P • B • T THE BLIND MAN 33 WEST 67th STREET, NEW YORK BROYEUSE DE CHOCOLAT Marcel Duchamp MAY, 1917 No. 2 Price IS Cents 2 THE BLIND MAN The Blind Man's Ball EVERY reader of this magazine is invited to the BLIND MAN'S BALL, a new-fashioned hop, skip, and jump, to be held on Friday, May 25th at Prehistoric, ultra-Bohemian Webster Hall. The Ball is given for The Blind Man, a magazine of Vers Art. Axioms du Bal The dance will not end till the dawn. The Blind Man must see the sun. Romantic rags are requested. There is a difference between a tuxedo and a Turk and guests not in costume must sit in bought-and-paid-for boxes. Continuous Syncopations Tickets, in advance, are SI.50 each; boxes, not including admission, $10, and may be obtained ONLY from THE BLIND MAN'S BALL 61 Washington Square Telephone, Spring 5827 All tickets at the door, %2 m mi Q Q £ A RESOLUTION MADE AT BRONX PARK Robert Carlton Brown I'M GOING TO GET A GREAT BIG FEATHER-BED OF A PELICAN AND KEEP HIM IN THE HOUSE TO CATCH THE FLIES. MOSQUITOES AND MICE. LAY EGGS FOR ME TO MAKE OMELETTES OF. AND BE MY DOWNY COUCH AT NIGHT. *7 6 &U>it TALE BY ERIK SAT IE I bad once a marble staircase which was so beautiful, so beautiful, that I had it stuffed and used only my window for qet-ting in and out. Elle avail des yeux sans tain Et pour que ca use vote pas Elle avail mis par-desstts Pes lunettes a verres d'ecaille. S. T., E. K. THE BLIND MAN The Richard Mutt Case They say any artist paying six dollars may exhibit. Mr. Richard Mutt sent in a fountain. fVithout discussion this article disappeared and never was exhibited. What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt s fountain :— 1. Some contended it was immoral, vulgar. 2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing. Now Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tub is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers' show windows. IVbet her Mr. Mutt with his awn hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article oj li/e, placed it so that its usejul significance disappeared under the new title and point of •view—created a new thought for that object. As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges. "Buddha of the Bathroom" , I suppose monkeys hated to lose their tail. Necessary, useful and an ornament, monkey imagination could not stretch to a tailless existence (and frankly, do you see the biological beauty of our loss of them?}, yet now that we are used to it, we get on prett\ well without them. But evolution is not pleasing to the monkey race; "there is a death in every change" and we monkeys do not love death as we should. We are like those philosophers whom Dante placed in his Inferno with their heads set the wrong way on their shoulders. We walk forward looking backward, each with more of his predecessors' personality than his own. Our eyes are not ours. The ideas that our ancestors have joined together let no man put asunder! In La Dtssot iition des Idees, Remy de Gour-mpnt, quietly analytic, shows how sacred is the marriage of ideas. At least one charm- ing thing about our human institution is that although a man marry he can never be only a husband. Besides being a money-making device and the one man that one woman can sleep with in legal purity without sin he may even be as well some other woman's very personification of her abstract idea. Sin, while to his employees he is nothing but their "Boss," to his children only their "Father," and to himself certainly something more complex. But with objects and ideas it is different. Recently we have had a chance to observe their meticulous monogomv. When the jurors of The Society of Independent Artists fairly rushed to remove the bit of sculpture called the Fountain sent in by Richard Mutt, because the object was irrevocably associated in their atavistic-minds with a certain natural function of a secretive sort. Yet to any "innocent" eve 6 THE BLIND MAN how pleasant is its chaste simplicity of line and color! Someone said, "Like a lovely Buddha*'; someone said, "Like the legs of the ladies by Cezanne"; but have they not, those ladies, in their long, round nudity always recalled to your mind the calm curves of decadent plumbers' porcelains? At least as a touchstone of Art how valuable it might have been! If it be true, as Gertrude Stein says, that pictures that are right stay right, consider, please, on one side of a work of art with excellent references from the Past, the Fountain, and on the other almost anyone of the majority of pictures now blushing along the miles of wall in the Grand Central Palace of ART. Do you see what I