Page 52 - Studio International - June 1972

Liverpool The biennial John Moores show at Liverpool, said immediately that on the evidence of the
which came round again this May, has usually exhibition alone the first two prize-winners did
commentary been thought of as a reliable guide to the best not merit their green-backed accolade. The jury
current painting in Britain, and as an
were perhaps suffering from sore eyes, or could
opportunity, for the judges and everyone else, have been in the grip of some very strong
Tim Hilton to do a little mild trend-spotting. The 1972 collective emotion unconnected with what they
version was a disappointment. The selection saw before them. The best painting in the show
embodied bloody-mindedness (about time, was by Terry Frost, Ronda Collage 1172. It stood
perhaps), eccentricity (hard to quarrel with) and out in front of everything else, and it was
a good measure of diplomacy (but to what end ?). marvellous to see after the disappointing
It also made evident a number of disastrous recent show at Waddington. The laxity which
lapses of taste. The Moores' this year was not a too much characterized that exhibition was not
representative show of the strength of British apparent in this picture, or had been tightened
painting. A large number of artists of out of the composition to such an extent that
recognized merit were totally rejected; among one was little concerned to quarrel with the way
them Messrs Kitaj, Kidner, Hoyland, Huxley, the picture had been made. This was to abutt
Jones, Irvin, Beattie, Jacklin, Allen and Jaray, two side panels, nearly as wide as the two halves
to mention only those I know to have submitted of a central and divided horizontal rectangle,
work. This would have been okay had there in such a way as to carry repeated or
been more to put in their place. But to cut out contradictory half-ovoid colour areas (which
the middle generation was to ask the young to do were collaged on to a nicely painted ground)
something which they couldn't match up to, and into one whole. One's feeling close up that there
the 'old' painters therefore did rather well; was a wrongness about this facture was only
these were notable contributions from Victor because it felt unnecessary. Unlike the last
Pasmore, Roger Hilton and Kenneth Martin. pictures at Waddington, whose vertical formats
The Moores' is a competitive exhibition, but had a lot of drooping and overlapping whorls
this year the prizes were jackpots. It must be within them—as if they really had been stuck

(Left)
Terry Frost
Ronda Collage z/72
7 ft. 9 in. x 6 ft. 4+ in.
Oil on canvas
(Above)
John Copnall
December 1971
103 1/2 x 83 in.
Oil on canvas

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