Page 43 - Studio International - February 1968

Anthony Caro Prairie 1967, steel painted yellow ochre, 38 x 228 x 126 in., private coll.,
New York. Kasmin Gallery

One of the points made by Clement Greenberg in catalogue to the last open air sculpture exhibition There was, in fact, no reaction of any significance.
his interview with Edward Lucie-Smith in the at Battersea: 'It seems to me more than likely that Instead, those who had supported so vociferously
January issue of Studio International was that we are witnessing in this country, here and now, the middle generation sculptors prepared to turn
..certain younger Englishmen are doing the best one of the great epochs in the history of art'. This their beaks once again with the wind. Some are
sculpture in the world today'. In this context and assertion, albeit made cautiously and unobtru- taking a long time to swing. Others have never
from this source the statement is likely to alarm in sively, was at the time the subject of restrained been known to move far enough in any direction
England even some of those who know the field. laughter from behind the hands of a few Sunday- to make a change significant or even perceptible.
And yet much the same point was made over paper tigers, but could hardly have been said to Unfortunately it is the least committed writers
eighteen months ago by Alan Bowness in his have caused the controversy it deserved. who regularly reach the widest reading public,
while those whose judgements are more considered
find their energies dissipated in other, often more
Derrick Woodham Three painted metal boxes 1966, mild steel, 57 x 65 x 18 in., remunerative ways, and their commitment ham-
Countesthorpe Junior School pered by a web of social or institutional loyalties.
Anthony Caro's one-man show at the KASMIN
GALLERY in early November last year, which, in
the light of the Battersea exhibition (to choose an
event of which all concerned must surely have been
conscious), was obviously likely to be very im-
portant, was accorded by most English writers no
more space than was necessary to display an un-
willingness to come to terms with the work; no
more than would have been accorded, say, to a
send-off exhibition for a second-rate septuagena-
rian.
I was myself prevented from writing about the
exhibition—something I dearly wanted to do—by
the ironic fact that the issue of this magazine
previous to that in which I might have written had
carried an article on Caro by, guess who—Clement
Greenberg. And an excellent article it was too.
But I would like to record my own response to the
exhibition by reproducing here Caro's Prairie, the
most exciting work by a living artist that I saw in
any London gallery in 1967.
The American critic Michael Fried, who is
happy to avow his admiration for Greenberg,
declared to me recently that Caro was the greatest
English artist since Constable. I can't entirely
agree with Mr Fried, perhaps because my view is
not as clear-cut as his (and that's not meant to
decry: it's a rueful compliment to a writer who
really is and talks like a critic); I wouldn't
advance any individual work of Wyndham Lewis
above the best of Caro, but I can't detach Lewis'