mean? Like .Mr. Mutt, many of us had quite an exhorbitant notion of the independence of the Independents. It was a sad surprise to learn of a Board of Censors sitting upon the ambiguous question. What is ARTr1 To those who say that Mr. Mutt's exhibit may be Art, but is it the art of Mr. Mutt since a plumber made it? I reply simply that the Fountain was not made by a plumber but by the force of an imagination ; and of imagination it has been said, "All men are shocked by it and some overthrown by it.'' There are those of my intimate acquaintance who pretending to admit the imaginative vigor of Mr. Mutt and his porcelain, slyly quoted to me a story told by Montaigne in his Forte of the Imagination of a man, whose Latin name I can by no means remember, who so studied the very "essence and motion of folly" as to unsettle his initial judgment forevermore; so that through overmuch wisdom he became a fool. It is a pretty story, but in defense of Mr. Mutt I must in justice point out that our merry Montaigne is a garruolus and gullible old man, neither safe nor scientific, who on the same subject seriously cites by way of illustration, how by the strength simply of her imagination, a white woman gave birth to a "black-a-moor"! So you see how he is good for nothing but quotation, M. Montaigne. Then again, there are those wbo anxiously ask, "Is he serious or is he joking?" Perhaps he is both! Is it not possible? In this connection I think it would be well to remember that the sense of the ridiculous as will as "the sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness." It puts it rather up to you. And there is among us to-day a spirit of "blague" arising out of the artist's bitter vision of an over-institutionalized world of stagnant statistics and antique axioms. With a frank creed of immutability the Chinese worshipped their ancestors and dignity took the place of understanding; but we who worship Progress. Speed and Efficiency are like a little dog chasing after his own wagging tail that has dazzled him. Our ancestor-worship is without grace and it is because of our conceited hypocracy that our artists are sometimes sad, and if there is a shade of bitter mockery in some of them it is only there because they know that the joyful spirit of their work is to this age a hidden treasure. But pardon my praise for, sayeth Nietzsche, "In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame"; and so as not to seem officiously sincere or subtly serious, I shall write in above, with a perverse pen, i neutral title that will please none; and as did Remy de Gourmont, that gentle cynic and monkey without a tail, I, too, conclude with the most profound word in language and one which cannot be argued—a pacific PerhaPs! Louise Norton. FOR RICHARD MUTT One must say every thing-,— When they stop they make then no one will know. a convention. To know nothing is to say That is their end. a gTeat deal. For the going every thing So many say that they say has an idea, nothing',—but these never really send. The going- run right along. For some there is no stopping. The going just keep going. Most stop or get a style. C. DEMUTH. Edgar Varese en Composition Par Ciara Tice Recharge, please, recharge avec la chimie de ta salive Vaccumlateur de mon coeur. 8 THE BLIND M A N Axiom From a determinable horizon absent spectacularly from a midnight which has yet to make public a midnight in the first place incompatibly copied the other in observance of the necessary end guarantees the simultaneous insularity of a structure self-contained a little longer than the general direction of goods opposed tangentically. WALTER CONRAD ARE NS BERG. Letter from a Mother I have never been in Europe. I was born in Minneapolis and I am the mother of three children, all gifted, two exhibiting in this exhibition. I have always felt nervous about artists, but in my modest way I am a believer in democracy. Therefore as a woman who has done her duty towards the race and experienced life, I make the plea to all other mothers and women of constructive comprehension, that we keep this exhibition sane and beautiful. It is only by elevating the soul and keeping the eyes of our young ones rilled with lovely images that we can expect good results from the generation that' will follow. People without refinement, cubists, futurists, are not artists. For Art is noble. And they are distorted. Independence is needed, but a line must be drawn somewhere. In sincere faith I hope for your success. Sincerely, A Mother. THE BLIND MAN 9 Theorem For purposes of illusion the actual ascent of two waves transparent to a basis which