Page 22 - Studio International - November 1968
P. 22

of the payments of students' grants to monthly instead   purchase of works of art.   short, it is another but different 'convention', the
      of termly. The payment of part-time staff in full—with   I have been informed that this matter was not,   word 'convention' being as applicable here as it was
      instruction from internal administrators to stay at   however, discussed at the committee meeting on   not in the first case. The fact that body-type characters
      home from May 28 1968 to the end of term, some six   October 1, owing to the pressure of other business,   have a maximum close-set imposed on them by a
      weeks. The payment of full-time staff from May 28   but that it will be dealt with at a subsequent meeting.   technical consideration external to their design as
      onwards, though continued closure of the college   The allocation of £20,000 has always been regarded   letters, and film-set characters do not have any res-
      prevented them from performing their duties. The   as a fund for the commissioning of sculpture and   triction other than that of legibility—a conception of
      payment of external assessors, apart from many acts   murals for the GLC's schools and housing estates   infinitely more flexibility than is commonly supposed
      of petty obstructionism and interference with the   and it would be very improper to use this money to   —gives different meanings to 'convention' and
      installations of what is public property etc. etc.   erect a monument to a political figure, nor can this   'exigency' which are real and not products of my
       Many of us would like to insist that education in a   part of South Bank, which is scheduled for cultural   semantic imagination.
      democracy is a right and that it ought to be free of   purposes, be considered a suitable place for such a   The simulation by 'rub-down' letters of an area of
      any possibility of being frustrated by the crude   memorial.                      characters produced 'by an impression from body type
      methods we have experienced at Hornsey and which   I hope that this letter will help to ensure that there   is analogous to the problem confronting sign-writers
      frighteningly appear to be prevailing at Guildford.   is some discussion among artists and other cultural   who, as Mr Tracy is no doubt aware, offer a number
       There has been sufficient eminent and scholarly   workers, of Mr Sebag-Montefiore's proposal.   of contemporary typefaces in their specimens for
      sympathy for the students, case to reach the ears and       Yours faithfully.     hoardings, shop fascias, public authority notice-
      intelligence of all save those who are concerned to                    G. Freeman   boards, etc. Here the letter forms are not seen as
      subordinate education to reactionary politics, but I   London, SE15               primarily typographic but merely as units to be
      fear the views of Lord Queensberry, Lord Longford,                                assembled to convey required information. The adop-
      Sir Robin Darwin may meet with the automatic, icy                                 tion of a foreign exigency, i.e. that of typographic
      and devious response of our small town politicians   Spacing of typographic characters   spacing because of the employment of letters which
      unfortunately so familiar to most of us at Hornsey.   Dear Sir,                   happen to have been cast simply to facilitate their
                           Yours sincerely,     The article by Mr Walter Tracy entitled 'Typographic   multiplication, cannot possibly be seen as relevant by
                                     Keith Grant   Agorophobia' (September issue), while being most   a sensitive sign-writer aware of such differing con-
      Lecturer. Fine Art Department            instructive on the subject of the method of spacing   siderations as colour of ground and letters, delinea-
      Hornsey College of Art                   embodied in the casting of founders' type, is also   tion of text-area, background against which sign is
      London NW1                               rather blinkered in other respects and contains some   to be read, etc.
                                               inconsistencies.                          The message, then, is this. That a letter form, while
      Churchill memorial for South Bank?        The convention of the spacing of typographic   properly being described as 'calligraphic', 'lapidary',
      Dear Sir,                                characters (in fact a technical exigency due to the   or whatever, to denote its allusive character to a
       It was reported in The Times of September 13 that   nature of movable type as Mr Tracy must well know)   prototype, does not embody in its verbal 'tag' a built-
      Mr Sebag-Montefiore, Chairman of the GLC's new   has not been indicted for its correctness or otherwise   in area of surrounding space derived through a purely
      Arts and Recreations Committee, intended to pro-  by modern graphic designers—just its irrelevance as   semantic association of concept and term. Utilitarian
      pose, at his Committee's first meeting on October 10,   the solution to certain problems of design. The in-  and aesthetic considerations should determine the
      that a memorial to Sir Winston Churchill should be   dictment is eloquent in that it has been made in   arrangement of letters : typographers must be moti-
      erected on South Bank, in front of the Royal Festival   visual, not canonical, terms. Close-setting to the   vated by concepts, not terms for concepts.
