Art Teachers Want Growth Of Creativity

The Fine Arts Department will place more emphasis on the creative arts if it can get the necessary funds to carry out its program, several members of the department said yesterday.

John Coolidge, Director of the Fogg Art Museum, said that "there was no doubt Harvard needed more creative arts, the only question is how much more."

Theodore L. Feininger, Lecturer on Fine Arts, who teaches the one creative art class offered here, said that the need for more activity was shown by the fact that he had over twice as many applications for his course as he could accommodate.

None of the men contacted, however, thought that there should be a field of concentration under a new Department of Design, as was recommended in the Visual Arts report of last year. Leonard Opdycke, associate professor of Fine Arts and Chairman of the department, said that creative work in the visual arts should remain under the Fine Arts Department "where it is given an intellectual foundation related to the serious purposes of art."

Members of the department had different opinions on how the University could give students more opportunity for creative work. Coolidge said that instead of offering more courses, the University might set up an extracurricular center in the visual arts patterned upon the Glee Club. Another possibility would be a program connected with the Houses like the one Dunster has started, he suggested.

Feininger said that the most pressing need at the moment was a course in sculpture. He then commented that the University should set up a course in the graphic arts. This course would include photography as well as etching.