Portfolio

Last year's Charles Eliot Norton lecturer, Ben Shahn, recently convinced Dean Bundy to appropriate left-over funds of the Norton lectureship for the launching of a long awaited student art publication. The result is Portfolio, whose orange and blue face has begun to appear on newsstands and billboards throughout Cambridge.

Here are twelve aspiring artists, sculptors, and designers, who are attempting not only to display examples of their work in the Harvard-Radcliffe community, but also to voice a need for greater attention to creative activity, "to show that in spite of the prevailing prestige value of the Critical Outlook the creative act exists also, and should be recognized."

Portfolio distinguishes itself considerably by the direct, conscientious approach of all its selections, leaving attempts at ultra-modernity, super-sophistication and profound obscurity to other publications. John Von Rodenbeck's whimsical study of the victorious Nelson at Trafalgar, Anne Lord's charming sketch of Horses in a Field and Betsy Borden's Elm Tree in Spring demonstrate perhaps most lucidly this admirable use of poetic simplicity.

Portfolio is by no means stereotyped in its choice of material, presenting a wide range of media and technique. Eric Martin combines a photographic process with his brush-and-ink self-portrait, symbolizing "the eye" as an artist conceives it. Willard Midgette and Earl Newman offer woodcuts whose heavy, determined forms bespeak another temperament and approach altogether.

The scope of the publication is wide enough to include plaster sculptures done in Arch Sci 31, and even set designs by John Ratte for undergraduate theatrical productions last year.

Yoshiaki Shimizu, who demonstrated his own versatility and high degree of competence at the Dudley exhibit last spring, is represented in this collection by a brush and ink drawing. Michael Biddle's humorous and highly personal conception of two particularly grotesque individuals, titled simply Cartoon, contrasts strongly with another very direct statment, Tom William's Big City Vignette, or with David Austin's sketch of more glamorous terrain, the Grand Canal of Venice.

The editors of Portfolio remain vague, in this first issue, in respect to positive goals. They are not at all vague, however, in a conviction that the creative impulse at Harvard needs guidance and encouragement.