Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. C T 19t54 SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, OCTOBER 4, 1964 _ 21 The week in by Daniel Thomas t WWWWIMNIIININA A JOLLY GOOD BR RI FISH reticence no doubt. Halfway through British Fortnight comes a small message that there's art at the Shuwground as well as machinery. So there is. On a patch of grass rather away from It all is an enormous new Henry Moore bronze-an arched form called "Large Torso" -looking quite tiny really behind a lot of would-be helpful photographs of other work by Moore. And colored lights, green, blue, red and umber, shoot up by turn to the torsos crutch from a hole in the ground. It's hard to be a national monument and a politico - cultural asset like Moore' and, although I suspect this piece is not too good, I cannot In the circum- stances make any fair Judgment. Ten paintings are much more fortunate. Instead of defeat by the too -Australian urban out- doors, they are in one of several crisply designed ex- hibition stands, embedded Inside a crowded hall. In any case these are not pictures that go in for solemn grandeur (pom- posity?) Inge Moore's sculp- ture; they are quite at home in, the crowded marketplace. First that sweet old nature poet Ivon Hitchens; then the middle-aged -- four of them, Patrick Heron, Bryan Wynter, Terry Frost and Peter Lanyon, gamely plodding in the wake of abstract ex- pressionism (Heron can be better), and the fourth, Man Davie, one of the best abstract expressionists of them all. His painting Is the one that acts most like the crowd itself-noisy, cheer- ful, dirty perhaps, supremely physical and vital. Then four young painters, typifying the re- treat from abstract expres- sionism's dangerous in- dulge,nces, all playing it cool, however they might be classified - hard-edge, poption -abstract. ever pop-science fic or what. Strength Derek Hirst is the least Interesting, but Robyn Denny and Richard Smith confirm the seriousness and strength seen in the current Art Gallery of N.S.W. exhibition of young British painters. And finally Bernard Cohen, who is Harold's young brother and, like him, already a regular pleat In the top international survey ex- hibitions, and already given the final accolade of ac- quisition by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He is the one I meant by pop -science fiction: it looks like waving art nouveau tendrils only its equipment in a white ialaoratory, not just the ivy and octopuses of the 1890s. More significantly he is doing what art nouveau wanted to s' s,I cover e forms. I sera seen any- thing so truly original In years, so unllke anything already familiar in art or nature. Don't miss this. It closes on Saturday. Nearby are some horrify- ing materials for pop art. The china manufacturers, unbelievably, still make troupes of old-world mid - dens sexily displaying half an ankle and a hundred Petticoats, they still make nights of china ducks, packs of dogs herds of cattle and mobs of horses. The depressing part, of course, is not that they make them, but that we SHOW ! evidently lutist still be buy- ing them. However, we had always been aware that we in Aus- tralia were well-known as the world's best buyers of Victorian furniture, paying prices for It that only Georgian furniture could command elsewhere. The modern silver is a much happier affair, hous- ed in a very well designed stand. The Goldsmiths Company besides this show - grounds display has a much bigger one at David Jones as well. Both demonstrate that there are plenty of designers making plain, useful wares as satisfying as the best from the past -among them being the Australian designer Stuart Devlin w sse decimal coin- age has recently been made public. Silver Both also show that a grailtylagly large amount of ceremonial silver is being commissioned by big busi- ness boardrooms, by town halls, parliaments, univer- sities and other institutions, But neither of them till in the gap between the 1960s and the silver exhibi- tion at the Art Gallery which stops at 1910. One wants to know what was going on in the 'twenties and the 'thirties, that is the Bauhaus period, the biggest revolution in design since the Renaissance, David Jones does sup- plement the Art Gallery's silver show by going bacx an extra 100 years or more. with some examples of Tudor silver. For besides the 19803 it includes a historical