Page 63 - Studio International - June 1973

that provincial London was in.' Some of us painting from life, at a more domestic and ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG AT THE MAYOR GALLERY,
always assumed that it was that very trap, but mundane level, seems always to have brought IS APRIL TO 22 MAY
perhaps because the appallingness of most out the best of his qualities, from the early heads EDWARD RUSCHA AT NIGEL GREENWOOD'S,
Paris-imitating work in the pre-war period of boys at Raynes Park School, through the 26 APRIL TO 22 MAY
is now forgotten. There is an argument (tacitly numerous portraits of women, some nude, to ALAN DAVIE AT THE GIMPEL FILS GALLERY,
presented by Forge) that the Euston Road the quite grand Miss Lynn of 1951. After this, 3-28 APRIL
method was so integral to the operations of the portraiture seems to have taken an odd turn, While there were no spring harbingers to be
sight that it stands outside the history of art. into hospital scenes. Not all of them are in the found in the recent exhibitions of Alan Davie,
Actually, Euston Road paintings are riddled exhibition. But the enclosedness and Robert Rauschenberg and Edward Ruscha,
with their derivations. One looks at them to see concentration on the human that is one should not have missed witnessing their
Sickert, and occasionally Tonks, and one sees characteristic of hospitals made paintings like collective finesse in revitalizing old themes
Cézanne in the construction, Bonnard in the The Patient Opposite and The Dressing quite and styles with an eye to glowing, enticing
homeliness, Vuillard in the drabness. The best exceptionally strong. I think of them as being a presentations. Upon leaving the galleries,
pictures are often those most reminiscent of strong antidote to Sickert's Camden Town however, second thoughts arose; particularly
Degas. I think one reason why these artists were Murder paintings. The early Rogers seems to one wondered if the artists were concerned any
used as models is that they were teachable, while have looked to English sources for interiors, longer with a place in the vanguard of 1970's
later continental artists were less so. Euston French for exteriors. One of the first landscapes innovators. Is it correct to surmise that Davie
Roadism is an example of individual artists has a touch of nerves in it, some meaningless has unwittingly become the artistic exemplar of
being anchored by the demands of instruction, scribble where delineation was required, and a those devotees of voyages of spiritual self-
in which quality and worth were the more bit of Duncan Grantesque decoration to get out discovery, whereas Rauschenberg regards
demonstrable the less reference they had to of trouble in one of the corners, but elsewhere himself both as the idea man in a workshop
avant-garde ideas or standards. The more the firmness is admirable. And it takes situation (like Graphicstudio at the moment)
`avant-garde' some other artists were, the more something to paint a Cézannesque picture of the and most importantly as the one and only
likely was it that they would be amateurish. But Mont Ste Victoire. This experience lends a progenitor of Neo-Dadaism ? And does Ruscha
this safeness could all too often flounder in its strength to the small but bold Harvest Moon of
own slough, as things developed. A particular 1946, the only painting known to me which
(as it were) asylum of the Sickert-Degas mode takes the forties fad for Samuel Palmer out of a
is indicated by the fact that artists were going knowing would-be Romanticism. Professor
back to it after paddling in more 'advanced' Rogers is indeed extremely anti-picturesque.
styles. Rogers's paintings of this latter sort are The steadiness and holding are very important.
not represented. Geoffrey Tibble and Victor I don't think that many weathery and blowy
Pasmore both reverted to comparatively pictures succeed. Take the two urban snow
retardataire styles when in their late twenties scenes (another favourite forties subject).
just before the war. This might explain a lot Bloomsbury under Snow is painted in dark olive
about the Euston Road set-up. The slough I green and snow-sludge, the buildings brown
mention - the acceptable catch-all amalgam and brick-maroon. It's a really weighty picture.
style - was proven by its usableness for non-art I find it much better than Snowfall, which is too
purposes. I am thinking in particular of the fast and freckled with the individual flakes. The
extraordinarily large number of works done as billowing space and atmospheric drifting that
official portraits by Coldstream and Rogers, and comes into the problem of painting fields on
by many of their fellow-students : like Rodrigo fire, as Rogers did in what are perhaps his
Moynihan, who was drawing on those stylistic best-known works, are I think not quite suited
resources to make a vapid but 'contemporary' to his most confident manner, somewhere
and acceptable portrait of our present sovereign between human subjects and still-lifes. The
as lately as 1951 (that's just the picture I painting which comes closest to being
remember: he may still be doing so). monumental (and the monumental idea always
The official portraits are the weakest part of haunts that combination) is The Hornby Train, Robert Rauschenberg
Rogers's exhibition, but the experience of which should be in the Tate. And again we see Untitled 1973
Degas coming out, for it is clearly dependent
on such a work as the Diego Martelli. A peculiar (who for the hundredth time instructs us on the
result of the Euston Road experience, and the Greenwood announcement how to pronounce
years of teaching, seems to have been that his name) want to be tiresomely stuck in the
Professor Rogers did not paint a truly groove of his stylistic trademarks ? Does he
independent painting - that's different from an wear a pedometer and publish autobiographical
individual one - until very recently, when he data and saga because he is narcissistically and
was in his sixties. Some most interesting works methodically minded or as a calculated satire on
are the latest ones, which are from an observed artistic egotism ?
situation, looking out from Highgate These suspicions would not necessarily
over the London night, but are read as abstract. undermine one's enjoyment of the work,
Forge calls them 'undrawable subjects.' Without except with Rauschenberg, who sent over from
knowing the circumstances in which they were his home in Captiva, Florida, nine 'paraffin
made, one would find them very puzzling, transfers' of 1973 called collectively 'combine
especially because of the experience with which drawings' which were much like the combine
they are obviously painted. q paintings of 1957-59, except for the difference in
medium. The new frottages consisted of rather
TIM HILTON
lyrical patchworks of ordinary images (domestic
Claude Rogers
City at Night 1971 things like shirt ads, golf balls, and raspberries)
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