago he went with Mr. Beresford to get a passport for a trip to England. Several times in the past few years, the lawyer said, Mr. Beresford had gone to England to establish his relationship with the Beresford family, which owns vast estates in Ireland. The recent voyage, he said, was for the purpose of collecting from the British government rentals for prop erties in Ireland, which were being used by the government for conva lescent hospitals for returned sdldlers. When he returned about three months ago, the lawyer said he was told by Mr. Beresford that the first payment on these rentals had been stolen from him by the "raiders." "Mr. Beresford and Congressman McCrate were very good friends," said the lawyer. "The former often came to the office here and from time to time I beard much of his story. He Fosez-" Ozz-Z the technique of a Titian are in fact real gloves, skillfully sewn into the composition. But while Cora Scovil has in one sense departed from all artistic tra ditions, she has this quality in com mon with every man or woman who has felt the artistic desire to create that, failing to secure the materials she desired, sne made use of what ever material was at hand and forced it to serve the purpose. Giotto, who. smashed the conven tional Byzantine traditions of paint ing, and set the people of Florence to shouting in the streets almost a thousand years ago, was first dis covered by Cimabue. seated on a hillside near Fiesole. scratching rude pictures on a piece ef slate with no better instrument than a sharp pointed stone. The story is told of both Bernard Palissy and Bevenuto Cellini that when they could obtain no firewood, for the furnaces which they used, respectively, in baking their porce lains and casting their bronzes, they used the household furniture for fuel. (Jaupin. perhaps the most ultra modern of the moderns, unable to procure more canvas in faroff Ta hiti, painted many of his astonish ing creations on the rough wooden floors and walls of his hut in the wiIUsl Pouter F.ffccts in Prehistoric Days. And if you go back, via the Mu seum of National History, to the art of the savage A'frican tribes, or that of the modern eakimo, you will find them using flat bits of bone, tanned leather, slabs of rock in fact any thing that comes to easiest to hand, for a Hurfare on which to draw or paint their pictographs and decora tions. Failing in paint, pencils or brushes, anything is made to serve their purpose, from a sharp pointed stick, or a shark's tooth, to gorgeous purple dyes secured from mollusces, and applied with a feather or rab bit's foot. And Cora Scovil, determined to create her poster in a Pennsylvania town where artists' materials were as difficult, at the moment, to ob tain as they would have been in Tahita or the Artie, fell back as a last resort on the muslin from her ironing board and the contents of her rag bag. Thus, necessity becomes the mother of invention in the realm of art as well as of science, and the clever inventor of the "patch poster" is reaping today the reward of her originality. . said that he had run away from Eng land when quite young and after much time at sea, went to Australia and from there came to this country. After he retired from business he made many trips to England to re establish his position there and it was some time before he was given his proper status by other members of his family. "That he .finally did get back Into the Beresford fold is evidenced by the fact that his latest trip was for the purpose of collecting his share of the money due the family for the use of the estates In Ireland. Mr. Beres ford, I understand, was a cousin of Lord Charles, but I am not sure he ever told me just how he was related to the Beresford family. He formerly lived in the Bronx," but I have no idea just where." The old man was picked up In a hallway on Fulton street. Jamaica. He had gone there to face death rather than to face the friends who did not know of his financial adver sity. The police took him to the Richmond Hill hospital and from there he was transferred to the Kings county institution. After nourishment he told the hospital attendants he had not eaten previously In three days. It was some time before he was able to talk because of his weak ened condition. Women Saw Way Out of Jail. AKRON, O. Three women prison ers sawed tl.eir wav to freedom at the county jail. They are Carrie Childs, aged 24. negress, charged with pocketpicking; Marie Hamilton. 20, negress, charged with cutting to kill, and Pearl White. 26, charged with pocketpicking. The women occupied the same cell. The escape was made the more daring by reason of the lo cation of the cell directly over the jail office. The woman, after sawing the bars, dropped to the ground di rectly in front of the office window.
