NEW YORK, N.Y.- The exhibition American Paintings from the 1920s & 1930s in the Arkell Collections provides a fascinating glimpse at two decades of collecting by an American Industrialist, and a look at some of the artists working in the 1920s and 1930s who were promoted by Macbeth Gallery —the first New York City gallery to sell only American art. Most of the paintings in this exhibition were purchased by Bartlett Arkell, the founder and first president of the Beech-Nut Packing Company. Arkell began to collect paintings for the museum in the mid-1920s. This was a time when many American painters continued to work in styles influenced by the French Impressionists, while others were encouraged by Robert Henri and The Eight (also known as the Ashcan School) to explore greater realism. During the 1930s, American artists became more interested in organic or geometric abstraction, but abstract art had a limited appeal w