has a disappearance of its own is timed at the angle of incidence to the swing' of a suspended lens from which the waves wash the protective coloration. Through the resultant exposure to a temporal process an emotion ideally distant assumes on the uneven surface descending1 a3 the identity to be demonstrated the three dimensions with which it is incommensurate. WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG. CONEY ISLAND Joseph Stella r H i-: B I, 1 X D M A N From a friend. April 12, 1917. Dear Blind Man :— Fine lor you! You are, I hope, to be an instrument for the accomplishment of an important and much-needed work in America; namely, the fostering and encouragement of a truly native art. An art which will be at once the result of a highly vitalized age, of a restless artistic spirit, and of a sudden realization,—-on the part of our artists—of America's high destiny in the future of the world. Such an art must very closely embody the spirit of our time, however morbid, however hurried, however disorganiezd, however nerve-racking that time may be. A bas,—-you should say—with any and every school of art that represents another day, another spirit, another time. No art can live that is not an integral part of its time. Put Botticelli in a studio on Fifth Avenue; put Corot in a garret in Washington Square; put Fragonard in a barn in Harlem, and their work would be worthless, sterile, of no lasting purpose, or power of evocation; because it would fail absolutely to symbolize and synthesize the spirit of our age. Their work would merely be something promoted, not by our life, not by the vitalized forces of our time, but something promoted only by the flat, dead and profitless spirit of a bygone time. So, if you can help to stimulate and develop an American art which shall truly represent our age, even if the age is one of telephones, submarines, aeroplanes, cabarets, cocktails, taxicabs, divorce courts, wars, tangos, dollar signs; or one of desperate strivings after new sensations and experiences, you will have done well. The future dwellers upon earth will then be able to look back to our day, and, with truth and conviction say: "Yes, they had an art, back in New York, in the days following the Great War, an art that was a vitalized part of their life; that mirrored accurately their time, with all of its complexities, graces, horrors, pleasures, agonies, uncertainties and blessings." Admiringly yours, Frank Crown ins hi eld. MEDUSA Sinister right—dexter left—superior hypocrecy Spirits without light and Don Quixotes • Arts starboard, red and green port without vessel. Why change men into animal foeti. My tongue becomes a road of snow Circles are formed around me In bath robe Exterior events Napoleon Modern ideas Profound artists reunited in canon who deceive Artists of speech Who have only one hole for mouth and anus I am the lover of the world The lover of unknown persons I am looking for a Sun. F. PICABIA. April, 1917. THE BLIND MAN Pas De Commentaires! Louis M. Eilshemius. "Soul... .Soul! Your ;irtists haven't got it: for them things are just ehah*, or table, or stables. Was it Aristotle wlio said. '.A picture is a silent poem?'------ "Hut you are not seeing my pictures now... What is a minute, an hour? Ruskin, (have yon ever heard of Ruskin?) found it necessary to look at a picture for ;i steady week. "I have two thousand pictures—how long do you suppose it would take an ordinary aitist to paint lliis one.'" asked Louis Kilshemius pointing to 'Maidenhood Confronted By Death'— —. This is tlic first time she has seen death; observe tin' effect-Horror—! that's unite new—the stormy sky enforces the idea : see how it bursts,— death, that's it, a hurst !" We computed that it would take perhaps three weeks to paint such a picture—. "Well it takes me just two hours! I always paint on cardboard, that's new! You can't get such quality on canvas.'' Wandering round the bountifully endowed studio we found such variety of subject and treatment, as to give us some idea of the scope of this artist's mind. As Rousseau of the French spirit painted in Fiance, does Kilshemius of the American spirit paint in America, with the childlike self-faith of a Blake. Mis conceptions are traditional of the simple sold unhampered by a traditional mode of representation. Eilshemius paints women dancing, moonlight and the devil, and it is significant after looking him straight in his unspoiled eye, that his princes of darkness are repeatedly the best tempered, most unsophisticated young devils imaginable, and thai his nearest approach to evil is in the symbol of the horn. Kilshemius