“Great Ideas of Western Man” “Where Is Shorty This Morning?” Here Mr. Otis graphically indicates the precarious condition of modern sculpture. In the court of a gallery, which has patently been visited by vandals of the night, MAN inquires of ATLAS IV to know what has become of their fellow statue who only yesterday stood happily on his base. (Where, indeed, is Shorty this morning?) refused to pose for press photographers except ./ith a Mr. Otis mural for background. Then, when the late Bernard De Voto, Pulitzer Prize winning historian, came to do some research relating to Lewis and Clark, he left town with a Mr. Otis which the painter described as a marine and which in any case was entitled Low Tide at Megler. Mr. DeVoto hung this work in his large study in Cambridge where, as Mrs. De Voto remarked recently, it “caused a great deal of talk.” At about this time one or two visiting art critics from New York and Boston suddenly displayed a tremendous interest in Mr. Otis. Though they affected a protective condescension—one Of them even professing ignorance of how his name was spelled—they attached themselves like leeches to this rising new radiance. Such are the inevitable penalties of fame. One of the visiting critics even attempted to find three distinct “periods” in his coloring. This insolent attempt to bracket into several tidy limits the work of such an artist as Mr. Otis fell upon its face when the painter himself reached deep into his Western subconscious for a clear ringing protest. “Don’t fence me in!” he All save illiterates will know of the tremendous art project of the Container Corporation of America, whose scries of paintings, known to millions as “Great Ideas of Western Man,” so deeply moved Mr. Otis that he spent the better part of a day in order to conceive and complete this picture illustration of his own' Great Idea, virtually a battle cry Out Where the West Begins. “This work may herald a new period in Mr. Otis’s technique,” comments von Brummer. “. . . in this, his latest painting, he has adopted and improved upon the mudpic palette. . . . There is no getting ahead of Mr. Otis.” cried, coining a phrase that was to pass into the folklore of the West. Perhaps this is the proper place to close these reminiscences of the frail and weak-eyed character who has risen from the depths of three decades of obscurity to the comparative eminence of this splendid presentation of twenty- nine of his works in all their radiant colors. I might say before closing, however, that the Otis coterie, a small devoted group of local artists who gather once a month in the abandoned root-house in which Otis now has his studio, have recently organized in a formal manner and will hold occasional group shows. I will add only the fact that the accompanying pictures which represent the best of Mr. Otis were chosen by a twenty-one-man-and-woman jury of dedicated disciples who had no little difficulty in separating the really great paintings from the merely superb ones. I think they chose very well. —STEWART H. HOLBROOK literary figure. Holbrook came to Portland in "1923, taking a job as editor of the Four L Lumber News, a job he held for eleven years. The 4L’s (Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen)—a virtual company union—had been created during WWI to deflect the IWW’s strength in the Northwest woods, and it largely ushered the wobblies out of business. Holbrook may himself have carried the IWW card and wrote about them with great fondness in several books. A registered Republican, the only presidential candidate he'd vote for was the socialist Norman Thomas— he believed there needed to be a “third- party threat” to keep the two parties on their toes. He liked to claim the reason he lived in Portland was that the Public Library was the finest in the West. He also asserted that “perhaps the whole Northwest should be set aside as one great park before it is wholly overrun by foreign immigrants like myself.” He later created the James G. Blaine Association, and would publicly enumerate the many hazards and disadvantages of living here, including the weather, Hanford's radiation and the lack of decent restaurants. Holbrook, as his friend and fellow writer-bon vivant Lucius Beebe recalled, “took intense pleasure in the delusion that Portland, in proper fact as sedate as metropolis as its namesake in Maine, was a sink of vice and licentiousness.” He remembered Holbrook stating boldly, “Anything goes in Portland. Widest open god-darned town since Dodge City!" Though literary recognition in the form of Pulitzers and such prizes eluded Holbrook, he was highly respected by his peers, both locally and nationally. Such notables as editor-pundit H.L. Mencken, publisher Alfred Knopf, historian Bernard De Voto and novelist John Dos Passos visited Holbrook's Portland and were shown both the high and the low side of the city. His regional peers included H.L. Davis, Richard Neuberger (before he became U.S. Senator), Ellis Lucia, Ernest Haycox and Nard Jones. Holbrook held sway over them for years as the “permanent chairman” of the Oregon Freelance Club. Holbrook based most of his books on historical characters and people he'd observed. His characters included logger Jigger Jones in Old Holy Mackinaw, Harry Orchard, the agent provocateur and “mad dynamiter” in The Rocky Mountain Revolution. Northwest railroad baron James J. Hill, Ethan Allen (a best seller in 1940), and even several juvenile books on Wild Bill Hickcock, Davy Crockett and Wyatt Earp. But his most unusual creation was his own Mr. Otis. Holbrook took up painting for relaxation after he gave up alcohol. Claiming to have for years drunk a quart of whiskey daily, he ended up “not a reformed drunk, just a tired one." Holbrook reinvested that time and energy in his brightly colored “daubs,” and never missed the opportunity to poke fun at the inflated body of modern art and criticism. Oregonian Art Writer Catherine Jones got into the swing of things with her critique of Mr. Otis: “Careful examination of the 29 excellent color reproductions of works from the brush of Mr. Otis indicated that the artist is quite right in placing himself in a school of painting occupied by himself alone. . .. Judged by accepted artistic standards the paintings of Mr. Otis show the artist to be imaginative in his use of color, fearless in his approach to compostion, which he handies in a fresh and often challeging manner and unaware of any problems posed by perspective." The first Mr. Otis work presented to the public appeared in The Oregonian after being entered in their 1949 Salon Arts Independent Show. The piece was “Fido Can Set Up," a thinly veiled expression of his dislike for dogs. But the first public exhibit of his paintings was at Erickson’s saloon, with its longest bar in the world, a milieu which suited Holbrook perfectly. Sadly, the paintings of Mr. Otis seem to have disappeared from the public mind. The few that were bartered reside with their owners, who traded such items as a lifetime supply of Vermont maple syrup, a truckload of fertilizer, 20 pounds of wild rice, 12 cans of dog repellent and a bushel of filberts. Both Mr. Otis and Holbrook disdained cash payments for the works. Several are in the possession of the University of Washington, where his papers are housed as well. A few paintings were, last seen in a public display at Holbrook's long-time residence, a gracious mansion at the top of Northwest Lovejoy. The paintings were appropriately hung beneath the stairs—just where Mr. Otis would have expected them. Mrs. Sibyl Strahl. Holbrook’s widow, who still lives with several of Mr. Otis' finest, has the last word: “That’s right. You either dig 'em or you don’t.” / Clinton St. Quarterly 31
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