      Hall and that Mr Geoffrey Jellicoe, architbct of the   degree exemplified in the illustration at the top of   Yours faithfully,
      Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede, should be asked   page 116 is not good or bad but impossible with               Richard Healy
      to design it. The cost of the monument would be met   body type characters technically: aesthetically it has   Farnham School of Art,
      out of the GLC's yearly allocation of £20,000 for the   a rhythm belonging to the device of film-setting. In    Farnham, Surrey






      News                                     A retrospective of work by Charles Sheeler,   New galleries open in London  include  Com-
                                                                                        pendium 2 at  137 Fulham Road, SW3, an offspring
                                                perhaps the foremost artistic interpreter of machine-
                                               age America, is at the Smithsonian's National Col-  of Compendium Galleries in Birmingham, which
                                               lection of Fine Arts, Washington, until November 24.   intends to introduce out-of-London artists (the open-
                                               Among the paintings are a number which he exhi-  ing show is of paintings by Peter Tarrant, who studied
                                               bited in the Armory Show in 1913. The show goes   at Shrewsbury Art School), and Rotunda Studios of
                                                later to Philadelphia and the Whitney.   116-18 Finchley Road, NW3, which opened on
                                                                                        October 10 with an exhibition of paintings by Harry
                                                                                         Baines.
                                               Norway acquired a new art centre  when the
                                                Sonja Henie—Niels Onstad Foundation museum
                                                                                        Henry Moore,  Bridget Riley, Hubert Dalwood
                                                opened at Hovikodden in Baerum. The museum
                                                                                        and Michael Ayrton were among artists who con-
                                                houses the Henie-Onstad collection, particularly rich
                                                                                        tributed works to a U.N.A. Czechoslovak Fund exhi-
                                                in works by Bazaine, Estève, Munch, Soulages, de
                                                                                         bition at Camden Arts Centre, London, in October.
                                                Stael, and Jacques Villon, and has adequate space
       Mr Bryan Robertson is resigning the directorship                                 Among collectors who donated works of art were Mr
                                                for concerts and theatrical performances. The Founda-
       of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. He will, how-                            and Mrs Juda, Sir Roland Penrose, and Mrs Sieff.
                                                tion is also publishing a magazine thrice yearly,
       ever, remain associated with the Gallery as adviser
                                                edited by Ole Henrik Moe. The first issue, published
       and consultant, and will be responsible for two exhi-                            The fourth Northern Young Contemporaries
                                                in August, includes a number of articles on the history
       bitions a year. During his tenure of the directorship—                            exhibition will be held at the Whitworth Art Gallery
                                                and architecture of the centre, an article on post-war
       which he assumed when he was only 26—Mr                                           from November 16 to December 21. The exhibition
                                                French painting by Jacques Lassaigne, and a cata-
       Robertson's creative capacity to assess and pas-                                  is supported by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation and
                                                logue of the collection.
       sionately support the important work of younger                                   The Arts Council.
       artists has given the Gallery an international reputa-                            The works have been selected this year by Mark
       tion. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the   Recent Tate Gallery acquisitions placed on view   Lancaster, painter, Richard Morphet, Assistant
       Whitechapel, under his directorship, has played a   include six paintings from the Pleydell-Bouverie   keeper at the Tate Gallery, Nikos Stangos, Art and
       bigger role in securing recognition for post-war   bequest (among them Cezanne's L'allée du Jas du   Poetry Editor for Penguin Books, and Professor Reg-
       British painting and sculpture than any other British   Bouffan, Vuillard's The artist's mother of c. 1930, and   inald Dodwell, Director of the Whitworth Art Gallery.
       gallery.                                 Salvador Dali's Forgotten horizon, 1936), two Mark   The judges are also responsible for choosing the ten
        Before relinquishing his directorship Mr Robertson   Gertlers bequeathed by Thomas Balston to the   Peter Stuyvesant Foundation £50 prize winners, and
       plans to mount retrospectives of four Canadian   National Art-Collections Fund, and Anthony Green's   a smaller selection of works to be sent on tour by
       artists, including Yves Gaucher and Guido Molinari.   Souvenir de jeunesse: Madeleine Jocelyn's lounge.   The Arts Council during the first half of 1969.
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