Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" %144,,A4 'Sydney, N.S.W. FRENCH ART The Clune Galleries' third annual importation of European art reveals what were the selling lines in the first two. English painting does not interest us it seems, however beautiful the Cerl Richards collage was two years ago, and reasonable, at about 00 f2. Apparently it's got to be French, though not as expensive as the f15,000 for last year's excellent Roualt. It looks as if £5000 or thereabouts might be the local limit. Mostly they want sou- venirs of what every- body knows was a great Fperiod. They want the rench look of 50 to 70 years ago even if the quality is only second rate. Ulna is, there are present day imitations of Monet or Utrlllo by nobodies like Truphe- mus or Hirakawa. These, no doubt, are cheap, and they are relatively harmless; the Wllmotte Williamses of French painting, they Just might start someone collecting, Then there is the eternal theatrical chi- chi whose tenuous an- cestry goes back through Louis Quinn rococo to Florentine mannerism with no great ancestors on the way. This sort of thing is always with us, and again it's harmless as long as it stays cheap. But Carzou anti Bern- ard Buffet here are irobably more expens- ve than they warrant. On the other hand Ven- ard and Alzpiri are hon- est decorative painters, fine craftsmen, anchored more firmly in their sweetened version of a great style (cubism). than are Carzou and Buffet in their sub -sub - style. Of the modern paint- ings it' is only Jean Dubuffet's child -art por- trait scrawl in an ex- quisite mud -paste, which is in contact with life, with our own time, and the art of our time. It is superbly alive. The other paintings are old. Minor contem- poraries of the turves like Valtat (very nice) or minor contemporaties of Derain like March- and or Lagar. Minor artists from a great period are better than minor artists from an uninventive period. so I suppose these artists will always keep a mod- est pace: there will al- ways be a small demand for real specimens of the early 20th century French style, The drawings by Ouys and Cignac are much nearer to living art. And the etching and lithographs by Picasso, Braque, Miro and Chag- all are, like Dubuffet, living art itself. It is very reassuring to see that these distil- lations of genuine hu- man experience have sold-at high prices for etchings, 500 or so - as readily as the meretric- ious paintings. There's no inherent magic in oil paint. There a r e also two bronzes by Gaudier-Brezeska and one by Epstein. The former are east from stone -carvings, and lose some of their intended quality, but they still give the essence of sculpture. especially the "Maternity" where sol- ids and voids miracu- lously burrow and turn through each other. There is more really first rate work here than in previous Clime imports. Borne of it is great. Let's hope they can afford to cut down further on the second- rate next year. As Bill Hannan Australian sculptor said: "We are second-rate, but no worse than second-rate sculptors overseas." And the Seale applies to our painter& GOYA The Kelmseott Gal- lery. which opened last week on the fringe be- yond Central Station (101 Regent Street) with a mixed show of Julian Ashton School realism, also includes an etch- ing by Goya at 30 guineas great art. those who want The week in Art Dy Daniel Thomas It Is a modern impres- sion of the "Little Priso- ner," scarcely inferior to the published edition of 1867. If the copper- plate is not worn out there is no reason, ex- cept the snobbery of limited editions, why it shouldn't be reprinted as longa. as people want Goy STRACHAN David Wuhan (Dar- linghurst) is spiritually a French artist, though he happens to live In Sydney, where he paints still-llfes of ever- lastings and other wild- flowers, or landscapes of Hill End, where the bush becomes a classic olive grove. lie does not belong with the facile wing of French paint- ing - Carzou, Buffet -' but with the clumsy one - Poussin, Corot, Cez- anne, Derain. (In the Clune show Marchand and Lagar are lesser clumsies). Strachan does not have the passionate architectural feeling for exact intervals a n d spaces of Poussln and Corot, but he does pa- tiently build up his vol- umes, and bathe them in cool pea-soup at- mosphere. It is wonder- fully grave and sooth- ing, and a room full of it makes "good drawing" seem vulgar and showy. 100 to 500 guineas, LEONARD FRENCH Leonard French (David Jones) also gives the comfortable look of French painting a gen- eration or two ago, the look of Leger and Del- aunay. The exhibition includes a few old prize winners. The Sulman- winning "Burial" of 1960 improves with age, blue sky has faded or var- nish has darkened till now it's mellower and better - unified, The Blake -winning "Ancient Fragments," exceedingly beautiful, is almost his only white uniformly high-keyed pictur e. Dark pictures always Impose themselves more importantly, and moat of French s are dark, through luminous inks embedded deep in var- nish, surfaces modelled in high light -catching relief. The core of the exhibi- tion is the new scenes of Seven Days of Creation, bought as a unit for the Australian National Uni- versity in Canberra. Ob- viously they must have a chapel built around them. French's pictures seldom operate happily on their Own, as easel pictures, fighting with other objects on a wall. They need to be en- shrined, and given a carefully con tr oiled space to breathe in. Then the sumptuous gloom shot with jewelled color, operates very powerfully as the force- ful Romanesque primi- tivism presumably in- tended. MIKE BROWN Michael Brown (Gal- lery A) showed every - Ming. Geometry ("Cub- ist Op Art Special") to a rubbish heap on a wall. In between came an academic gum tree landscape, some refer- ences to sub - fauve chocolate box landscape, lots of untidy, egitated abstracts, lots of heaped - up nudes, and Iota of messages about how hard it was to paint, plus four-letter words. I don't think there's much satire he just loves it all indiscriminately. The embrace is over -gene- rous, We see the point, but heart is dominating hand, and his hand seems to have a natural inclination to the ara- besque. An art for concentra- tion now the manifesto ' is issued. He's on the side of life with Miro, Picasso, Dubuffet and Co., an antidote to Carrot!. PORTIA GEACH The first Portia Geach prize, £1000 for a port- rait by a woman (Edu- cation Department Gal- lery) is not as bad as expected, though it still contains worse than gets into the Archibald. Judy Cassab must have been too embarrassed by the near -certainty of win- ning to enter at all or else she saw that this endowment by a femin- ist misfires and creates an artistic ghetto. Other regulars are improved, like Thom Ungar; the student girls look honest (Woodward; Houstein with an interesting characterised John Pass - more, as a fisherman, apostolic, In a hot room). Others though skilful look like magazine covers (Jacqueline Hick). The winner was Jean Apple- ton whose portraits were unknown to me previously and whose self-portrait has a fine sober face if too modernistic a back- ground inflil. I liked best the friendly brown mousiness of William Prater as painted by an obviously admiring pupil M. Musks: the least vulgar or preten- tious of those that were painted adequately. What's on in art OPENING TUESDAY Dominion: 16 Paint- ers, early and recent work. OPENING WEDNESDAY Komon: Douglas Wat- son. Walters: Group exhi- bition. Stern: Mixed show. Macquarie: Rees, Sal- mon, Sheehan OPENING THURSDAY Gallery A: Robert Klippel, sculpture.