Page 53 - Studio International - October 1969

John Milne's exhibition of sculpture and draw- form. Milne's achievement is to have resisted taken refuge in repetition, or more formal
ings at MARJORIE PARR'S gallery in Chelsea the trap of the 'archaic presence', or fragment, variation. Milne is still exploring a mainly
has particular interest, apart from the quality as well as the concommitant rhetoric, or senti- `closed' series of forms; and shows no interest
of the work, because it opposes a number of mentality, which occasionally conditions the in the open structures first demonstrated by
prevailing orthodoxies. It is unusual these days impact of work in roughly the same area of Caro. 'Minimal' constraints would wholly
to present your first one-man show at the age of awareness from Moore or Hepworth. There is distort his intentions. The colour is still that of
thirty-eight; and in avoiding the issue of colour a difference of generation here; and though it metal. His best work seems to touch the tradi-
whilst working with the traditional materials would be absurd to suggest that Milne has tional nerve of sculpture with fresh authority.
of bronze or stone, and more recently alumi- made greater sculpture than Moore or Hep- BRYAN ROBERTSON
n
nium, Milne goes against the current grain. worth, in some ways he has cut through and
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There is, too, the background in which the avoided the 'heroic' or pietistic factors which
Roger Davies
work has developed: St Ives, and though sometimes make it hard for younger artists to Jelly
6 x 12 ft
Milne has never been part of any kind of St appreciate their full stature.
Acrylic on canvas
Ives school, he has chosen to live and work on Milne's background is as traditional as the
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that peninsula for the past sixteen years. He working characteristics: the materials for Icarus 1967
original plaster for aluminium
worked as an assistant to Barbara Hepworth instance, of his sculpture; but it has not lead
Photo: P.E.C. Smith
for two years in the early fifties. Hepworth's to a predictable vision. He studied in Paris at
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best work is unassailable, but the shift of focus the Grande Chaumière but resisted the possi- Easter Island form 1967-9
away from any possible 'St Ives school', whose bility of Zadkine as a teacher; he has travelled cold cast aluminium
vertical (without base) 571 x 33 in.
achievements and strongest identity now seem intensively in Italy and, above all, in Greece; photo: Peter Kinnear
to belong to the past, might set up an initial he is affected by Egyptian sculpture and 9
barrier to proper recognition of Milne's perso- antiquities, and has spent as much time Horns 1969
Second view
nal identity as a sculptor. An exploration of studying this art, together with Greek sculp- Photo: P.E.C. Smith
the show will dispel any doubts. ture, as Moore spent scrutinizing Mexican
Milne's images are atavistic, tough, hieratic, sculpture in his youth.
and quite often predatory in form. The Milne's work as a whole has a distinction and
sculptures are very tightly controlled : those concentration that is free of preciosity: a
with a highly-polished bronze surface are North countryman, his sensibility is too robust
deliberately reflective, with light as a modi- to allow for this. Clearly evident is an
fying agency, and not for any decorative alert imagination and the self-confidence
reason. Other, darker bronzes with a duller to develop independently whilst resisting the
and more anonymous patination are some- blandishments of fashion. His drawings relate
times slightly pitted, with an almost abrasive to sculptural ideas and are solidly realized in
surface, and this, too, is extremely deliberate themselves. But an extra pitch of invention
as part of the sculpture's character. A domi- informs the most recent work and it could be
nant aspect of all the work is its animality: that the drawings, in the future, will be gradu-
there is often the feeling of an invented anatomy ally abandoned.
and this applies to forms which have evolved The rewards of the show as a whole are the
from landscape as well as to the godhead or unmistakable signs of imagination range that
deity images, such as Horus or Easter Island does not stay fixed in concepts which have