Page 27 - Studio International - October 1967

British painting : the post-war generation

In recent issues of Studio International British critics have discussed the emergence of
abstract art in Britain, and the influence of American painting since the war. Here an American
critic looks at the concerns of artists 'wholly of the post-war generation' and examines the
persisting influence of romanticism.

Gene Baro

The exhibition, Young British Painters, which opened My uncharacteristic excursion into arithmetic has a
on September 30 at the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, purpose—to make clear that the Brussels exhibition re-
under the auspices of the British Council, is the largest flects current or quite recent concerns on the part of a
single presentation of post-war British painting to be seen group of artists wholly of the post-war generation. These
on the Continent. We might well ask what it reveals. painters were born too late to be asked to believe in the
Twelve artists are represented: Peter Blake, Patrick innate superiority of British art, a legacy of nineteenth
Caulfield, Bernard Cohen, Harold Cohen, Robyn Denny, century academism that was still supporting a few tottery
David Hockney, John Hoyland, Allen Jones, Peter Phil- heirs in the thirties and forties. The avant garde of those
lips, Bridget Riley, Richard Smith and Joe Tilson. Ten decades had felt attracted to programmatic artistic
show five works each; Blake, whose paintings are small, internationalism. They busied themselves in defining an
shows six; Jones and Phillips show four paintings each, a aesthetic absolute in the wake of Gabo and Mondrian, or
matter of short supply. The earliest completed painting they joined one department or another of the School of
is Riley's Fugitive (1962) ; Blake's Zorina Queen of the Paris. This, too, the post-war generation escaped.
Nudists and Her TV Gorilla was begun in 1961 but was By the time they began coming on the scene, in the
completed only in 1965; in addition, there are two Blakes mid-fifties, as students or with their first London exhi-
of 1963: otherwise, the exhibition is of paintings 1964-7. bitions, things were in a considerable state of flux. Owing
In short, a dozen established artists, ranging in age be- in part to the disruptions of the war, established artistic
tween 39 and 28, are showing work mainly of the last values had broken down. The restlessness was general; a
few years. new world was wanted. Among artists, a debate over the

Richard Smith
Proscenium 1966
acrylic on canvas
96 x 156 in.
Kasmin Gallery, London