has not evolved, he has just grown to scatter seeds hap-hazard bvn at will to blossom in the amazing variations of his pictures, which, outside every academic or unaeademie school, untouched by theory or "ism," survive as the unique art form that has never been exploited by a dealer, never been in fashion! His is so virtually the way a picture must be painted by one unsullied by any preconception of how pictures are painted, so direct a presentation of his cerebral vision, that between his idea and the setting forth of his idea, the question of method never intrudes, The complicated mechanism that obtains in other artists a prolonged psychological engineering of a work of art, is waived; his pictures, if one may say so, are instantaneous photographs of his mind at any given moment of inspiration. "1 am very broad-minded," said Eilshemius, "J like everything that is nice, everything," smiling benignly, "that is nice you understand. I can paint anything, anywhere, beautiful pic- suppi.icatton lures on your ha1 or your dress, if you like! ■— And I only use five colours, any particular five colours.' Certainly not. I'm not one of your hocus-pocus painters who have to have certain colours, certain palettes, certain--I paint with my imagination, look at this! Vict is—you know what victory is.' Pressing the other fellow down!" Three fine nudes in an evening sky, each with a different coloured ribbon ; the one on top, is the one on top! "See that one there on the right he's dying; you notice that on his face." Hopefully inspired by the granite simplicity of the painter's speech I asked him if be ever wroti—"Don't you know who J am—" he gasped j "Louis M. Kilshemius, M. A. Supreme Protean .Marvel of the Ages. The Peer of all who create Painting, Literature and ilusie." As I am used to do in reading I found by intuition the finest passages while skimming the volumes handed to me: "How most are sore misled by pope and priest To think that God hath arms and feet and eyes—" "And my weird soul hath felt The whiffs that waved from forth my heart." THK BLIND MAN IN LIGHTED SLEEPNESS. BLIND V» WAKING WAKING DISTANT CENTER CENTER \c&* SLOW TAKING ISLAND-OCEAN SLOW V* *Ct& WATER YESTER CONTACT'S SEAS SHIFTING \>®^ TRIANGLE JOYS POINS \° INCISOR VISTA YELLOW FOUNTAIN V* WIDE IN ALL FORTH OVER HACK UPSURGING FACTS HEAVY LIGHTNESS BACK OVER INSURGING RHYTHM SHOUT F.ARTH SHOUT ALI YES ALL HIGH LAY LIE RELAY IN EVEN OPEN PENE SEPARATE REMARK ENLEVEL LEVEL ALWAYS TON SILENT IONS OVER DOUBLE TONNAGE DOUBLE THRU THRU TON AND TON AND TON SHIFT ALL ALL IN IN THIS BODY BALANCE AND RESURGE LEVEL LEVEL COOL BIG SAD:......IN RUST GOLD DARK DUST HAIR: DISTANCE SPREAD NOW NOW", NEW FORKS'!' FRAGRANT FOREST HAIR RESURG1NG RFFORTH PENFT UP F.aR, THRU EYES, AREA FLOW WATER FEEL DEEP DEEP......IN IN FAR FAR FARTHEST MOUNTAIN MOUNT KATAHDYN FLUX KATAHDYN MOUNTAIN FLUj.....FLOWER IN IN. THRU EYES. SLEEY SLUMBER HEAVE Third Dimension; Portrait Sketch Charles Duncan "Free Verse, why I wrote free verse twenty years ago"—'.' Yet while Eitehemius exonerates himself from ever having studied the works of any period whatsoever, there is a something Elizabethiau about him. 1 will end this rummage of a gold-mine with Eilslieiiiius when he is most himself—in the the poems "A Country Child" anil "Magsjie the Geyser Guide.'' "It dwelled, where I would not to live; In a hut, with cracks and holes. But there it played with wicker and mud; And it tried to lift loiig poles." "Have you no fear of all those boiling waters?" "Nay, I was 'hatched' right on this steaming earth. The other place cannot be worse!" she ventured, And in our eyes a twinkle suddenly had birth. Thus questioning, she grew more sweet to me, for in her voice Lay mellow dreaminess, that made my hear: rejoice. Anyhow, Duehamp meditating the levelling of all values, witnesses the elimination of Sophistication. MINA LOT. THE BLIND MA N *3 MARIE LAURENCES She is shortsighted—nevertheless, no detail of life escapes her. She is sentimental—yet, she has a very acute sense of irony and of the ridiculous. She is bourgeoise and respects social conventions but recognizes no other law than her fantasy. She seems frail and defenseless, but her egotism, unceasingly active, makes her unattackable. She has remained a playful and dangerous child even if her vision is clear and wise. She gives herself, reveals herself, opens her life like a book but remains impregnable. She loves richesse, elegance and luxury and is fond of the realities of order and economy. She has been little influenced. Perhaps some English painters, whose aristocracy she loves, have left some traces in her work.