Page 28 - Studio International - December 1967

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.