Page 18 - Studio International - September 1966

In other publications produced but also help to present them more vividly. Correspondence
The museum, in fact, should attempt to be a work of
Form art in its own right, and a hive of activities fostering
The second issue of the quarterly magazine Form has interest in everything from techniques and crafts- In general I enjoyed the August issue very much but
just been published. Privately produced in Cambridge, manship to the spiritual implications of supreme art. was unhappy about the cover, which I feel did less
this 'little magazine' aims to print articles on kinetic than justice to David Smith's work.
art and concrete poetry. The first issue included a In brief Yours sincerely,
fascinating and important essay by Theo van Does- The first gallery in the world devoted exclusively to John Plumb
burg, Film as Pure Form. The September issue prints the theatre arts, the Wright Hepburn Gallery, opens London, W.4
an article on Hirschfeld-Mack's Bauhaus Experiments. on September 14 at 10 Halkin Arcade, Motcombe
The magazine, which costs 2s. 6d., may be obtained Street, London S.W.1, with a retrospective exhibition The August cover of Studio International, based on a
by post from: 8 Duck End, Girton, Cambridge. of theatre designs by Kenneth Rowell. Peter Rice's photograph of a David Smith sculpture, would
stage designs will be exhibited later in the year. certainly have dismayed and angered the artist. His
Scottish Art Review Designers whose work will be permanently in the work has been brutalised-hacked up, arbitrarily
The current issue of the Scottish Art Review-Vol. X Gallery are Arthur Boyd, Nicholas Georgiadis, John coloured to suit some notion of decoration-its inten-
No 4-has an extremely constructive article by Ian Piper, Carl Toms, and John Truscott. tion violated, its meaning destroyed.
Finlay on The New Museum. He questions the idea The question goes beyond Smith's individual
that the museum should be a private collection writ The first exhibition of the newly-formed Printmakers interests. No artist should be treated in this fashion,
large and that the public collection should express Council (President: Anthony Gross; Vice-President: least of all in a periodical that means to support and
anything of the nature of 'public taste'. So long as Julian Trevelyan) opened on August 21 at the Robert elucidate art. Illustration of work should be just that-
'the supreme function' of the museum is thought of as Cox Gallery, 46 Victoria Street, Edinburgh. the clearest possible photographic exposition of the
acquisition, says Mr Finlay, 'we will make no progress sculpture or painting, not an •interpretation of it.
towards the new museum'. The new museum, he On August 31 the name of the Artists Own Gallery of Using serious work to casual purpose is even more to
argues, should be based on ideas rather than collec- 26 Kingly Street, Regent Street, London, W.1, was be deplored.
tions; themes should be investigated, masterpieces changed to Newburgh Gallery. The inaugural exhi- Yours,
exhibited in settings which not only illustrate some- bition under the new name is an exhibition of works Gene Baro
thing of the times in which the masterpieces were by contemporary Greek painters. London, N.W.1

Editorial statement 73 years ago vainly clamouring at the Academy doors is a myth and
superstition. But when they do slip in they are lost in
During the course of this year Studio International the general flood, even if they are not hung so as to be
has been steadily improved. Its scope has widened; invisible. The Academy, instead of suggesting to the
its coverage is now more extensive; and it can claim public the truth that there are very few good pictures
to have an authoritative and international panel of produced in the course of the year, debauches them
contributors. In recent issues the journal has also with a bazaar in which attention is called to the cheapest
included many more and better reproductions than and most meretricious.
hitherto, in both monochrome and colour. And it is here that the glaring defect of the Academy
This has inevitably involved us in higher costs and constitution comes in. The trustees are by the charter
an increased price has become essential. When this of the institution secured the privilege of benefiting by
question was first discussed several months ago it their trust. The Academician not only receives his
was felt to be important to make Studio International laurel, but has also the prerogative of exhibiting,
an authoritative, well-produced journal of modern whether he continues to paint well or takes to painting
art, one able to give comprehensive coverage of de- badly (assuming that he did once paint well). Now, no
velopments in Britain and abroad, even if this meant one would wish to lay a self-denying ordinance on those
a rise in price. With the British Government's an- distinguished people to the extent of preventing them
nouncement of crisis financial regulations, however, from exhibiting at all. But between the pictures
we carefully re-examined the question of costs and admitted ex officio and the pictures admitted to please
price, even though our new price had been announced the public, what becomes of our exhibition of excellent
early in July to readers whose subscriptions were due pictures of the standard which is the only justification
for renewal. Nevertheless we still found a price in- The following excerpt from an issue of The Studio of of an Academy? The fair thing surely would be to set
crease was essential if we were to adhere to quality 1893 is reprinted in extenso because some of the apart from the too many rooms one or more into which
and to carry through a programme of additional im- questions then raised by D. S. MacColl still remain it would be understood that the pictures of the Acade-
provements to which we were committed. We have unanswered. mician might go ex officio; to set apart other rooms for
therefore kept to our original decision, regretting that the bazaar, if that is necessary to make both ends meet;
some of our valued readers may find an increase in but to have one room in which a standard should be
price difficult to meet, but believing that there is a The only force in having an Academic exhibition is to steadily maintained, to which the Academician should
need for a good journal of modern art. have it exclusive and excellent; to refuse history if it is only be admitted in virtue of excellence like the out-
We also plan to publish eleven issues a year, with a not also a picture, to refuse illustration if it is not also a sider.
special July-August number, instead oftwelve issues. picture, to do honour to the picture which is a poem From D. S. MacColl's essay on the R.A. exhibition of 1893.
and nothing else, and to say to the public, These are
pictures, whether you like them or not; here is the
In the October issue standard in an art for which you probably do not care; Utterly lacking in character, the most feeble thing I
if you want and are capable of coming to care, look at ever saw, said a visitor on Show Sunday. Amazed at
The October issue of Studio International will include these! Now, instead of doing anything of this sort- the such frank criticism I looked round, but he was not
a report by Gene Baro in the work of some of the excuse for the existence of an Academy exhibition- addressing the artist nor yet studying his own face in
younger British sculptors; a commentary on the the Academy notoriously takes another line: gives the the mirror, only retailing his impression of Mr Whistler's
present situation in Italian painting by Gillo Dorfles; public exactly what the public likes in indiscriminate Lady Meux to his host who, by the way, fully appreciates
a commentary on Poland; and comments by artists, profusion, and competes with trading concerns on the one English master the New Criticism permits us to
educationalists and others on 'What kind of art edu- trading terms. It is not true that the poets never get in; enjoy.
cation?' the idea that there is a crowd of talent and genius from a note on an exhibition at the Grafton Gallery
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