“Masters of Modern Italian Art,” an exhibition of 104 works from the Gianni Mattioli Collection of Milan opened its tour of the United States (Washington, Dallas, San Francisco, Detroit, Kansas City and Boston) at the Phillips Collection. It’s very much a study show, “intended to provide a direct knowledge in depth of Italian art between 1910 and 1935,” and it performs this service excellently.

Of the five artists (Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo and Gino Severini) who signed Boccioni’s Milan “Manifesto of Futurist Painters” in 1910, Carrà turns out to be the most

Something obviously has to be done about the format of the Corcoran Gallery’s biennial “Area Show” of local painting, sculpture, drawings, prints and pottery. The value of the show was already in doubt two years ago when Director Herman Warner Williams, Jr., complained that too few of the better local artists had submitted work, and threatened to conclude the series if there was not more co-operation in 1967. This time, with the “area” for the 18th show extended to a radius of 200 miles from Washington, additional categories for film and photography, and an outside juror—Bates Lowry, Director