Page 26 - Studio International - November 1965

Private View publicly reviewed by G. s. Whittet

In the past twenty years the art world of London has
been transformed. Not only has the amount of works
sold in the famous sale rooms of Sotheby and Christie
increased but dealers finding the taste and the purses
of collectors, both public and private, turning more
towards modern art have worked more actively to
supplying the demand from native and immigrant
artists. The Tate Gallery and other museums have had
their purchases grants boosted to allow a scale of direct
patronage that was unknown prior to the last war; the
volume of books published on themes of contemporary
art has jumped to an unprecedented level especially in
the field of the lavish · coffee table' monographs.
What is the reason or reasons 7 for there are more than
one. A new book with the significant title of Private
View* sets out to examine this situation under the joint
authorship of John Russell and Bryan Robertson,
illustrated with photographs by Lord Snowdon and
reproductions of many works by the artists mentioned.
In Part I 'The breakthrough 1945-65' John Russell,
author and art critic of The Sundav Times, considers
with an informed detachment the set-up as it was in
1 939 when, as he says, art 'was still the distraction of a
superior minority', a minority that was incapable of
transforming the general indifference of the public
which could allow opportunities of buying Seurat,
Cezanne, Picasso and Braque paintings to pass without
recognition. The fault, it will be observed. was not the
dealers; they could and did obtain the exhibitions; their
reward was bills for carriage, insurance, catalogues and
much else. Then after the Peace came the reconstruc­
tion of the art schools, the galleries, the forming of the
Arts Council and the spate of excellent historically
important exhibitions at the Royal Academy, the Tate
Gallery and more recently at the Whitechapel Art
Gallery. More indirectly effective was the inspired
publishing of excellent books on art generally by
authors of erudition and authority of whom Sir Herbert
Read is by far the most influential as regards the con­
temporary movement of art in Great Britain.
Other vital factors, as 'J.R.' points out, are the sale
room and the aeroplane. Collectors and dealers fly to
London from all over the world for important sales and
for equally important exhibitions. Mr. Ernst Beyeler of
Basle and Mr. Aime Maeght of Paris are just as likely
to greet me at a private view in a Curzon Street gallery
as in the scented giardini at the Venice Biennale. But it
is to the new crop of dealers in London that much of the
credit of success is due. To the older established if
unfortunately prematurely active galleries such as the
Leicester and the Redfern, were added Gimpel Fils, the
Hanover and most dynamic of all the Marlborough Fine
Art which brought all the methods of promotion and
positively forceful selling that was in tune with the age , : I
we live in. The Institute of Contemporary Arts provided ; I ; I
I I
a forum for discussion and exhibition that was unique in ' i ' / '. :'
a capital where private drawing-rooms were the .
customary places for arriving at conclusions about art ' ....... ., ', �. v-:,.,
JI. '.M" •.· ..
and artists. This section for all its brevity sums up the
major forces at work that have produced the status qua
with a succinct accuracy.
Part 2 titled 'The senior artists-an analysis of achieve­
ment' in 104 pages reviews the careers of painters and
·'
sculptors who inevitably are headed by Henry Moore, {1 I,.
without a doubt the greatest living sculptor in the world,
followed by Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Ivon

• Private View. By Bryan Robertson, John Russell. Lord Snowdon.
(London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.) 13¼ x 1 O;! m. 298 pp. £7 7s.
188