section, not so systematic or complete as the Art Gallery exhibition, and displayed for striking effect rather than for in- struction, yet still of the greatest interest. For ex- ample a 1741 dish and ewer of enormous size by Paul de Lamest°, perhaps the greatest English gold- smith, Indeed we will probably never see so many enormous pieces again. The biggest is a mid- Victorian 13 -branch can- delabrum of 1853, 10ft. high and growing out of a swarm of figures sym- bolising the goldsmith's history and his craft. With It we forget about good design, forget about art. We are just one of the natives, stunned by the biggest bit of silver in the world. E* * * MMANUEL HAFT (Hungry Horse Gallery) has come of age as an artist In this new one-man show. The development since last year is astonishing, the level high and very even, His white foetal shapes are held onto their black grounds by appro- priate photo -collage, vivid red stripes appear for the WHAT'S ON first time to enrich the composition. His painting will prob- ably always look smart, but smartness need not Imply the absence of real emotions, 01 profound anguish (Degas is a con- spicuous example), and Raft is surely, though ob- scurely, saying something Important about the prob- lem of self -definition and personal evolution. Prices 45 gns. to 350 gns. Blake The Blake Prize for ReUglous Art (Common- wealth Bank) went to Michael Hitching, born 1940, its youngest winner to date. His picture Is a smart assemblage of wood and metal, packed with theology, and rather like Len French, Its smartness might seem incompatible u with religion, then like Degas to j stify the genu- ineness o Raft's morbid- ity, we can advance Ignazi Gunther and other' supreme but spiritual ele- gant.) of the Bavarian rococo to demonstrate the possibility of KitchingSt spirituality. Roger Kemp's subsidiary prize - winning picture glowed with spirituality, contained within a style the opposite of smart, in- deed dowdy. John Coburn had a superb black and white painting: Reinhard, Orban. and Milgate made notable appearances, and Constance Stokes made a welcome reappe arance after years of invisibility. Perhaps the overall stan- dard was not high. but there seemed to be more religion than usual. Norman Lindsay's first exhibition of paintings for many years (Dominion Gallery; prices up to 4000 gns. for a Marge 1939 oil) Is packed with visitors, Perhaps he filled an im- portant sociological need in 1910 when he cele- brated nudity and rape with maybe too much pro- testation. Certainly we can admire the charm of his early watercolors, the brilliance of his book illus- trations. But not his handling of oil paint, and not his sense of structure where spatial confusion is always apparent. Indeed he has never progressed beyondihtson (a category which does not require any know- ledge of pictorial struc- ture). And ultimately he is damned by his choice of an artificial, fantasy world, when true art must concern itself with experi- ence of the real world. Ronald Weddell (Little Gallery) has delightful, and expert little drawings, etchings and lithographs at sensible little prices (5 gns. to 20 gns.). They are light-hearted and often funny in a whimsically eccentric English way Odd and individual. ' wow TODAY BM, Trmshern, MIttagOng: Craft thehlblElrin. (eatery and furnItUnt, TODAY AND NEXT WEEK AN Celery of N.S.W. Special [end:Minns: Young EMMA Painters, RaCant Artist Potters: English Siiver 1660.1910 from the V. & A. Museum: Helena RN:intim Scholarship: British Engravings. Xhowgrounds, British Exhibillen: Ton British Painters; One Henry Moore mulpturr: Modern Siiver from the Goldsmithe Company, Von Sereoush, Newcastle: William Pthscod, painting.. NEXT WEEK Hyde Path: WsratahTUESDA Festival Y art ONWARDS compOtillone. Cravld Jones; Anliptia and Modern &War and Jewellery from the f.c0dxfnitht Con:pany Commonwealth Ethic, Merlin Pima: BIMe thin for Religious Art. Hungry Horse: Emmanuel Raft, Peintinge Dominion: Norman Lindsay, paintings nd WateeCeiert. Macquarie: Elizabethan Theatre Trust Stagg 00111Eng, Little Gallery: Ronald Weddell, altatolvers, drawing& MINX Workshop Arts Centro, Willoughby: PoIthry. Cram, Wollongong: Figurative paintin Xangulnetti sculpture. OPENING WEDNESDgs. AY Rudy Kamen: Det.dou. Orban, restroapectirE. ."""°. Vora..Stere. David Rose, new work from Spain._ ----- Terry Clone: Robert Boyne', Adelaide