Page 72 - Studio International - June 1968

Anthony Gross: and technical ingenuity. When he goes in for. something other than
lines-flat planes. broad delineations-then his work loses coherance.
master etcher work at the Victoria and Albert Museum (until 2'8 September). after a
I was delighted and relieved at the retrospective show of his graphic
long wall of dull and de-personalized prints. to find that in the last few
years there has been a return to both the limitations and richnesses of
earlier times. Gross is best. it seems to me. at his most nervous and
busy. The piece of paper needs to be filled with lines and shapes before
it takes on a meaningful reality. His artistic personality and vision are
basically thin; there is rarely a truly memorable single image-certainly
never a hint at social commitment. little wit or satire. no tragic view of
life-nothing in fact in the great line of Rembrandt. Goya or Lautrec.
There is, at its best. something more akin to oriental detachment. a
kind of pantheistic poetry in the concentration on a natural form and
Charles Spencer its enlargement into· something abstractly spiritual. Among the best
examples of this are three small etchings. Study of waves 1935, The
It comes as no surprise to learn that Anthony Gross·s father was a map glacier 1937 and Juniper forest 1951. In each a natural scene has
publisher-'My earliest memories are visiting the map drawing room been heightened by concentration into something mysterious; the
where a draughtsman allowed me to mix litho ink in a little saucer and shapes are small. the variations ingenious. full of grace and charm.
occasionally to draw on a stone. This may be one of the original causes Gross was trained first at the Slade School and the Central School of
of my interest in print-making. I can still remember the smell of that Arts and Crafts, then in Paris and later under Carlos Berger in Madrid.
litho ink up till today.' Indeed. as long as he remembers and under­ As Graham Reynolds puts it (in the useful monograph published by
stands the influence of map-making so his work retains freshness and the V. & A.) Gross was brought up in a tradition 'which may be thought
originality. of as the belated application of Rembrandt's vision to the English
As a child he must have enjoyed and understood the simple process landscape'. By 1928. when he was 23 years old. after having met
of making lines; since then he has learned to engrave lines of every Hayter and Joseph Hecht in Paris. a personal style emerged-the
possible kind-thin. thick. straight. curved. amusing, grave, airy. solid. busy filling-in of space. the windswept movement of Le soulier 1928
Within this potent restrictiveness he makes designs of great complexity and the crowded scene of La foule 1929. I was delighted to learn
from Reynolds that Gross regards La foule 'as the etching in which he
first gave expression to his new ideas. which finished one period and
opened up another', and that this new maturity was based 'upon
exploiting the line·. which coincides with the opinion I had myself
reached from studying the work. Later he must have been influenced
by the Russian ballet. or Picasso's designs for it. The series called La
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY Zone done in 1930, amusing and brilliantly drawn scenes of the shanty
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY town on the outskirts of Paris. have a strongly theatrical air.
My favourites of the early works are the Spanish scenes in Tarragona.
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY Lovely patterns made from boats and cafe tables. the gay movements
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY of Las sardanas 1934 and best of all Cate Cambrils. Tarragona, one of
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY the few compositions infused with a sad mystery, when you forget the
artist's clever fingers. The outbreak of war in 1939 put an end to Gross·
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY continental travels and on his appointment as an official War Artist­

16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY in the Middle East. Burma. India. Iran and France-to his print­
making. The V. & A exhibition contains only three etchings from the
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY war years._ln the 'forties and 'fifties a number of changes and experi­
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY ments took place, mostly unfortunate I feel. The larger works of the
late 'fifties were the result of adopting new tools and techniques. but
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY the results are unsatisfactory. a delicate medium stretched into some­
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY thing beyond its range.
By 1962 the old style and mastery return-The window 1963. with
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY its echoes of the Spanish cafe of 1933. the superb Wheatfield 1966,
vertical stalks broken by tiny geometric patterns. and best of all
ORIGINAL PRINTS Mississippi 1966 where the swirling. eddying lines take you right back
to ma·p-making.
In May there were two other Gross exhibitions in London. etchings
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY at Maltzahn, and prints and paintings at John Whibley. According to
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY Gross he works on the prints in winter. and in summer. at his house in
Le Boulve. near Cahors in France. he paints landscapes which contain
16th CENTURY-20th CENTURY the seeds of later graphic designs. Whilst the small watercolours have
something of the meticulous concentration and movement of the
FOLIO FINE ART LTD prints, the large oils are grandiose and anonymous. both in a geo­
graphical and a personal sense. They illustrate the fact that vision is
6 STRATFORD PLACE LONDON W.1 often bound up with technique. that a print-maker or painter instinc­
tively chooses images for his medium. Gross clearly thinks as a
print-maker and the images are not nearly so suitable for painting.
338