Page 28 - Studio International - December 1967
P. 28

are won at civic jamborees in Edinburgh, Liverpool or   jokey, neo neo-classical design, neo-romantic colour,   New ICA director
      São  Paulo by and large by whoever best fulfills the   Picasso leading the shade of Baudelaire down Bond
                                                                                        Mr Michael Kustow of the Royal Shakespeare Com-
      liberal or with-it image. By a sleight of hand the   Street, showing the wicked having a good time.
      Philistines have renamed themselves the avant garde.    Yours faithfully,         pany, is to be new director of the Institute of Contem-
       Their chief watchwords are 'humour' or 'wit', to              Adrian Rifkin.     porary Arts in succession to Dr Desmond Morris.
      justify exercises like P. Blake's Monarch of the Glen.   Salford 6
      There is something insufferably coy and sly in admit-                             Northern Young Contemporaries
      ting a taste for the nadir of 19c academicism by
      popping it up. This is the chic and eclecticism which                             Works by 71 art students from all over Great Britain
                                               The Polytechnic case
      Baudelaire once denounced, and which will un-                                     were selected for the 1967 Northern Young Contem-
      doubtedly achieve an historical curiosity, if not im-  Sir,                       poraries Exhibition which is on show at the Whit-
      portance.                                 The average English art school was a simple and an   worth Art Gallery, Manchester, until December 22.
       In the meanwhile, we do many an artist harm by   unpretentious sort of institution. It offered students a   The exhibition was organized by students at the
      taking him too seriously, by foisting on him more than   chance to work, a chance to communicate with other   Manchester College of Art and supported by the
      a decorative sensibility, by listening to what he says.   students, artists and teachers and a particular kind of   Peter Stuyvesant Foundation. The judges were
      Consider in October Studio the Davidian ruminations   atmosphere—sometimes pleasant, often comfortable,   Professor C. R. Dodwell, director of the Whitworth
      of Dine on the distraction of colour, and his desire   rarely stimulating, and on occasion, crassly self-  Art Gallery; Richard Hamilton, the painter; and the
      for form which amounts to a Lockeian substance, an   complacent. It also gave some craft-training and   sculptor Brian Wall.
      'I know not what'. Consider W. Lipke's admiration.   sometimes did this very well indeed. Once a year so-
      In the thick of critical acceptance people of real   called examinations were held and these too were   de Chirico catalogue
      stature—I would venture Hockney or Segal—and little   usually conscientious buton occasion quite grotesque.
      pretension, are stuck in the crowd, admired by the   With the advent of Dip. A.D. Courses a great deal   Claudio Bruni, director of La Medusa Gallery, Rome,
      new Philistines for the same reasons as their fellows.   changed: it was, after all, basically an attempt to do   is undertaking the compilation of an authorized
       In France, Malraux has carried off the major coup of   the same thing very much better and more efficiently   general catalogue of the works of Giorgio de Chirico.
      apparent liberalism. He has, as one cannot fail to   in much fewer places. It also set out to educate rather   The catalogue will be issued in several volumes, and
      notice, thrust Chagall on the French people as if he   than to train  artists and designers, to show why as   will have a text by Cesare Vivaldi. Owners of works by de
      were truth incarnate; and has done so as an acade-  well as how, and to place art in context with other   Chirico are asked to send details to: General Catalogue
      mic tyranny rather than a celebration.   aspects of culture.                      of Works by Giorgio de Chirico, c/o La Medusa
       I would like to find a painter to do me something   There were also some very interesting side effects.   Gallery, 124 Via del Babuino, 00187 Rome.
