Page 32 - Studio International - December 1970

Two cultures For all those painters who, like myself, can't London has never seen retrospective exhibi-
always be bothered to read articles from end tions by: Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage,
to end but want to know the gist straight Trevor Bell, Peter Blake, Reg Butler, Patrick
Patrick Heron off... here it is, under four rough headings, Caulfield, Lynn Chadwick, Bernard Cohen,
(then you needn't wade in any farther) : Robyn Denny, Elizabeth Frink, Terry Frost,
1. The world-wide dissemination of scandal- Patrick Heron, Anthony Hill, Roger Hilton,
ously chauvinistic, inaccurate and insanely Paul Huxley, Allen Jones, Justin Knowles,
inflated opinion as to the quality, value or Kenneth Martin, F. E. McWilliam, Eduardo
stature of every kind of American art con- Paolozzi, Bridget Riley, William Scott, Joe
tinues to gather momentum everywhere : Tilson, William Turnbull, Michael Tyzack,
almost all the younger British contributors to John Wells, Brian Wall or Bryan Wynter.
Studio International now stuff their articles with Clearly this isn't a list dictated by personal
the names of American painters and sculptors taste. But nearly all these artists are older
to illustrate this, that or the other general than Frank Stella; all have shown inter-
point, points which could very often be far nationally; many have done so with resound-
more intelligently illuminated by reference to ing success. How on earth can the younger
British example and achievement—but to do British artists and critics be expected to know
this would be to jump off the critical band- what's been done in this country in the last
wagon.... And most of them are by now twenty years in the absence of retrospectives
unaware that they're on it.... by artists such as these? Meanwhile the
2. The increasing American occupation of all critics all fall flat on their faces in front of
the more prestigious exhibition spaces in Stella—now aged thirty-four. (Did I count no
London continues apace : the height of the less than four long separate articles in The
summer season of 1969 saw the Tate, the Guardian on Frank Stella this year? Or was it
Hayward and the Whitechapel given over to only three?)
American or American-dominated exhibitions. 3. An amazing retrospective by Trevor Bell,
But this last summer was even worse. Look up mounted by the Richard Demarco Gallery
the score for yourself—unless you can't remem- last June, seen later in Belfast and finally in
ber, because it already seems so natural to six enormous and beautifully spacious rooms
you that American painting or sculpture at the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield this
should hog the London limelight in May, autumn will not of course come to London.
June, July, August each year. And young But it proved to me at any rate that after six
British critics now preface their reviews of years in the wilderness Trevor Bell has
retrospectives by American artists who are achieved a major breakthrough in the field of
themselves still in their early 30s and 40s by the shaped canvas and is an infinitely greater
suggesting that they have been a long time painter in every way than Frank Stella.
Trevor Bell arriving in London! One reason why these 4. The stainless steel and concrete sculpture
Installation shot
The Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1970 critics' vocabularies are so dominated by with occasional planes painted in white acry-
2 American examples is that London just lic—in a word the 'dimensional painting' of
Trevor Bell doesn't get around to showing British art on Justin Knowles, seen at the Serpentine Gallery
Installation shot
The Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1970 anything like the same scale. As far as I know in August (and again soon in a retrospective