Fogg Befogged When Picture Hung Wrong Brings on Envenomed Strife

The Fogg Art Museum yesterday became the center of a debate which threatened to split the world of art into three definite schools of thought.

Beautiful friendships which had withstood Diego Rivera, the Dartmouth Library, and Radio Center, were broken as the debaters took sides on a question which may--before all of its ramifications have been explored--assume international importance.

It all started with an event that occurs but once in the life of a Museum Director and is given much more credence as fiction than as fact. A picture in the latest exhibit at the Fogg was inadvertently hung upside down.

"Doorway" was the unlucky picture and Charles Sheeler, a modern painter who specializes in photographic effects in his works, was the hapless artist who deserved a much better fate than to become a bone of contention.

When the exhibit was opened to the public gaze for the first time on Tuesday morning, Sheeler's picture was hanging patiently in the second gallery to the left of the entrance on the first floor of the Museum. It was not until an inquisitive visitor wondered at the position of the signature in the upper left-hand corner that people began to get suspicious.

An attendant was hastily called and after a consultation, the picture was righted and the signature appeared in the traditional place--the lower righthand corner.

But the argument which ensued among some of the visitors and which became serious when three factions appeared was concerned with the relative merits of the picture in the various possible positions.

"Doorway" shows two doors opening into a short hallway. The doors have no distinguishing latches and the only feature which might differentiate top from bottom is the beamed ceiling. Even this factor does not seriously affect the picture when it is hung upside down.

One faction dubbed themselves the "Upsidedownians" and firmly maintained that the true quality of Sheeler's art was only expressed when the painting was upside down. Another faction--the "Rightsideupsians"--put up a determined stand in favor of the artist, and decreed that the picture was not a picture unless it was in its correct position.

Still another group, made up of visitors who had twisted themselves into contortionists and gazed at the picture from a horizontal position, deplored the oversight of the directors, who had failed to try the sideways possibilities. These men called themselves "Sidewaysians" and their spokesman said, "I think it should be hung sideways. It looks just like a bulkhead door opening.