Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

e - "TELEGRAPH" $yeiney, N.S.W 17 OCT 1965 r r I. SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, OCTOBER 17, 1965 47 American paintings NINE exhibitionsthis week with nearly 400 worts; six exhibitions still unreported from last week. Can anyone pay proper attention to so much in so short a time? Certainly not me. Though prior familiar- ity with nearly all the artists' work does pie - vent any real injustice, despite seeing it on the run. But in the mixed ehows it means you chiefly note who's new and who's improved, not the other 100 or so who are good but much the same as last time. Most important: the 54 Abstract Watercolors by 14 Americans (Art Gallery of N.S.W.) a travelling show from the Museum of Modern Art. New York, It's not all absolutely abstract - the Americans use the word where we would say semi -abstract. And not all watercolor - but ink and llquitex and oil wash and crayon are mostly exploring re- lated qualities, either spontaneity and quirk- ness, or else transper- ancy and the mystery of veils. ' It's only the second American show Austra- lia has ever had, and although the work is recent, around 1982, it is not so up-to-date as last year's Michener Foun- dation paintings. Except for Al Held's hard-edge hard -color, studies of pressures, thrusts and strains be- tween aggressive tri- angles and squares it's all very romantic. It evidently intends to de- fine the special quali- ties of the New York School of abstract ex- pressionism before Pop and Op Art made the scene. Within abstract ex- pressionism itself there are rival critical stand- points. One implies art - for art's sake by stress- ing the styles links with ,he past, its sources in cubism, and its Just claim to be the main- stream of traditional western art since World War IT. The other standpoint prefers to use the term "Action Painting"; to speak of the artist's In- dividual crisis. This doesn't exactly mean decidin whether to tight for the Spanish Republic, or for ban- ning the Bomb. It means more a know- ledge of the momen- tousness in committing (..aeself to anything; for example to a mark on a surface, which might become a work of art. This theory seems to fit purely gestural art rather than constructive art. Helen Franken- thaler, in fact as sophis- ticated as Lee Krasner, would like to evoke the first Caveman and those first marks to become symbols as well as marks -their arrival as if by magic and their poten- tial for working further magic. ONE-MAN SHOW Paul Partos (Gallery A): A ,voung Melbourne painter's first show. Frankly in love with art, raiding Picasso of 1940, but feeding those atrocious heads with richer, more succulent paint than Picasso ever did; then embracing them to suffocation in more anxious colors; more thunderous tonali- ties. He is much less the prisoner of good taste than Picasso. He is immensely promising. Erie Smith (Komon) this year shows six of his familiar abstract landscapes, two of them rather fine-"The En- tombment" and "Ivory Flux"-where touches of rose and blue can work their old color miracles In shimmering pictures about heat and light and ecstasy. He also has 12 portraits of artists and friends, eff., Olsen, Hessing, Neville Gruzinan, Father Michael Scott; some rather frightening in scale, all with some good insights into character, none resolved pictorially. Guy Warren (Mac- quarie) paintings about Mungo Brush, a lush pocket oof tglactaeadstr C le! yond Newcastle, about fertility and growth of leaves and plants and also of children (who appear, Egyptian per- spective. from unexpect- ed edges) about friend- ly things, including the The week in t By Daniei Thomas shy gifts of delicate color to be found in grey landscape. A com- forting exhibition, 45 to 230 guineas. Also watercolors 30 to 55 guineas, MIXED SHOWS At Stern's 14 pictures mostly not new, of the sort this dealer often finds, namely Black- man, Juniper, Perceval, Boyd, Nolan, Passmore. Note a yellow girl by Blackman. the Greek drawings by Nolan. And for art -history, a famous very early Nolan, "Dream of the Latrine Sitter" 1942, about his Army days. At Watters drawings and small paintings by 17 artists who exhibit at this gallery plus newcomers to It of whom the best are Mar- tin Sharp, Gary Shead, and James Clifford. At the Dominion art- ists were asked to paint small pictures, 14 x 10 What's o Art Gallery of N.S.W. - Special Exhibitions: Centre 5 55 Melbourne Sculptors); Abstract Watercolors by 14 Ame- ricans: Drawings by G. W. Lambert. Newcastle City Art Gallery.--60 Years of Australian Paintings from the permanent col- lection. Farmers. - Contem- porary Art Society and Tails Prize. Education Depart- ment.--Sodety of Art- ists. Komen.-Eric Smith, paintings. Gallery A.-Paul Par- tos. paintings. Macquarie. - G u y Warren. paintings and watercolors. Watters.-Mixed show, drawings and paintings by artists of the Gal- lery. steen.-mixed show, Nolan, Blackman, etc. Dominion. - Mixed show, 10 x 14 inches pictures. Clune.-Elwyn Lyn: paintings. David Jones'.-Furn.- lure. glass, etc. Darlinghurst Annex,- Four watercolorists. Frances Jones-Joan Martin, paintings The Stables, Pymble. - Georgina Worth, inches only. Buyers like small pictures it's true, but besides Digby Crooke, Oleeson and Flower who are at home In this size, others are improved by diminu- tion, e.g. Bettina Mc- Mahon, Guy Grey - Smith, Edward Hall. Even Geoffrey Hooper becomes almost toler- able. On the other hand Peascod's and Tom Green's pictures suffer here when they're too small to envelop the spectator. ART SOCIETIES The Contemporary Art Society (Farmers) looks good, it's well hung, there's nothing really bad, but like the well- hung Blake it doesn't really lift the spirits on close inspection. It Just gives satisfaction that there's ao much decent work around. Some sort of lift came from Torn Green, astringent and upright. Dick Watkins wheel.ng and turning, Stockdale's little disks blinking their after images at you from the edges of an orange space. And of course the winners of the Tuffs Prize Eric Smith. Trends: More Op, less Pop. From Ostoja- Kot- kowski a wonderfully crafted bit of Op, an inlaid day glow papers; beautiful as cabinet- making, somehow point- less, like Szabo's Op by comparison withJor- dan's and Stockdale's. Improved: Stephen Earle. Returned from the dead: Olszanskl, with charming mid-; Pities semi abstraction. The Society of Artists (Education Depart- ment) looks more con- servative, more aca- demic, as the years go by. Its lower levels are for once worse, or more conspicuously dead than the Contemporary Art Society's, but its best- Lloyd Rees, Grace Cos- sington Smith, Enid Cambride - is prob- ably better. And there are all those old friends you never see elsewhere e.g. Adrian Feint, Harold Abbott, William Salmon. A new presi- dent for the Society is announced: David St rachan. n in art paintings. Workshop Arts Cen- tre, Willoughby. -Young People's exhibition. Von Bertouch, New- castle. - Judy Hepper, paintings. Crams, Wollongong.- Hans Schuster, paint- ings. Canberra Gallery A.- Mixed drawings, water- colors, etc. Beard Watson. - An- nual exhibition New Zealand and Austra- liana engravings and lithographs. OPENING MONDAY Hungry Horse-John Stockdale, Em anuel Raft, paintings. OPENING TUESDAY Darlinghurst, - Ray Crooke, paintings. OPENING WEDNES- DAY St. Ion Hall, St. Ives, -St, Ives Art Society. TUESDAY LECTURE Contemporary Art, So- ciety, Adyar hull. thigh Street, 8 p.m. Stan Ra- potec's tour of Europe and the Middle East. with slides. WEDNESDAY TELE- VISION ABN 2, 10.40 p.m.. Robert Hughes. Bryan Robertson, on the Com- monwealth Festival.