Page 55 - Studio International - June 1969

In April 1913, when Gino Severini came to velvet-collared coat, a wing collar with flam-
England for his first one-man show at the boyant tie and a monocle stuck in an arrogantly
new Marlborough Gallery, in Duke Street, blank face. He stands beside a self-portrait
St James's, he was, he wrote, 'the object of which, through the Futurist distortions, is
continuous interest on the part of a varied clearly in similar dress. He was thirty, at the
public, principally made up of the London height of his fame. The exhibition opened
aristocrats and members of the upper middle at midnight on his birthday, April 7. As
class, together with artists and journalists. All Severini confessed : 'our exhibitions generally
the newspapers and reviews took note of it, took place in new galleries which made use
and I was interviewed as if I was a visiting of us for publicity purposes. This particular
prime minister.' It was the second time within opening was a most fashionable affair.'
thirteen months that London had been shown The exhibition of Severini's work now at the
his work. In March 1912, eight of his canvases GROSVENOR GALLERY brings with it a nostalgia
had been shown with works by Boccioni, tinged with irony. The irony does not come
Carra, Russolo and Balla in the exhibition of simply from a retrospect on a movement
Futurist painting which within months was which aimed to turn its back on the past.
also shown in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, The Futurism had not only rejected its own past,
Hague, Amsterdam and Munich, and was re- but had demanded, 'when we are forty, let
ported in New York, Japan, Greece, Den- others, younger and more valiant, throw us
mark and Russia. into the basket like useless manuscripts'.
Futurism was an international phenomenon; Futurism died for its initiators in 1916.
`futuristic' became a synonym for everything Severini turned his back on his own past but
that was most outrageous in modern art. lived and painted until 1966, when he died
Futurism, particularly the work of Severini, at the age of eighty-three. He abandoned
(who had lived in Paris since 1906 and knew Futurism for a hard academic classicism and
Picasso and Braque among many other only in his later years returned to a style re-
French artists), owed much to Cubism. But calling the period of his fame. But the style he
where Cubism, certainly the cubism of chose was not futurist, but the cubism of
Picasso and Braque, was obscure and for- Picasso and Braque of about 1914.
bidding in its sombre colours and almost in- The Grosvenor show is not representative. It
discernible subject matter, Futurism was includes only four minor works of the Futurist
brilliantly, stridently, colourful, and agressive period, and gives hardly a hint of the years of
in its style and subject matter. Severini's classicism. By chance, two of the early works
canvases were especially provocative because emphasize Severini's ties to Cubism. A pastel
his themes of Montmartre, the cabarets and study for his painting of 1913, Restaurant in
dance-halls, suggested pleasure, and to most Montmartre, is very close to Delaunay. A strik-
spectators his harsh metallic shapes and ing crayon study of 1912 for the painting
garish colour were decidedly unpleasant. Nord-Sud, reveals that the figure which is
There was a further provocation for the dis- almost indecipherable in the painting is a
cerning: the themes were already celebrated young woman reading Apollinaire's Alcoöls.
by the Impressionists, and above all Degas. The majority of the works shown were made
Among the eight canvases included in the between 1948 and 1965. These are the works
1912 exhibition, Severini had shown his huge which show his own nostalgia for his youth,
The 'Pan Pan' at the Monico, in which the quite but for Paris rather than Futurism. The
recognizable dancers appeared to disinte- collages recall that in his later years Severini
grate in splinters of orgiastic abandon; The confessed that the idea for collage had been
obsessive dancer is a conventional femme fatale suggested both to Picasso and himself by the
whose conventionally represented features poet Apollinaire. Among the paintings, one
had been wrenched apart and scattered across of the latest and best, Nature morte avec guitare
the canvas among segments of smaller dancing et compotière of 1964, by vividly recalling cer-
figures. Even more daring, perhaps, was tain Picassos of 1914, unexpectedly raises the
Memories of a journey, in which Severini in- question whether the sudden shower of
cluded, among many other items, the Arc de confetti-like dots in Picasso's work at that
Triomphe and the Alps, because he 'liked time had not itself been influenced by Severini.
them and therefore they had to agree to The outstanding work of the show is Danseuse
remain together'. et Polichinelle of 1951. In this, and a related
In the 1913 show at the Marlborough, in canvas, Rythme de pas de deux a r opera of 1950,
addition to more dancers, now on the point Severini returns to a favourite theme of his
of almost total dissolution, and incorporating Futurist years, and at first glance treats it in a
real sequins embedded in the paint, Severini pure and mild cubist manner. The paradox is,
included The Nord-Sud Metro and the Autobus, that by betraying the Futurist edict to destroy
each, like Memory of a journey, an amalgam of tradition, he achieves a Futurist, not a cubist,
a time-sequence, and Holiday in Montmartre, canvas. He uses cubism to do what cubism
which becomes an almost totally abstract evo- does not do; in effect, he works like an old
cation. master, a minor master, by using traditional
A photograph of Severini at the Marlborough means to create an individual result. q
Gallery shows him dressed in bowler hat and JOHN M. NASH