Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.5 :4* 6 MI The Week' in Art by Daniel Thomas ITH three exhibitions of original prints now slim% ilia;W it is time to explain, once again, just what a print is. The word has be- ceptione, the modern elab- ing Into his print. come ambiguous. The orately mixed etching general public uses the word print for what should be called a col- or reproduction, that is a representation of an original painting, copied by photograph- ic and mechanical processes. Such color reproduc- tions are not made by art- iste. But original prints are. The various kinds of print -etching, engraving, woodcut, lithograph, sten- cil print-are made by art- ists who carve or draw or paint or bite with acids into metal or stone or wood or many other mat- erials. Then the picture is inked and printed op to paper. Something Is intention- ally produced for repeti- tion, in an edition of ten or fifty or a hundred sign- ed and numbered copies. It is a repeatable origi- nal, made by an artist and fully controlled by him. Before photographic re- productions were Invented in the late nineteenth cen- tury the vast majority of hand-made prints were In fact engravings made as copies of paintings. This is why today reproductions of paintings are still called prints. But there were always some great artists- Rem- brandt and Durer are the greatest - who used en- graving and etching for creative, not reproductive, purposes. And today, now that the task of reproduction can to a follower of Mondrian) be left to the photographic by J. G. Cecere Is a cir- processes. all true prints culler geometric abstrac- are creative. Mon. The linear regulari- The different kinds of ties seem almost happier printmaking techniques as etchings than paintings. have special qualities of Roma Viesolas is an - their own. Woodcuts and other etcher, but he trans - engravings are sympa- late.s the fluidity of. ab- thetie to sculptural con- atract expressionist paint - WHAT'S ON TODAY AND KIST VIM Ara Gallery of 14.5 W. -Spatial aalubsion; recant area by U.SA winos ALk er, Royal Art Satiety el N.S.W.-JS WOW Ss., North Sydney: nulunin Asa. MIST WEEK ny Hungry Hone -Win... Row Wales Howe.-Ursoonlba for A °Altana, b... Rroon. -S.. he h Consw pored.; Clune.-M.reri o rmonien.-L ataPh.e n, and Pinlings ne Drawings lit rn Vn Sortouth dronastlo.--M d whibnmn. Rats Slarn.-Arth ClObborlson D avid Jaaet.-Le .111110 do V:ntl. n,00elf at l lent Raard Walla .-Co:in Parker. OPINING TUII5DAY Francis Janos Saasiffs.-Mlood int,:t.ort THURSDAY LECTURE Maly WM. Schsal.-"AlowAY is ART F awr, ILM, s,, FRID O urus THatraito.--.0, ysdahr... "Dote'*wry on r, 0, 10 a rn techniques approach the fine craftsmanship of jew- ellery, while lithography, the freest of the methods, has always appealed to painters. All painters, however In- patient they may be with the laborious discipline of other methods, can easily draw or paint on to the prepared lithographic stones, And such well- known painters as Olan Davie, William Scott, and Ceti Richards, In their lithographs at the Kamen Gallery, offer statements as important as those in their paintings, but for a fraction of the price. U.S. PRINTS The 40 American prints at the Art Gallery of N.S.W. are ell. one world guess, by specialists in printmaking. None of them has a reputation as a painter as well. Some of them indeed seem so Involved shit their craft that they begin to forget the art, but craft- manshin for lie own sake can satisfy at least on the level of decoration. And the craftsmanship Is of a uniformly high order, even in the few sur- vivals from the black and white world of 1920s etch- ing. The majority however are contemporary in style as well es In date. And curiously those the! de- pend upon certain paint - are the most giferttilrea "Homage to Bolo" (i.e. Wolf anon% aavr eorge Miya.saki, In a color etching of remark- able virtuosity, simulates effects of collage, even to the embossed texture of cloth. Begley's etching has a stately fullness, Interest- ingly, and doubtless co- incidentally, akin to Red- dingle's, Australia's re i- dent American painter. The exhibition is select. ed from the Anaeric:,ii Graphic Artists annual show in New York last year, and Is being circu- lated by the United States Information Service, The prints are interest- ing enough, but when will we be allowed to have an exhibition of the Im- mensely exciting n e w American painting? ESKIMO PRINTS At the Dominion Gallery Is an entirely captivating show of prints by Cana- dian Eskimos, whose tech- niques are sealskin sten- cil, linocut. or stonecut (not lithographs, but re- lief prints from carved stones, as if they were woodcuts), The Eskimos have an old tradition of carving stone figures during those long winter nights. Re ently they have been en- couraged to carve In relief and to make prints. It is a logical and easy artistic development, and the re- sults are enchanting pic- tures of men and women living on the closest and most amiable terms with their animals and with supernatural spirits. This Is not the same ex- hibition that was seen at Wales House In January, but some of the artists are the same. Lucy and Pudlo are happily here again; Kenojuak is also notable. Prices: 11 to 80 guineas. RAY COLES At the Macquarie Gal- leries Ray Coley has a Lew types, that is prIn48 which are not repeatable, and which arc done for their special .nett surfani tex-, tures. However, this subject matter, and mood, has the, same poe.ii. directness as the Eskimos, there is a natural warmth in his experience 01 life, of per- sonal intimacies. of the plants end flowers in Isis world (the Eskimos have no flowers). And there is prints, but they ere mon - MAN CARRYING BIRD by Nito, among the Eskimo prints at the Dominion Gellery. the same i-ense of earthy fun. He .., clearly pleased to discover a plant named "Prunella Vulgaris." All the ,a,ctures have an inevitability; nothing Is manufactured, This grace of spirit Is expressed best In the drawings. One can regret his =Won from Long- man's book on contempor- ary Australian drawing all the more in the light of this first one-man show. but one can understand it, since only the closest watch on Sydney exhibi- tions would have caught his occasional appearances. There Ise great deal of Klee In these drawings, and something of Melane- sian art, 'adr, what matter when it vas become so decidedly aig own. The paintings are less realised. Many of them repeat, with some coarsen- ing, his drawing alyle on a colored background; "Night Bird," warm and dusky, departs most suc- cessfully tom the draw- ings. Here 'here Is fun - not giggling, not satire, but robust, sympathetic humor -and natural grace. One leaves the t xhibition in a small glow. ARCH CUTHBERTSON Arch Cuthbertson is the latest and the best in a succession of younger Mel- bourne painters being In- troduced to Sydney by the Barry Stern Gallery, though strictly speaking Cuthbertson at 30 Is not especially young, and lie comes riot from Melbourne but Ballarat. The previous exhibitor, Gareth Jones -Roberts, was an explorer In familiar Nolan territory; striped figures were set In trans- parent desert landscapes. Cuthbertson is more purely an abstract expres- sionist than anyone I can think of In Melbourne There Is usually broadness, hotiststitgoVerin:teeintegration.