Page 50 - Studio Interantional - May 1967

LONDON

commentary by
Edward Lucie-Smith

Matisse drawings at Victor Waddington;
Roland Piché at Marlborough-New
London; Hundertwasser at Hanover;
William Tucker and Pol Bury at Kasmin;
Lenk at Rowan; Edward Bullmore at Tama;
William Brooker and Adrian Berg at
Tooth's; Karel Appel at Redfern; Michael
Wishart at the Leicester.

People always speak of Matisse as being the
ancestor of a great deal of contemporary painting,
and especially of a great deal of so-called 'post-
painterly abstraction'. There has, in fact, long
been a need for a major Matisse retrospective in
England, and now there's talk that this may
finally come about. Meanwhile VICTOR WADDINGTON
has mounted a show of Matisse drawings, all of
them dating from the later years of the painter's
life. The catalogue reprints the statement made by
Matisse about drawing: 'My feelings find their
purest and most direct expression in my unshaded
outline drawings. This is made possible by the
simplification of the medium...' Matisse goes on
to say that his outline drawings are 'invariably
preceded by a number of studies in a less rigorous
medium, charcoal, for instance, or stump.... This
preliminary activity may last for quite a few sittings.

Above
Roland Piché
Suicide in costume II 1966
Fibreglass and resin
38+ x 38+ x 16 in.
Far left
Henri Matisse
Louis Aragon, etude
20¾ x 16 in.
Pen drawing
Left
Henri Matisse
Louis Aragon
24 x 1% in.
Drawing