THE NEW.YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY BULLETIN January, 1941 VOLUME XXV NUMBER ONE New York: 170 Central Park West The President's Communication PROBABLY the finest contribution to the knowledge of early American art has been made possible through the generosity of the Carnegie Foundation of New York, and the cooperation of The Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, with our Society. Each Friday afternoon some forty-five students gather in our auditorium to listen to Mr. William Sawitzky analyze and explain the various canvases left by our old American painters. These students comprise curators and librarians of other institutions, editors of art publications, artists, restorers, dealers—in short, a most comprehensive class of art, history and museum- minded people coining to get, first-hand, the impressions of a careful and thorough investigator, a world-traveled scientist, a patient, painstaking, kindly critic. It is many years now since first we dreamed of the time when we could render this service to a waiting world and the fulfillment of our dream is a source of great satisfaction. Mr. Sawitzky was born in Riga, Russia, in 1879, and began