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Katherine Cornell posed for Barthe as Juliet when she was in "Romeo and Juliet." One critic says Barthe has the theater field to himself as a sculptor
Born in Mississippi9 Barthe has iron fame despite the lack of schooling
study his subjects night after night from a chair in the orchestra during the performance.
Barthe ha* modeled Katherine Cornell, Sir I^aurence Olivier. John Gielgud, Judith An-deraon and numerous other actors. One New York critic says Richmond Barthe has the entire theater field to himself an a sculptor.
He planned for 15 years to do a statue of Christ. He wanted to be sure he was technically good enough and knew enough about his subject. The result was a six-foot	bronze, ?Come	Unto Me,?
for	the Church	of	St.	Jude.
Montgomery, Ala.	It	was	recast
for the College of St. Mary of the Springs. Columbus. Ohio, and	the Church	of	St.	Jude.
South Bend, Ind. Barthe thinks this is his best work.
His most recent commission was for two monuments for the government of Haiti. These have been completed and now are being cast in bronze. He also has designed coins for Haiti.
FAR FROM SAD over giving up sculpture. Barthe says, "The materials for sculpturing get in your way. I get the expression I want in the studio, but in another light it is not at all as I intended. This is not true in painting. I want to paint something that will live. I believe modem art will be dated.? A believer in faith and prayer. Barthe says. ?I am the only
one to limit myself. All knowledge that ever was still is. None of the old masters had knowledge that is not available to me." This faith in dreams has overcome every barrier: Color, lack of education, lack of money.
In 1934. Xavier university honored him in New Orleans with its honorary master of arts degree. Only recently he was back in the city to visit his half-sisters, Mrs. H. J. Wright. 1902 Orleans; Mrs. Oliver Wiggins, 3927 Jumonville pi., and Mrs. D. J. Williams of Bay St. Louis. A half-brother. Louis Franklin, lives in New York, where Barthe went after his New Orleans trip.
Now, in his Jamaica home set high on a hill at Cole Gate post office. St. Ann, he overlooks the Caribbean sea as he practices what he calls his "five-finger exercises, learning to paint." The home, set on a 2^2-acre plot, is three miles from Ocho Rios. It has been remodeled and named "Iolaus," for the hero in Greek mythology who was friend and sometimes charioteer to Hercules.
In two years he hopes to be ready for his New York debut as a painter. It will be a boyhood dream come true.
One note of sadness strikes Barthe. ?I wish Lyle Saxon were living. He gave me encouragement. criticism, inspiration. He would have appreciated my recognition more than anyone other than myself.?
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were no Negro sculptors in the city.
The committee heard of his two heads and insisted on showing them. He then modeled from memory the head of a boy who had impressed him in a group of singers. This was cast in bronze and quite a few copies were sold. It was reproduced on a New York magazine cover.
Barthe then was approached by the Lake County Children's Home in <?ary, Ind., to do a bust of Haiti's liberator, Tous-saint L'Ouverture. He was about to tell them he was a painter, not a sculptor, but his landlady admonished him, "If you can do three, you can do more?and I need my rent!?
Two Julius Rosenwald fellowships were awarded him in 1930 and 1931 as a result of one-man shows in Chicago and New York. In 1937 the Whitney museum bought his "Blackberry? Wft-nan? and other pieces for their permanent collection.
He has since had 115 exhibitions in 18 states. 14 one-man shows, and won two Guggen-
heim fellowships as well as awards and citations from the American and National academies of arts and letters. He received the Audubon Artist gold medal of honor, and his bust of Booker T. Washington is the only statue of a Negro in the Hall of Fame of New York university.
Holding two honorary art degrees. Barthe says. "I didn't get to high school My mother was a widow and I was taken out of the seventh grade to help support the family in Bay St. Louis.?
His childhood toys often were just paper and pencil. When his seamstress mother, Mrs. Maria Robeteau Barthe. had to deliver her sewing, she would put little Richmond on the floor with paper and pencil to occupy his time, lock the door, and be off to her tasks.
At 16 he came to New Orleans as a butler for the Harry S. Pond family, and his first oil paints were given to him at Christmas by Mrs. Pond. "I had never seen an artist work," Barthe says, "and didn't even know how to apply oils to can-
He learned composition by copying from a volume of reproductions of old masters which cost him a hard-earned 525. A local butcher, impressed by his paintings, often put them up in his shop.
Lyle Saxon, then on the staff of The Times-Picayune, discovered his work and encouraged him. Saxon often posed for him, then criticized the results.
A church festival offered Barthe his first opportunity to exhibit a life-size painting of a head of Christ. Father Harry Kane of the Blessed Sacrament parish of New Orleans learned that this work had been done entirely without instruction, and was so impressed that he sent Barthe to the Chicago Art Institute. Barthe worked as a bus boy at a restaurant to supplement Father Kane's help. Four years of instruction at this school, and private lessons under Charles Schroeder. comprise his art education.
Barthe says, "My work is finished mentally before I ever go to the material." He has a photographic memory. At the theater. for example, he rarely asks an actor to pose. He prefers to
"The Mother? is among his poignant works. Barthe was taken out of seventh grade in Bay St. Louis to help support family. Until he started sculpture, he had no formal lessons in this work
DIXIE. TIMES PICAYUNE STATES ROTO MAGAZINE, OCTOBEP -	'**1