Paint and Patronage Visitors to the Phillips Collection’s current exhibition on the Alfred Stieglitz circle can come away with more than a brochure: D.C.’s Counterpoint Press has published a companion coffee-table book titled In the American Grain. The volume documents how painters Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Georgia O’Keeffe benefited from the uneasy but civil alliance between photographer/art dealer Stieglitz and deep- pocketed Duncan Phillips, the collection’s namesake. Editor Elizabeth Hutton Turner contributes a history of the artists and patrons and, with collaborator Leigh Bullard Weisblat, selects examples of letters between the six individuals, who corresponded from 1926 to 1949.

Thank You, St. Martin Last month, two hefty boxes arrived at Washington City Paper. Enclosed was the 20-volume paperback edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, list-priced at $500 and weighing in at a courier-herniating 29 pounds per box. Shortly thereafter, a missive dated Sept. 8 arrived from a St. Martin’s Press publicist, imploring City Paper to relinquish the encyclopedic set: Seems the publisher meant to send only a review copy of Volume 1 rather than the whole enchilada. This paper wasn’t the only one to participate in the St. M’s minidrama; New York Press named the publisher’s staff “Best Indian Givers” in its Best of Manhattan issue. But we felt sorry for the publicist, and dutifully called him to ask when someone might come for the goods. That was two weeks ago. No one has bothered to get back to us. Could this mean that the folks at St. Martin’s have made a donation to CP‘s reference library? How thoughtful.