Page 18 - Studio International - November 1965

who had developed their individual styles before, such for radical painting is that it be recognized as radical
as the few better known ones you mentioned, and they and not as something else, and that the public is
had retreated into the English countryside. An article that incapable of recognizing it.
Lawrence Alloway wrote in Show magazine some time Glaser This is not only peculiar to Britain. The American
ago, referred to this very thing. He said that once an public took some time before they began to recognize
English painter had gained acceptance in the Establish­ what Abstract-Expressionism was about.
ment, he moves out of town and becomes 'ungetatable', Smith True, but now there is an incredibly educated
and it certainly seems that this is the way things work. public in America that is willing to accept breaks with
Take the position of Sutherland for instance. When his tradition. Also, in Britain there is comparatively little
name was made he could retreat into the English response from the professional art viewers, the critics.
countryside and still go on showing at the best and This may be because there are no critics of one's own
biggest galleries without his position being threatened. generation whom one has grown up with. In America
On the contrary, in New York you have the feeling that there was a generation of critics that came up with
a person's reputation is based generally on his latest Abstract-Expressionism and that was their discovery
work and the work he shows in his exhibitions rather and their subject. Now there is another generation of
than on some breakthrough he made years ago as a critics that have come up with pop art and the other
war artist or something. new styles, and they know the artists and this is their
Glaser Again you seem to prefer the atmosphere of thing and this is what they are supporting and what
New York for its continuing dialectic. Here, you suggest, they write about knowledgeably. And this hasn't
there is always a conflict and a testing of points of view, happened in London.
and there is a stimulation and excitement that comes Jones But these critics you speak of came along with
from the contrasts between personalities and ideas. the surge and development of painting in New York
Smith Yes, I feel that people look at paintings here while there hasn't been anything comparable or
and I think very few people really look at paintings in significant enough in English painting yet, to drag in
London. or create the critics. I think something is happening now
Phillips Both the public and the artist over here take but perhaps only within the space of three years.
art very much more seriously than they do in England. Smith I think things have been going on in England
It's rather a gentlemanly sort of thing and very polite for at least five or six years.
in England. Phillips There were beginnings farther back in the
Jones What is really bothersome about the London mid 1950's with some of Lawrence Alloway's pro­
scene is that of the five or six painters of the younger grammes at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
generation who may be said to have 'made it', one Jones Yes, but the ICA, enlivened in good part by
feels the lack of aesthetic criteria in the judgement of Alloway and Richard Hamilton. was just a little beacon
them. You may get your acclaim partially because you in the blackness and wasn't known outside a very
are one of a new generation of British painters, and small community. It wasn't enough to generate the
that is considered important because you are part of kind of response that would create its own critical self­
the impact that is making British art felt around the awareness and out of that, the critics.
world. It's as if you are appreciated as one of the local Smith The ICA was very strange because it was
boys who made good. A very provincial notion. Funny attempting to make a new, tiny society of architects,
reasons like these are why your show is popular or writers, painters and sculptors who had many ideas in
liked rather than for anything you are concerned with common. And they articulated these ideas in their dis­
or have intended. That's why I had to leave, for the cussions and in their exhibition, 'This is Tomorrow',
satisfaction of finding out how I would be received where some of the most daring and unconventional
elsewhere, and more important, for my development. work in London, at that time, were shown. There were
Glaser A few things you have mentioned may be a lot of ideas there but nobody on the creative or fine
related. You express disappointment in the generation art side of it, with the exception of Paolozzi and Richard
of British painters before you, those over forty, and you Hamilton, had enough character or creative strength
distinguish yourselves from them. And you have to make any real art out of it. Most of the painters con­
implied the timidity or gentlemanly quality of the British nected with this group, such as John McHale and
art scene, which qualities, as a matter of fact, are Magda Cordell. are forgotten as painters now.
referred to frequently in articles criticizing British paint­ Jones It's interesting for me to consider that this
ing. Critics have also characterized the painting as activity was happening in the mid 1950's when I was
having too much good taste and see in it an unwilling­ only halfway through art school, because the changes
ness to take risks. Is this the basis for your criticism of in myself during this past decade were naturally greater
the older generation? Is it a fair statement of the problem than they would be for an older man. I was unaware
of British painting, and if it is, how is the younger that this was going on. but still, I think the reason
generation dealing with it? anything has happened among the younger painters is
Smith I think TASTE, capitals all the way through, is because the foundation was laid at that time.
always a tremendous problem, wherever one is painting Smith Yes, I think it made a new climate of opinion.
or whenever one looks at a painting. The English a sympathetic attitude towards popular iconography
gallery-going public is timid about what they can look or material and an appreciation of your paintings as
at and even about what they can see. If some quality sort of non-fine art objects. I got in at the tail end of this
about the painting is radical, and tasteless maybe­ movement, after the more heroic days, so I don't
radical and therefore seeming tasteless-the thing consider myself a part of it. Their views were influential,
that will be admired is usually some kind of tasteful but primarily for their sociological implications. They
overtone somewhere within the whole, such as a believed you could enjoy the ordinary things you
certain kind of paint quality or anything that their eyes really enjoyed. and you didn't have to take up art
find familiar or can relate to. But the important thing attitudes. You didn't have to like handthrown pottery
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