Page 40 - Studio International - December1996

Above
Linear Construction 1961
Phosphor bronze, brass and wood
63 in. high x 8 in. diameter
Above right
Variations on a Theme 1961
Brass
53 x 13 x 23 in.
5 1/8 x 1 7/8 x 2 3/4 in.
5 1/8 x 3 1/2 x 2 5/8 in.
Brass and wood base
16 x 5 x 3 in.
Collection: S. B. Nitikman
Right
Linear Construction 1962
Phosphor bronze, brass and black painted wood
7 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.
Photo: John Pasmore
has been brought into a living relationship with the idea: on. A streak of puritanism, fastidious and sardonic, has
is, in effect, drawn. kept him clear of the chic, and has set him to cut a way
Until a few years ago, Kenneth Martin's reputation was for himself out of the cul-de-sac of an art based on an
confined to a small circle—fellow artists, architects, a inflated projection of the ego. And a sure instinct for the
handful of collectors. His work is published in Continental nourishment he needed has kept him in touch with the
magazines and his name features in international direc- main body of abstract art abroad. His advance since
tories of abstract art, but here he has been absurdly the late forties has been a steady one, punctuated with
neglected. Now, at the height of his form and exploring extraordinary flashes and leaps. The first premises were
new themes with the assurance and vigour of complete simple—perhaps over-simple, dogmatic. Since then so
maturity, he stands as something of a touchstone for a much has been invested in them, they have been thought
new generation of artists for whom the talented sturm und and experienced at such depth that his work is totally
drang of the fifties is as empty a proposition as it was for consolidated. Now, luminous, dry, snapping with vitality,
Martin himself. He is in a class apart in his generation it rides clear in an atmosphere of total freedom.
and if one is to ask for reasons for his neglect, the quick There is a traditional opposition between the rational
answer is simply to point to what is specific, a-typical, in and the intuitive in art, between the intellectual pro-
his development. gramme and the unmeditated song, and this polarity is
He has been the opposite of precocious. Born in the same often exploited to establish facile values: clarity versus
decade as Hepworth, Richards, Piper, Medley, Pasmore, obscurity, heartlessness versus warmth and so on. This is
Coldstream, Bacon, he has proceeded slowly, his work to miss the essential point underlying any such opposi-
growing like the rings of a hardwood tree out of a solid tion, which is that in any given situation it has to do with
and consistent core. The criticism has often been made, creative freedom. Everybody knows that where academism
and it is well founded, that what has vitiated so much of reigns freedom has to do with breaking rules. What is not
English art has been an excess of talent, a dearth of ideas; so readily seen is that where a myth of creative omni-
that it has tried to support itself by brilliant eccentricity potence rules, freedom has to do with finding a way of
by an eclectic aestheticism, by literary undertones, per- working which circumvents the swollen balloon of tem-
sonal symbolism, nature-sense, lyricism. This is like a perament and places work somehow outside the reach of
catalogue of everything that Martin has turned his back mere talent. For if the victim of academism cries out in