Page 31 - Studio International - December 1973

admit, the idea of 'I'll show them I can do the old
exegisis bit' was floating in and out of my head as I was
deciding that analysis of the Fulton exhibition would
be unfriendly to Fulton.) I think that the styles are
appropriate : Caulfield's work is more traditional
than Fulton's, and has been respected by many far
before I 'discovered' it about two years ago. Fulton's
work blew my mind in the 1971/72 winter, and I've
been following it ever since with respectful wonder.
And so although my involvement with Fulton's
work has a more contemporary immediacy, I think
they are both extremely good artists. And while the
simultaneous timing of their exhibitions and my
review-writing was fortuitous, I am egotistic enough
to think the writings (like their work) stand up to
later history. So I am glad that when I recently
dangled the whole package before Studio
International, they bit.

(Above) Portrait of a Frenchman 1971
PATRICK CAULFIELD Screenprint, 25 X 21 in.
Edition 75
PRINTS Patrick Caulfield
(Right) Interior: Night 1971
Screenprint, 28 x 23 in.
I say `art'; maybe you would say Edition too
`screen-prints'. That is what Caulfield showed.
But as a technique (and implicit mentality)
screen-printing is thoroughly congruous with
Caulfield's style and technique in painting: evoking not only times of daylight versus man- curtain; further perusal shows that it is the
anonymously factured surface areas of flat made light (shades of Turner, Monet and openness of the 'window' in the first, the
colour; a high degree of control over precise Dibbets !) but also the functions and moods of smallness of its opening in the encroaching
line; pigmentation capable of strong or subtle householders relating to these lights. So 'dumb' blackness of the second, and the bright curve
contrasts of hue and intensity. And in both in imagery and serial structuring, these prints of the pink light slit in the third which give
media Caulfield uses these properties to create are so conceptually and perceptually complex resonance, respectively, to the feelings of
`series' and richly discrete entities which play that their superficial naivety has the mythic `everydayness', ambiguous pressures of the
on perceptible ironies between surface potential of any 'minimalist' hero from John unconscious, and an arrested movement of
realities and 3-D illusions, between Ford's Wild West. discovery; and further - that the enrichment of
`abstraction' and 'representation', between the But Caulfield is, as Christopher Finch this simple but scattered 'series' as pictorial
work-as-fact and its poetic wit about emphasizes in his excellent little Penguin mini-poems is achieved simply by scale of
contemporary and historical art and concepts monograph, very European in his areas, intensity of colours, and mastery of
and his own (and others') reproduction of Weltanschauung. I think this is most apparent allusive drawing! This is an achievement far
them. All this with 'banal' subject matter and in the most recent twenty-two prints, which beyond earlier works (like his 1964 Ruins) in its
blatantly simple form - and perfectly dominate the exhibition. They are classifiable integration of complex feeling and thought
brilliantly eloquent drawing, colour and as all relating to The Poems of Jules LaForgue, executed with unselfconsciously confident
scale, whose taut integration is no less published in a portfolio with twelve poems or in subtlety and brilliance. And it is these qualities -
powerful for its subtle reticence. two separate sub-sets of six, accompanying the and the wit and elegance with which they treat
Take his Portrait of a Frenchman 1g71: an poems in either French or English. The prints a great pictorial tradition - which I think of as
intensely pale red-purple face (from intense are not illustrations of poems in the least; their being 'European' and 'conservative', in the best
wine-drinking ?) silhouetted in black line titles are extracted lines of poetry like 'Ah ! This sense of both stereotyped notions.
(and against a flat black 'beret' which makes is the life so everyday', 'And, with my eyes As a 'retrospective' exhibition, Caulfield's is
black a colour) which outlines the whole bolting towards the unconscious', and definitely 'typological' (in media) and `mid-
scene (sparking neighbouring colours as Leger `Curtains drawn back from the balconies of career' (he's in his mid-thirties). A mid-career
and Picasso did) which is otherwise a brownish shores' which act as springboards to retrospective can be a big-time flop if publicity
cadmium-red surface-ground, except for the Caulfield's imagination. His imagination claims or critical accolades outstrip the works'
pistacchio-green 'light' of a background sometimes makes visual puns (in the print import with the assistance of the artist - as
window which pushes forward beyond all Making circles on park lagoons there are no happened with Robyn Denny's recent Tate
colours and cradles the back of the sleepily curves) and sometimes takes the un-verbalized Gallery extravaganza. A very different kettle of
tilted head. Gasp. So much in one piece that sense of a line and develops its feeling through fish is Caulfield's show, modestly honestly
its affectionate characterization of a national that other sort of communication which is self-exposing as work done - even the
stereotype is all but forgotten. Or take the uniquely pictorial. This is the case with those catalogue gives neither effusions nor
series of Interiors at morning, noon, evening first three prints/lines I mentioned: they all information about the artist, while fully
and night (also of 1971): the same screen is similarly present a field of flat black documenting (in the scholarly data of the
used for the black-lined depiction of the silhouetting a simple area of blue, two blues, or print world) the works themselves. This is
simplest hanging-lamp before a window-frame pink; on further reading these are also all consistent not only with Caulfield's artistic
in all four prints; but otherwise the colours for `abstractions' of views from the same dark style, but also with his reticence as a person.
window-frame and panes, and outside and interior of (and obliquely through) a window He lets his work stand on its own feet: he can
inside of the interior lamp, are all different - hung with the same heavily tassel-fringed afford to. BARBARA REISE

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