AND HE SAT AMONG THE ASHES: Biography of Louis M. Eilshemius

This new group, known already to bookshops for the beautiful series of Christmas cards last season, is now launching the first three titles in a series of biographies of contemporary artists. The first publication of the association, GIST OF ART by John Sloan, appeared last month. In its pages, he sets forth his philosophy of life and art for both the picture-creator and the picture-observer. The creative processes of the artist, based on his own classroom and studio procedure, should prove valuable to the student. Illustrated by 278 reproductions of his work, drawings, etchings and lithographs. The aim of the series is to give contemporary artists a chance to record their own convictions. The need for some such series was evidenced by the results of the traveling art exhibits sponsored by the organization. A third title, MEMORIES PAINTED AND UNPAINTED by Jerome Myers, is scheduled for a future date... The Eilshemius' biography, now on the press, is written by a critic who has sympathy and understanding and appreciation for the invalid eccentric, self-styled Mahatma of the Arts. He paints him in words as an egocentric, bitter, tragic --and he traces the reasons for his disillusion in the long years of disappointment, when all his efforts to receive recognition, as artist, as poet, as musician and composer, were greeted with mockery or indifference. Now, almost too late, he is recognized and taken seriously. Where lay the fault? Schack places it about equally on the tradition bound public and critical world, and on the personality of the man himself. A strange life, frankly revealed by one who knows him well.