Juniors' Joy Caught By Candid Cameras
At Avon House, Simpson's, a blithe convention of child-portraits by R. Morawetz, whose son in 1944 won a Performing Right Society award for a string quartet. This children's portrait party is the sort of thing Disney might cadge into a
multicolor cartoon to glorious music. Obviously, the father tone-painting his "youngest friends" as
he calls them, with clever cameras, has the same root-impulse as the son weaving
a string quartet.
"Blame gasoline rations for these," said the artist. "I couldn't get out of town to paint. The
camera worked for me in the studio."
So, here they are, boys and girls from babyhood to sub-teenage, caught in
whatever clothes Mumsie thought would photograph best. A camera is one of the most cheerful glib-liars when it tries to record the masques of grown-ups But these juveniles have no masks; just faces, sparkling with the ecstasy of life. Festoons of smiles! But one boy the camera caught, just as he was in throes of a glorious boohoo.
Most of the boys' portraits are honest Injun that way; more concerned over
what's up than how to look amiable. Girls are different. Some of these junior belles are exquisitely camera-conscious: they smile like movie-queens or prima-donnas; sub-debs of a picture
society - these Shirley Temples and junior Jenny Linds. But they're all part of what the French call "joie de vivre."