                                               The colleges which were not at first authorized to run
                                               the new courses were often fortunate: no expense   New galleries
                                               was spared — new buildings, new staff-appointments
                                               and new equipment, greatly increased finance and   Fulham Gallery, 631 New King's Road, London,
                                               frantic canvassing sometimes did the trick. Other art   S.W.6; apart from showing paintings and sculpture,
      74 years ago                             schools began to starve to death, for want of students,   the gallery will also concern itself with total environ-
                                               staff and 'recognition' in every sense.   ments and the attendant studies of light and form in
                                               Of the colleges that were allowed 'Dip. A.D.' courses   space. It also proposes to develop the poster poem as
                                               immediately, many are attempting to run a much more   a means of joint expression for poet and artist.
                                               ambitious course and to handle far more students on
                                               much the same budget and the same staffing that   Clarges Gallery, 5 Clarges Street, London W.1—the
                                               they had before and there has been no miracle of   opening show was of British watercolours and oils of
                                               loaves and fishes. It is difficult to attract into colleges   the 19th and 20th centuries, including Sargent,
                                               of art the kinds of tutors who might realize the   Steer and John.
                                               possibilities opened up by the Dip. A.D. charter.
                                               There is one simple and obvious remedy already taken   Roberts Gallery, 348 Upper Street, London, N.1.
                                               by a number of colleges: some kind of affiliation with
                                               an existing university. But degree courses in art have   White Rose Galleries, 13 Hampton Court Parade,
                                               existed for some time, and they have had a tendency   East Molesey, Surrey: showing 'the work of profes-
                                               to produce graduates who know quite a lot and do   sional artists and sculptors, together with crafts from
                                               rather little.                           all parts of the country.'
                                               'Polytechnic' is an unfortunate name—we have had
                                               Polytechnics before, and there is also the range of   Cross Keys Gallery, Wycombe End, Beaconsfield,
                                               products that includes 'Polycel' and 'Polyfilla'. On   Bucking hamshire.
                                               the other hand there is an urgent need for a  new
                                               kind of university in which the accent is on invention   In brief
                                               rather than on scholarship, and in which the art
      The good picture, like the bad, is exhibited to sell, but
                                               school—given more of everything it-needs—could be   Recent additions to the Tate include Pierre Bonnard's
      it was made to please—the painter. Therefore, if it does
                                               vitally and centrally important.         The Bowl of Milk  of c.1920, bequeathed by Edward
      not please the public the painter has no right to feel
                                               Simply to take Colleges of Art, and Colleges of   Le Bas, R.A.—a painting of Mme Bonnard wearing a
      aggrieved except against the general constitution of
                                               Technology, to bundle them together under an   pink dress.
      things. Nobody is bound to be entertained by good
                                               administrator who is given the title of Director and to
      painting. To wean people from skittles on the plea that
                                               botch up an Academic Board of representative   At a celebration on November 2 marking the Royal
      going to see good pictures is elevating, like going to
                                               tutors would be a great nonsense. The Polytechnics   College of Art's acquisition of university status,
      church, is to raise a false issue.
                                               could be a radical and creative new'concept—or they   honorary doctorships were conferred on a number of
          D. S. MacColl in an article entitled 'Exhibition'
                                               could be a cynical political reshuffle in which the art   people distinguished in the field of art, including
                                               school has everything to lose. It depends on the people,   Naum Gabo and Henry Moore.
                                               ideas and money that are brought in immediately.
      The January issue                         The best way might be to essay the experiment   Four paintings were stolen from the Broadway Art
                                               seriously at three centres rather than to fumble it at   Gallery, Worcestershire, on October 19. The stolen
      Articles will include Lawrence Alloway and Richard   twenty-eight.                paintings were: Sketch of a woman by Manet, 27 x 33
      Hamilton on Roy Lichenstein; an interview with          Yours faithfully,         in.; a double-sided picture by Salvador Dali, c.1925,
      Clement Greenberg; Gene Baro on contemporary                    Stephen Cohn      showing two views of Cadaques Bay, 15 x 19 in.;
      American sculpture; and a Comment by Harold   Banbury.                            Gipsy women  by lsidia Nonell, 27 x  20 in.;  and Jar
      Cohen.                                   Oxfordshire                              and brushes by Matisse, 13 x 19 in.
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