Page 62 - Studio International - September 1973

Co-existent with all these are
occasional backglances at a kind of
Cubist constructivism (e,g, the
central elements of The Pier of 1943),
and a persistent concern with the
relationship between real or pictorial
objects and space. This constant
presentation of possibilities, this
suspension of belief in anything but
the validity of creative sensibility are
the secret of Hofmann's influence
as a teacher, the explanation of his
weaknesses as a painter.

His works demand immersion and
Kenneth Noland
involvement ; they force the spectator
Lorraine 1973
to think about the artist. Noland's
paintings however are generally still
Hofmann's historical significance is 'one shot' — perceptible almost
of course immense, and anyone who immediately, and force you to
believes that the whole American examine your own reactions more
thing happened because James closely than you make conjectures
Johnson Sweeney was crazy about about those of the artist. The ten new Jane Humphrey Hanging No. 4 1973
Miro and Peggy Guggenheim works on view at Waddington's
happened to be living in New York revealed that the chevrons and the insistent pattern of these paintings, stretched the strips at intervals,
can't have read Harold Rosenberg's horizontal bands have been succeeded which allow us slightly variable allowing the gallery space to
moving persuasive essay 'The Life for the most part by grids of varying degrees of visual choice. This is now interrupt the movement of sensuous
Class' in which he clearly and density painted on square canvases greater than it has been in Noland's waves of stained colour. In the
definitively assesses the range, and hanging diagonally, or on circular earlier works, and it seems to be the second case plain narrow strips were
the intensity of Hofmann's influence canvases. Sometimes — especially in way he is going. q alternated with ones marked with
on modern art. As a teacher and as an the latter category—these are of BERNARD DENVIR contrasting squares which
exemplar he was paramount. considerable complexity, producing stimulated the effect of a woven
a tartan-like effect, and demanding Diploma Exhibitions—Royal weft. Her successful blend of a
The works at Waddington range from more detailed attention than Noland College of Art, Royal Academy of crisply tailored analytic study with
the early 'forties to the late 'fifties, and usually exacts. In addition to this Art, Central School of Art and flows of clear yellow and orange
provided an illuminating microcosm there are two right-hanging squares Design, Chelsea School of Art, across the plane surface brought out
of his career in terms of the influences framed with four or five coloured lines Byam Shaw School of Painting and the intense colour sensations.
to which he has been exposed, and of different thickness. To my mind Drawing, Maidstone College of Art
the poles between which his art has these new developments are (Painting and Sculpture school only) The wooden constructions by John
swung. Basically he inherited the admirable; coherent, explorative and Considering the paucity of new Cobb at the Royal College of Art
traditions of Central European assured, proof of the extent to which developments on the London scene were of comparable craftsmanship.
expressionism, and fused them into a Noland still associates beauty with at the moment one might have In 1972 he set out to reconstruct in
new grammar of form, which is both order, full of chromatic brilliance, expected the Post-Graduate and light-weight wood the portion of
easy to understand and patient of different from, but still not less Diploma students to have been his clothes that actually touched his
extensions. But within this visual complex than that displayed by floundering hopelessly in search of seated body. This task involved
language contradictions and Hofmann. Indeed the satisfaction to inspiration. Or to be already off on nearly farcical improvisation since
paradoxes become apparent. At times be derived from contemplating them new adventures. Not so at all. The scaffolding had to be built to
—as in some of the works of the early involves a whole multiplicity of things majority of students have sheltered support the tops of his sleeves and
'forties, visual reality is hardly — the sense of serialization, the in favourite harbours which gaps left for the depth of the soles.
dissolved at all ; its echoes are constantly changing effects of focus nowadays number amongst them On the one hand Chair emanates
insistent and inescapable. Then and dispersion, above all the sensation Realism, observed and photographic, the gawky functionalism of a
there is the pull of the calligraphic (in of gamesmanship. They ought to and the corollary field, landscape carpenter's frame; and yet, bits of
Purple and Blue Loop for instance). have been dedicated to Lewis explored through the camera. Thus the fragile lattices and curves
These lead to— but are not entirely Carroll's Symbolic Logic. there seemed more justification than suggest a probing, delicate plastic
replaced by—the free scrawl and the ever before for concentrating on
liberation of the life of the image. Inevitably we are caught within the only the best, most original and most
professional of the group.

From experience I know it is
particularly difficult even as a post-
graduate student to adhere to a
steadily productive programme.
One's ideas tend to overshoot the
ability and patience needed to
realize an ambitious painting or
sculpture. At the generally competent
Royal Academy exhibition several
realistic painters showed style and
intelligence, but one colour painter,
Jane Humphrey, had obviously been
wrestling with problems of
modernism in an intuitive, determined
way. Up until 1973 she had a
restricted way of working ; either
testing out stained veils which
changed hue, or placing hard-edge
blocks in chromatic relationships.
In her last two works Hanging 4 and
Hanging 7 at least two systems were
superimposed by way of cutting the John Cobb
Hans Hofmann Untitled M-815 1946 canvas. In the first painting she Chair 1972
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