Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times reviewed a show  called “Teaching America to Draw: Instructional Manuals & Ephemera, 1794 to 1925”; the show continues through July 29 at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, Manhattan; (212) 838-6690.

I did not make it over to the Grolier Club yet (the club sounds familar but I don’t think I had visited it before).

In the New York Times Article Kimmelman writes:

“From 1820 to 1860, more than 145,000 drawing manuals circulated, now souvenirs of our bygone cultural aspirations. Not many of these manuals are still intact because they were so heavily used, worn down like church relics, which supplicants rubbed smooth from caressing.”

….The exhibition is full of such exhortatory books, many of them discomfiting today because they presume a degree of skill among ordinary citizens — even children — that would now be regarded as noteworthy in the art world. There are exceptions, like a popular manual from the 1840’s by Benjamin Coe, one of Frederic Church’s teachers, who, to judge from his illustration of a maiden in a glen, needed a little brushing-up on perspective.”

I’ll try to make it over to the Grolier Club before the drawing show closes (in about 10 days); looks like a good show.  Too bad this show was not reviewed earlier on – now people who read the NYT have little more than a week – it would have been better were it reviewed a month ago or more – as many more people would be able to visit.

I was lucky that the show at the Austrian Cultural Forum was only a block away from the Municipal Art Society on 52nd Street and Madison Avenue. 

I really don’t have a lot to say about a bunch of photos and relics of ship building and ship repair – but at least they had red wine at the Municipal Art Society – which is more than I can say for the Austrians – they had only White Wine and I don’t go out of my way to drink White Wine. 

To me, the rooms were more interesting that what was in them – at least for this show.