—She does not recognize esthetic conventions.—She recreates the world to her image. She does not know but herself, does not represent but herself, and even when she copies she does not express but her own imagination. In her work, she only loves the accomplished effort, being contemptuous of its artistic value. Though she does not attempt to go beyond the conventionalist of representation, her spirit shows all the comprehention of modern art. She invents according to her fantasy and makes her selections according to her profound instinct for harmony and rhythm. To her gift of painting she adds her literary gift which is always felt in her work.—A drawing of hers, scarcely sketched often tells a long story. She loves her femininity which she exalts and cultivates, finding in it her best sources for her inventiveness. The seventeen drawings and watercolors exhibited at the Modern Gallery have the charm and subtlety which she always imparts to her work, but to me. three of those drawings especially reveal her personality: "The Little Mule" is an astonishing expression of her literary imagination and of her sense of protection.— The animal has a human expression, the troubled expression of her own eyes—the delicacy of its lines, the elegance of its details, preciously reproduced, evoke the mystical personage of a prince encased in the body of a beast. "The Lady of the Palms" is an old fashion plate, its complicated architecture charmed her. Her fantasy, her sense of form and harmony transported the old fashion plate into a landscape of palms. "The two Dancers," by the accuracy and sobriety of its traits, by its ensemble and proportions, give the sensation of a moving rhythm. It would be odd to see Marie Laurencin in America. GABP.IELLE BUFFET. TP1*-' Supreme intense gluttony To Cut my throat. The utter lust to let Red Blood roll down The expectant upturned breasts Or what better than The smooth security of Tightening rope When mass obeying gravity Forfeits Life? Perhaps my head upon the sill A window Coming swiftly down Would link my consciousness With Queens. Again a knife in the grasp of that impenetrable blank wall 1 Falling Might lend at last a line-To pure Monotony. Have I courage to keep on Beating out my Brains When Regret should have entered The First Fist? To die with (lowers? Too soft— To burn in perfumed oil? Too slow— All forces that are not Mine— I will. 1 will Hold my Breath And Fell asleep And Dreamed I drowned. Frances Simpson Stevens. Let us droop our heads over each other like lilies And our bodies remain long. ALLEN NORTON _THI-: BLIND MAN_ 0 Marcel - - - otherwise 1 Also Have Been to Louise's I don't like a lady in evening dress', salting From here she has bla-k eyes, no mouth, some -Will you "bring a per 'setion, well bring a "bottle - - - Two perfections WELL I want to SEE it - - - he will know it afterwards - - - will you bring the Lottie. Really, have I? - - . Which way? Oh did [? WHEN? Too mujh? You are -housing myself. No, you wc: 1 not - - . Did you ask Lemuth about it? Anything you like, would I? Ough Naow? of course not? Yes I do. I used to kill myself with the syphon - - -. You don't remember that ball. Well don't do that becau./e I am perfectly sober now - - - - that's the kid he looks like - . It will probably cost me very much I have not got money. Did I say I wanted the "bottle all right - SEE it! Ex-use me, explain it. You don't need any. I will give you sort:*- paper Mina and keep silent to give you a rest. Oh! I will give you soifle paper all the same. Very auch. He sai : to Tie, we will toss whether yo i resign or I resign - - - a very old French story about 'the englishman must shoot first.' She has a pencil in her hair very impr^ sionistic . i'o'i know you should have some salt on your hair- it's so nice • saus-e*? Nothing - its mu "' ■. \'c. -.hi. s is, this is, this is, is IT. Do not Worry about such things as lighting a match. I give you my key Clara - HEY - have some yellow paper. If carried away If Clara ever returns it. Kfel] , you did about a week, after. Here's the salting lady -I will show her to you - salting lady. She passed. Do not speak any more - - - you have to squeeze it, maid of the - - - . I used to go every day - -waitress. I feel ashamed in front of this girl - she looks at me from far its wonderful -its wo - onderE'JL; Yes, have a drink lady, teaspoon by teaspoon. ho please take this - Do I eat? You know why 1 have one - I do - I do have it -I want some tongue I will give you some - but don't do too much what? Suck it. Well I don't know how I •;»; 11 get up early