Page 30 - Studio International - June 1967

cluded in Tooth's Exploration of Paint exhibition in The Older Painters Those over 45 at the time of the
January 1957—Paul Jenkins and Sam Francis. The latter 1956 exhibition (i.e. born before 1910) were scarcely
had first shown here at the I.C.A. Opposing Forces in 1953; affected : they were too set in their ways. Francis Bacon,
and his one-man exhibition at Gimpel Fils in May 1957 an implacable opponent of abstract painting, can hardly
made a profound impression—the Tate's watercolour be expected to like the New York school, and is one of
was bought from this show." As the Californian pupil of the leaders of the international reaction against it. Ben
Rothko and Still, Sam Francis was a notable inter- Nicholson was immediately sympathetic—' "action paint-
mediary, and his presence in Paris from 1950 to 1957 ing" is, as I see it, a particularly healthy, free painting
meant that he came into personal contact with some of development' 19 —but he was aware of the more tradi-
the English artists. tional, less revolutionary (less 'American') qualities of
Several of Sam Francis's finest paintings had been this painting.
bought by the first and only important collector of Victor Pasmore, an extreme constructivist in 1956, and
American painting in England, E. J. Power. Mr Power's leader of the English abstract avant-garde in the early
collection was privately available at significant moments 1950s, was too busy with other things. He had tem-
to some of the younger artists; the two public exhibitions porarily abandoned painting in favour of reliefs, and was
selected from it demonstrate the changing emphasis of actively exploring possibilities of collaboration with
the times. These were New Trends in Painting, an Arts architects. This was a widespread preoccupation in
Council touring exhibition of 1956, with Sam Francis and England at the time, and culminated in the remarkable
Jenkins the only Americans among Dubuffet, de Staël, This is Tomorrow exhibition at Whitechapel in August
Ernst, Appel, Riopelle and Soulages; and Some Paintings 1956.20 There are points of connexion between Pasmore's
from the E. 1. Power Collection at the I.C.A. in March 1958, later work and American painting, but they are slight.
with two paintings each by Pollock, Kline, Rothko and An indication of this is that Pasmore did not visit the
Still, and one each by De Kooning, Dubuffet and Tapies. United States until 1963, and at the time of writing has
Because of its quality and restricted size, this had a still to exhibit in New York.
marked influence on the painters."
A wider public acceptance of American painting was The Middle Generation—the label was Patrick
finally attained when the touring Jackson Pollock retro- Heron's. It was first used for a show of work by Frost,
spective came to Whitechapel in November 1958, fol- Hilton, Wynter and Heron at Waddington's in May
lowed immediately by the New American Painting show at 1959. It expressed the awareness of painters aged be-
the Tate from February 24 to March 22, 1959. The cata- tween 30 and 45 in 1956 that they were no longer the
logue lists 81 works by 17 painters, though not everything youngest generation. They had lost valuable years in the
was shown. Around this time the Tate began to buy war, had been laboriously building something out of the
American paintings, without always having a very sure remnants of modern art left in Europe in the late 'forties,
sense of relative importance." Works by Rothko, Guston and now had to come to terms with American painting.
and James Brooks were acquired in 1959, and a small They were the first European painters to do so.
Pollock in 1960. But it was a beginning that only Basel Heron's reports from London published in Arts between
among European galleries could rival. 1955 and 1958 reflect in an exceptionally revealing
A few more dates to fill out the picture a little. The New fashion the reasons for an English artist's wholehearted
American Painting exhibition had introduced two major conversion to American painting. He wrote of the 1956
but still comparatively unfamiliar figures, missing from Tate exhibition: 'I was instantly elated by the size,
the 1956 exhibition—Gottlieb and Barnett Newman, and energy, originality, economy and inventive daring of
the latter immediately became a hero-figure for the many of the paintings. Their creative emptiness repre-
younger generation of British artists. Gottlieb showed sented a radical discovery, I felt, as did their flatness, or
again at the I.C.A. in June 1959, and in May 1960 Morris rather their spatial shallowness. I was fascinated by their
Louis exhibited there for the first time in Europe." consistent denial of illusionistic depth.... Also, there was
Ellsworth Kelly, Ad Reinhardt and other Betty Parsons
painters showed at Tooth's in January 1961; Louis,
Noland, Parker and others in the New New York Scene at
Marlborough in October 1961; Kelly alone at Tooth's
in May 1962. Rothko was at Whitechapel in October
15 Herbert Read wrote the introduction to the Gimpel catalogue :
1961; Tobey there in February 1962; Guston in 1963. he had already expressed his particular admiration for Sam Francis
Noland was at Kasmin's in April 1963; Olitzki there in in the essay An Art of Internal Necessity, published in Quadrum r,
April 1964; Frankenthaler in May. Rauschenberg was Brussels 1956, pp. 14-15.
at Whitechapel in February 1964; and then again with 16 Both exhibitions had catalogue prefaces by Lawrence Alloway.
17 The American Friends of the Tate was formed in March 1960,
Johns, Dine, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist (and almost all the and in June came the Heinz gift of £25,000 for the purchases of
above-mentioned) in the Gulbenkian exhibition at the American paintings. Much of this was used for Pollock's Painting 1952.
Tate in April 1964. But this brings us to a new phase in 18 There were five paintings, including Libation.
the story. 19 Catalogue of the Statements exhibition at the I.C.A. in January
How did English painters react to the American in- 1956.
20 This is Tomorrow was also historically important for the develop-
vasion? They divide themselves very neatly according to
ment of Pop Art in England—see Alloway in Pop Art, op. it.
generation, establishing a division that has become dan- 21 Arts, March 1956. The report of May 1958 on the exhibition at
gerously rigid. There are three quite distinct groupings. the I.C.A. of the E. J. Power Collection is equally interesting.
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