12
PARTISAN REVIEW
icent endowments they were never called upon to foot any bills. Then
suddenly the storm broke. No one knoWs where it had its beginnings,
but a possible prelude might have been the winning of a tax-suit
against the city of New York. For Cooper Union, among its other
tangible assets, happens to be the owner of the Chrysler Building, on
which the Trustees had been busily paying taxes for many years. And
now (being a free educational institution) its property should never
have been taxable at all, and the city was required to refund hundreds
of thousands of dollars into the Cooper Union coffers.
It may have been coincidence, but soon after
this
advantageous
decision the Trustees decided that it was about time to spruce the old
place up. They began by looking for a new and more efficient director,
and the announcement was soon forthcoming that they had found
the very man-one Dr. Burdell, who had been "doing wonders" up at
M.I.T. In April the new director visited his future field of opera–
tions, and started off with the appointment of a commercial artist of
obscure standing as a new head for the art-division. Activities ceased
for the summer, and it was not until the middle of their vacation that
Messrs. Harrison and Turnbull were astonished to receive some curt
announcements that their services were no longer required at Cooper
Union. And that was the end as far as they were concerned.
In September the students returned from the holidays, and it is
not difficult to sympathize with the ones who had been most deeply
concerned with exploring the devious channels of modern painting.
Instead of Mr. Harrison they were now confronted with Mr. Ernest
Fiene, whose vapid canvases had been occasionally visible further
west on Eighth Street. The pupils were put to copying knees and
elbows, the vital world of structure and design that they were be–
ginning to appreciate as the bones and foundation of artistic creation
was closed for good. To make a long story short the students rebelled.
They appealed to the director, to the Trustees, to the Advisory Coun–
cil; and the suspicion was apparent in some official quarters that per–
haps Dr. Burdell was not being strictly accurate when he characterized
the dissenters as "just a snobbish little group." But was any one dis–
cerning enough to apprehend the truth, that this "snobbish little
group" comprised the liveliest and most talented elements in the
School? So it was that the powers decreed an adjustment to be in–
evitably difficult when a new director takes office, and that Dr. Burdell
should be given a free hand. And thus ends the history of modern
painting at Cooper Union.
