Exhibitions in New York

The glories of the Mexican natural scene and the splendors of the Mexican revival of the arts are no news to Americans; for growing bonds of friendship have cemented cordial cultural relations with the republic to the south. However the full sweep and panorama of Mexican art has never been presented, even in Mexico, with such comprehensive and exhaustive documentation as in the exhibition, Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art, opening the middle of May at the Museum of Modern Art. At the time of going to press, the writer was able to see in storage about half of the five thousand or six thousand items sent by the Mexican government. Examination of these and study of hundreds of photographs as well as other documents made it clear that the vast scope of Mexican culture has never been sufficiently appreciated in this country, and indeed perhaps not in Mexico. Here is a land and a people whose roots stretch back into unrecorded time, to a prehistoric culture horizon of which no remains survive. Even of the so-called primitive period, no pottery has been found in Mexico, though the pottery-making art flourished on the North American continent as archeologists have proved, and no doubt infiltrated into Mexico. But the record for two thousand years is plain, through pre-Spanish, colonial and folk art to the modern era; and it is the record of a high civilization, skilled craftsmen and artisans, and art of a power and majesty not inferior to any of the great societies.