Page 19 - Studio International - February 1969

The People are judged, or should be, on what they rather misuse of the word 'commitment'.

do rather than what they say they are going Imaginative but tolerant enthusiasts, dis-
Whitechapel's to do. I am probably being ill advised in posed to be catholic in taste and judgement,
blurting out my hopes, aims and attitudes only
have been bullied into fearing that they are
seven working days after taking up my new `uncommitted' and therefore somehow colour-
future post. I deliberately risk future accusations that less or dilettante. I hope to prove that a
the result did not match my declared inten- catholic taste need not be an easy way out.
tions. But I think that on balance it is worth It can be just the opposite. An effort of his-
saying something now out of respect for the torical imagination is needed to get the most
curiosity and interest which focuses on the from the art of seventeenth-century Holland,
Whitechapel at the end of a brilliant fifteen- Renaissance Italy or sixth-century Athens. In
year regime. The thousands who have made the same way an effort of up-to-date sociologi-
the journey to Aldgate East for Pollock and cal imagination and awareness of contem-
Rothko, Johns and Rauschenberg, Turner porary life should be positively encouraged so
and Stubbs, and the artists that have shown that we can get the most and sift the best out
and have yet to show at the Whitechapel are of the many channels of contemporary art. A
valued supporters. They do not deserve to be love of Matisse does not debar one from the
kept in the dark about what is going through love of Picasso or Mondrian. Why should one
the new Director's mind. not be fascinated for different reasons and in
I would like to plunge in by saying that I do different ways by both Oldenburg and Ad
not think that the Whitechapel's exhibition Reinhard ? I agree with Professor Gombrich
policy has been or should be doctrinaire or
narrow. This means rising above an existing
undertow of second-rate thinking which has Mark Glazebrook, the recently-appointed
Director, outside the entrance to the
centred around, and resulted from, the use or Whitechapel Art Gallery.

PAUL WALDO SCHWARTZ, art critic for the New York ROBERT KUDIELKA is assistant editor of das Kunstwerk. CORRECTION Due to an error, the sense of part of Tim
Times since 1963, is author of 'Cubism' arid 'The Scott's 'Colour in Sculpture' statement in the January
sculptor in his studio', both to be published this year. JOSEPH MASHECK is an American art historian doing issue of Studio International, page 22, was destroyed. Line
His interview with Magritte, published in this issue, is research and writing in Dublin and London. 9 as printed should have been positioned between lines
perhaps the last ever given by the artist. 22 and 23. Line 9 should read
must be judged to
FRANK WHITFORD has recently returned from Germany, do so in comprehensive...'; line 22 should read was
DAVID SILCOX is Arts Officer of the Canada Council.
where he has been studying twentieth-century German used in order to emphasize and delineate...' The dates
painting. given on page 10 of the same issue for Tim Scott's
DR STEPHEN BANN teaches in the Faculty of Humanities
periods of study and teaching at St Martin's School of
of the University of Kent. He is at present working on
DORE ASHTON, the American critic, is a regular con- Art should read '1955-58' and '1961—' respectively.
an anthology of Constructivist documents and a study
tributor to Studio International.
of modern painting.
NINA OSNOS is a curatorial assistant at the Corcoran PETER PLAGENS is an instructor in the History of Art
Gallery-Dupont Center, Washington. Department of the University of Texas.