Bunuel wrote:
Edward Grieg: Your gallery is biased against my paintings. I have submitted twenty canvases in the last three years and you have not accepted any of them for display. You are punishing me because I won the Western Art award three years ago and your manager thought the award should have gone to his artist son.
Gallery owner: You are wrong! Our acceptance standards and display policies do not discriminate against you. Our staff covers the painters’ names, so the review board does not know who the artist is when it determines which pieces of art will be accepted for display and sale. The review board would not know which paintings you submitted.
Which one of the following assumptions does the gallery owner make in his reply?
(A) The gallery manager holds no bad feelings about Edward Grieg winning the Western Art award over his artist son.
(B) Many artists submit their work to galleries without having any pieces accepted for display.
(C) The review board cannot recognize Edward Grieg’s paintings without seeing his name on the canvases.
(D) The gallery accepts only nature studies, and Edward Grieg’s paintings frequently portray people and interior settings.
(E) The review board has tended to favor oil paintings over the last several years and Edward Grieg more typically paints water colors.
Official Explanation
(A) No. The gallery owner’s argument attempts to directly refute this charge; it is not an assumption in his argument.
(B) No. The gallery owner’s argument is based on the quality and style of Grieg’s paintings, not the number of pieces of artwork Grieg or any other artist submits.
(C) Yes. The gallery owner states that the artists’ names are covered so the review board could not know who the artists are. He or she assumes that the members of the review board will not be able to recognize Grieg’s paintings if his name is not disclosed. But the review board could recognize Grieg’s paintings based on his style, medium, subject matter, and other things.
(D) No. We have no information as to the type of artwork displayed in the gallery.
(E) No. Again, we have no information as to what type of art the review board has favored in the gallery in recent years.
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