Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

SUNDAY- TELEGRAPH, JULY 15. 1962 The Week in Art by Daniel Thomas Next week some paintings by Dr. Power, the University of Sydney's benefactor, will be on view in the University's War Memorial Gallery of Fine Arts. They are much bet- ter than might have been expected from the photograph., pub- lished some months ago. As many ot the paint- ings and studies received from Jersey as can be shown in the Gallery have been selected by Mr. Allen Gamble to illustrate the various aspects of Power's painting career. Since none of the pic- tures is dated or titled. Mr. Gamble has had a dif- ficult task. However, a number can be identified and dated. for there are two albums of photographs prepared by Dr. Power himself as a record of his paintings from 1924 to 1938. It is in this period that his main painting activity must have taken place. Born in 1881, he gradu- ated in medicine at Sydney in 1905, and is not known to have studied art until 1920, when he would have been 39. Some unsigned pictures, one of "Peasants" and a couple of rustic landscapes. could belong to this phase, thou?h. except for the fact that comeone shipped them out from Jersey with the others, there is no cer- tainty that they are in fact by Power. They are fairly standard post -Impressionism, either Gauguin cloisonnism or Van Gogh turbulence. In the rustic landscapes there is sensitive and lively drawing, and this raises a alight problem. for the It may be that the for- mal rigors of cubist com- position, in which the best work Is to be found, pre- cluded, for him, an interest in line for its own sake. By 1924 he was exhibit- ing with the London Group and in that year an in- terior with figures was presented to the Notting- ham Museum It la his only work in a public col- lection: t h e newspaper illustration some weeks ago showed simplified bulky forms, but no cubism "Paysage" (View of Cannes?) of 1927. is, on the other hand, a large, dark-toned cubist picture of respectable quality, and "Baigneuses." of 1931-32. a decidedly good one In the 'thirties he seems to have exhibited regularly in Paris with the "Ab- stractions -Creation" s u r - realist in character. in line with the avant-garde. Un- dulating, flabby bone-Itke forms replace the stabili- ties of cubism, the tonality lightens. and sharp, dis- wee Able colnrs appear. "Suzanitah and the Eid- ers." 1934, is near the be- ginning of this develop- ment, and at the end are paintings like those pub liaised in the Press when the bequest was first an nounced. His color and tone, ms handling of paint, are often excellent. He is a reasonable decoratnie cub- ist, who can manipulate forms with some skill. But in surrealism, a style which demands significant content, Ise has less to offer, indeed he frequently breaks into whimsy. The decorative tendency is further evidenced by a strong interest in theatre and stage seM. He cannot be classed as an amateur, bui it is cur- ious that two other recent bequests concern painters who failed to rise above amateurism but who came nearest to success in decor- ation-in the careful plac- ing of ready-made shapes. Clane was Portia Geach. in whose memory an an- nual portrait prize for woman painters has been endowed: the other was Florence Blake, who left her fortune to the Art Gallery of New South Wales two years ago and whose painting name was Florence MoRlin. One feels that for Portia ()each and Florence Mof- fitt, and probably Dr. Power. their art was not a creative torment. Rather it must have been a comfort of so satisfying and enriching a kind that they felt impelled to leave their thouaands and their millions in the hope that others might. receive the aame spiritual enrichment To such people we owe an immense debt of grati- tude. There is little doubt that the use for which their money is intended is more creative than their own painting ever was. The disposition of the money is their visionary act. No one has the right to question visionaries, so let us hear no more talk of illegally using Dr. Power's money for other purposes Dickerson DICKERSON'S HOB charcoal drawings at Barry Stern's Gallery are, as usual, nearly of large heads, with large eyes ("Eyes are the win- dows to the Sour -a de- vice which lends spiritual- ity to Byzantine art as well as to Dickerson's). What should a painter do when. like Dickerson, he is untrained, has atrong feelings about the human situation. but when Inevit:thly he 'Tomes self -cowielous . his exdressive gaucherie? The smudged black.: are now at times quite suLtly modu- lated. the children are be- coming pretty. This need not matter. for profound sentimentality is a qua',Ity not wholly to be despised, and is quite at home in Dickerson's art. But some gestures, of hands buried in eyes. or hiding half a face. seem now to have a contrived. not a natural, awkward- ness, and there Ls a sus- picion that these children are being done from memory (the weakly pretty clowns surely are). The closer such an art- ist depends on his subject the better, and the ats- aence of formula in the grimacing man with thick eyebrows (No. 1), or in the man peering straight out from under his hat, suggests a direct response to nature, and none of the essential Dickerson. Precoctty TAN VAN WIERINGEN 4 and John Firth -Smith share a two -man show at Terry Chines' Gallery. It is more enjoyable than most exhibitions I have seen around town for some while, revealing a quite disarming youthful exuber- ance. The exhibitors are eighteen years old. and still at art schoni; and at a time when one miens properly expect sub-Cez- anne exercises at building up forms in space they have into expressive abstraction. The degree of control over their work could be partly due to the discipline of their training: the nature of their styles to an Intelligent choice of in- fluences: and the overall freshness to the buoyancy of youth. This last is a precious quality which has given the early work of many Aus- tralian painters more last- ing value than that of their mature years. Charles Conder's de- lightful "Departure of the 13.8. Orient" was bought by the Art Gallery of New South Wales before the artist was twenty: and who would exchange any Streeton painted after he was thirty for his lovely "Redfern Station" and other early pictures? Such failure of staying power seems to occur when painterly talent Ls un- accompanied by a serious and wide-ranging intelli- gence. These two artists show signs of both PAYSAGE (View of Cannes ?) 1927.