Page 44 - Studio International - February 1968

Whitechapel Art Gallery; general view of British David Hall; general view of four sculptures at the
sculpture from the collection of the Leicestershire Royal Institute Galleries. All were made in 1967.
Education Authority

work from the contagious vitality of his whole the conviction he feels. His most important rela- Caro's, a dominant side—a front and a back. If he
creative persona; and Nicholson's white reliefs tionship is not with the public, but with the artist. has this, as well as his use of colour in common
have been consistently important for me since I The way the critics and art administrators behave with the painter, or more exactly the relief-maker,
was first aware of them. But I do feel the justice of in this country you'd think all artists like being out King's employment of plane and space is
strictures implied by Greenberg and voiced in the cold while they're doing really original marvellously sculptural. Nile articulates the space
sharply by Fried on the apathy of the English work. There has been virtually no serious critical it inhabits to magical, authoritative and deeply
toward their currently most creative artists. We coverage in England of the work of Phillip King, serious ends. It is a most impressive piece of
have a terrible habit of climbing half way to- yet by the terms of world sculpture at the moment sculpture by any standards.
wards an artist—giving him half a column when he he, Caro and Tucker are major figures, recognized How far King has developed can be seen by
deserves a page—and waiting there till he descends as such abroad but not vaunted at home. Nile, the comparing Nile with Declaration of 1961 by the
to meet us. large piece by King in the opening exhibition for same sculptor, exhibited recently at the WHITE-
And I feel regretful also that the strong voice of the new premises of the ROWAN GALLERY, shows CHAPEL ART GALLERY in the show of modern
support for the contemporary English sculptors him at full strength.* Occasionally his sculptures British sculpture from the collection of the
should have come from abroad. If there have been are successful within a comparatively light- Leicestershire Educational Authorities.
those in London who knew what was happening hearted range of experience. And the birds began By the time this goes to press, a selection of
and felt that it was significant, why have they not to sing in the Tate, and the Arts Council's Point X, paintings from the same collection will be on show
given these artists the support they needed; not are two of these. This has much to do with the at the Whitechapel. It's worth going to see what
support that would be primarily useful in a finan- brightness of colour and extremity of colour con- can be achieved when an enlightened Committee
cial sense, but evidence of real response and of trast in these pieces, and it may be that as we sanctions the spending of as much as half of the •5
shared commitment? Why was Caro's exhibition become progressively acclimatized to the use of per cent which the Ministry of Education declared
at Kasmin's not greeted as the important event it acrylic and luminous paints, we shall come to in 1950 was an acceptable proportion of the capital
was? Perhaps those who would have written were accept more easily in sculpture, what we already cost of school buildings to be spent on embellish-
too busy or were obliged to cover other exhibitions, accept in painting, that a statement of some ments. If all the local education authorities in this
for reasons best known to themselves or their gravity may be implied in a piece whose colours country were using the maximum recommended
editors. It's all a question of priorities. are intense or even dazzling. But it has also much appropriation, an enormous source of patronage
What's likely to happen, of course, is what has to do with the speed and nature of the implied would be uncovered for the benefit of the artists,
happened many times in the history of twentieth- movement. In King's Tate piece, this is a rapid, quite apart from the benefit to those who would
century art: artists will go where the response rocking, swinging motion. The movement in Nile come into contact with the works purchased. It
comes from. In the thirties we were the bene- is more thoroughly composed, and is orchestrated would be like lighting a fire in a cold room.
ficiaries of this tendency, but that situation with a magisterial flow. King's sculpture is much In an eloquent and impassioned catalogue intro-
couldn't last through the war. So far most of the more sequential than Caro's (variety of intention duction, Bryan Robertson traces the history and
emigrations to America among British artists of the and effect among the works of the major figures is development of art in modern education. The case
post-war generation have been only temporary, one of the measures of the vitality of contemporary for a greater involvement of education with art is
but the full-hearted response to their work of English sculpture). In Nile there is a logical sequence forcefully presented on two main fronts: the need
visitors like Michael Fried must make the United to the movement; we read the sculpture, as it were, for patronage, and the potential of art as an
States seem a very tempting long-term prospect. from left to right, which implies of course that educative force : 'The tragedy of the situation
It is the critic's duty to voice his response with all there is also, in King's sculpture as there is not in lies in the fact that those painters and sculptors
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