tomorrow I have a lesson at two -no not with the "oellemere" You don't know what a wonderful sensation it is ----- I have some: pre '-rence for some company where is our waiter -whe>'- is he it sounds it doesn't he? Min:-. are you short-hand?, I never knew it. I want tongue sandwj Jh, anyway it keeps me awake. Cou knew, she comes riding school fifty sixth street you know she comes. Lunch 12 ' oloeie; Well you know it was. How do you light a cigar- T H K B L I N D M A N ette - how do you light a match Did you., well it is not dangerous at all - Did you got it? Are you an American representative - I am sorry. You are Pennsylvania I am Boston. Do you want some cigarettes - - Did you put the pronunciation. Waiter! tongue sandwiches. Do you want hot milk. Two perfections she doesn't want anything - you got it"- She can't write it down anyway - through the flag oh some cigarettes - waiter I want some cigarettes for Mina - this is a wonderful tune Ti lis li laera Mina I give you two dollars, it means to me two dollars - Ti li li laera - - it is twice I need to shave now. Demuth you must he careful of your key she keeps it about a £5 week every key 3he gets she keeps. You speak like Carlo, well when he wants to imitate -well have a drink! You know those two girls are crazy a.bout that-man, they mustn't, you must get him out. I will have a tongue sandwich - you must suck it - - - Censorship! Don't let your flag get wet - - is that Billy Sunday. One should have had an additional star Billy Sunday - There's always a sky in heaven! - - - that is too low. My ancestor is tall people. Don't write, he is going to leave you for a minute. Sandwiches - Oh I forgot to telephone - what shall I say. Ti li li laere - she said - all right! Compiled Toy Mina Loy 291 Fifth Ave., New York April 13, 1917. Sty dear Blind Man: You invite comment, suggestions. As I understand the Independent Society its chief function is the desire to smash antiquated academic ideas. This first exhibition is a concrete move in that direction. Wouldn't it be advisable next year during the exhibition, to withhold the names of the makors of all work shown. The names, if on the canvases, or on the pieces of sculpture, etc., exhibited could be readily hidden. The catalogue should contain, in place of the names of artists, simply numbers, with titles if desired. On the last clay of the Exhibition the names of the exhibitors could be made public. That is each number would be publicly identified. A list of the identified numbers could also be sent to the purchasers of catalogues. To no one, outside of the committee itself, should any names be divulged during- the exhibition. Not even to those wishing to purchase. In thus freeing the exhibition of the traditions and superstitions of names the Society would not be playing into the hands of dealers and critics, nor even into the hands of the artists themselves. For the latter are influenced by names quite as much as are public and critics, not to speak of the dealers who are only interested in names. Thus each bit of work would stand on its own merits. As a reality. The public would be purchasing its own reality and not a commercialized and inflated name. Thus the Society would be dealing' a blow to the academy of commercializing names. The public might gradually see for itself. Furthermore I would suggest that in next year's catalog-ue addresses of dealers should be confined to the advertising pages. The Independent Exhibition should be run for one thing only: The independence of the work itself. The Society has made a definite move in the right direction, so why not follow it up with still more defmiteness. NO JURY—NO PRIZES—NO COMMERCIAL TRICKS. Alfred Stieglitz. Perhaps The Blind Man may become a monthly—-perhaps a, quarterly— perhaps a yearly— All depending on contributions, literary and financial. Brave people who like to run risks may send to Tue Blind Man five dollars as subscription and encouragement. 33 WEST 67th STREET Paintings by American Artists of Today: BURLIN MARIN DEMUTH McFEE DICKINSON MILLER FISK MYERS GLACKENS NORDFELIJT HALPERT I 'RENDERG AST HARTLEY MANRAY KENT SCHUMACHER KUEHNE WALKOWITZ LAWSON WORTMAN LEVER M. ZORACH MAGER and MANIGAULT W. ZORACH The Dani el Gallery 2 West 47th St., New York Bourgeois Galleries 668 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK Old and Modern Paintings Modern Gallery S00 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK DAUMIER CEZANNE LAUTREC VAN GOGH PICASSO BRANCUS1 PICABIA DERA1N MARIE LAURENCIN MANOLO liLRTV VLAMINCK RIVERA BR AO IK Mexican Pre-Conquest Art African Negro Sculpture