Page 46 - Studio International - July 1966

wonder over the endless possibilities offered by the Nevertheless, much of what I was shown struck me as
rectangle. What this finally leads me to (and not, I think, astonishingly 'complete', though not quite in the sense
coincidentally) is the theme of education in art. that I used the word when applying it to Miss Riley. That
Recently, the City of Coventry College of Art held is, many of the painters at Coventry had already reached
an exhibition at the I.C.A. to demonstrate the teaching a point of rest—it was difficult to envisage an evolution,
methods used there. A lively debate was held in con- but only a revolution, if their work was to continue and
nexion with the show. I participated in this, and have develop. When people wonder at the brilliance of some
since written about it elsewhere. Rather than rehearse art-students, and their disappointing failure to continue
all our arguments yet again, I'd prefer to speak of a visit as painters after they have left art-school, I think that
I recently paid to the College itself. The standard of something must be taken into account besides the
work shown me by the students seemed remarkably economic pressures which make creative work difficult
high—it fully bore out the promise of the drawings for so many. What one must consider is precisely this
exhibited at the I.C.A. (and these were not shown as inflexibility, in an age which seems to prefer its artistic
finished products, but as steps in a process of education). statements made without the least qualification.
The variety of style was astonishing—a commentary on The spirit of playfulness which I was talking about at
the freedom of the policy pursued at the school. This the beginning of this essay seems to me to be vital to
`freedom' had not, however, liberated these young modern artists in more ways than one—but one of the
artists from the fashionable idioms of the moment—by ways is certainly the continuing impetus which it gives to
which I mean that practically everything one saw could creativity. Art is a game as well as an exploration of the
be related pretty directly to some pre-existing—if only self; and games, as we know, are sometimes the better
just pre-existing—mode of artistic expression. for a little lightness of spirit.
q

Two views of the winning sculpture of the Sainsbury sculpture Henry Moore, Sir Roland Penrose and R. J. Sainsbury.
exhibition—Untitled by John Wragg, aluminium, height 8 ft 6 in.— The drawing for this sculpture was illustrated in the article or
on its Kings Road, Chelsea, site. Judges in the competition were John Wragg in the April 1966 issue of Studio International.