Page 62 - Studio International - April 1974

Leaving aside the question of content,
was the kind of place at which in the
which is different, we are still left with
late forties you could buy a Klee for
the fact that the principle of
£60, a Schwitters for £12, an oil
selection is fundamental in McEwen's
painting by Ernst for £60, and where
work. It is also apparent that his work
you could see the works of Freud,
is imprinted with the stamp of
Craxton, Scottie Wilson and Conroy
Maddox. But he was in advance of his individuality bearing witness to his
time. The gallery closed in 1954. personal commitment, in contrast to
Mesens had problems other than the the intentionally bland, glossy and
purely economic, and he was often impersonal art of the Photo-Realists.
ill. But it was in the last years of his In many ways however, all
discussion of McEwen's work in
life that he returned again to the
relation to contemporary movements
creation of collages—an activity
which had exercised him greatly two is somewhat extra-central.
Fundamentally and by choice it lies
decades before, and it is these which
outside mainstream art and should
have been on view at Acoris. (An
be judged as such. Indeed one of its
earlier retrospective exhibition was
chief strengths is the simplicity of
shown at Knokke-le-Zoute — that
presentation in which there is
cultural homeland of his friend
relatively little attempt to impose art
Magritte — in 1963). Sometimes
on the image —which is really quite
lyrical, as with Dans le jardin de
rare today despite the multitude of
Rosemonde, sometimes archly
elaborate claims to the contrary.
contrived, as with Hey Boys! Why
not change the colours ? they are Obviously free of any hang-up about
the nature of the art object, McEwen
essentially the creations of a writer,
employs a traditional vocabulary in
not of a painter. They lack the sharp
such a way that it becomes relevant
edge of real Surrealism, and hover
now. In other words he reconciles old
uneasily between metaphor and
ideas with modern sensibilities. Seen
simile, achieving the finality of neither.
simply as watercolour paintings of
But that is not to deny them their
leaves, McEwen's paintings are
significance in the history of modern
beautiful objects, but placed in the
art as documents about a basically
poetic and immensely creative Sitwell on a book about carnations. Rory McEwen Untitled 1973 context of current art they appear as
Watercolour on vellum, 25½ x 26½ in.
character. His new paintings, however, are the slightly wayward products of a
illustrations only in the sense that botanical illustrator, whose function capricious craftsman highly in tune
Bernard Denvir
they elucidate his chosen aspect of is consciously didactic. Such with contemporary ideas.
reality. Called 'True Facts from Nature' illustrators are concerned not only Fenella Crichton
Rory McEwen at the Redfern the exhibition consists of eighteen with recording the natural appearance
Gallery, London, 1-21 March. water-colours on calf-skin vellum, of a plant but also with explaining Stephanie Bergman at the Garage
During the last few years people together with a set of thirty each part in relation to the whole. Gallery, London, 12 February-
have become increasingly aware abstractions on paper. The most McEwen on the other hand selects 2 March.
that there have been too many impressive were the minutely accurate a single portion, thus stripping the Sam Francis at Gimpel Fils, London,
worshippers at the shrine erected to representations on vellum. The image down to its essentials and 5 February-2 March.
the new by the twentieth century. majority showed a single leaf, suggesting analogies with minimal These pictures are held together with
However, fallen idols are not easy to placed with fastidious precision procedure. He then represents the stitches. Working with a stock pile of
replace and, if originality as an end slightly off-centre on the expanse of image in such a way that our canvas that she has colour-dyed or
in itself is now viewed with the creamy calf. His scrutiny of the experience of the natural form is otherwise saturated with pigment,
suspicion it sometimes deserves, surface texture and shape of each actually intensified. Isolated on a Bergman scissors the stuff into shapes
attempts to reestablish traditional leaf produces complex patterns of blank expanse, the woodland leaves that she then machine-seams together.
values are clearly not the whole marvellous tonal subtlety. Crimson become invested with the power of Baldly stated like this the process
answer. From an objective point of shades through from gold to russet, a talisman or cult object. The surface sounds dire, an unpromising way to
view it seems undeniable that the while mushroom fans into is recorded with a devastating go about making pictures and more
present moment is characterized in vermilion-edged splendour. Soft clarity so that the details of form and especially as it's a woman who's
the main by its lack of precise green areas bulge delicately between texture are almost unnaturally sharp doing it. In fact the results have
direction. Leaving aside the wider the tracery of the translucent and clear. It is precisely this sharply nothing to do with patchwork quilts
implications of this situation, it is veining, contrasting with the ragged forcused quality which distinguishes or cottage industries, and paintings
clear that theoretically circumstances brown edge of the spotted underside. his work from earlier paintings and is the only generic term that will do.
should offer certain advantages to Semi-skeletal leaves, on the verge provides an interesting link with the This method of working was
artists. Pressures to 'keep up' have of crumpling into dry-purple dust, are Photo-Realists. primarily evolved as a way of getting
eased in the sense that there is no reproduced with the elaborate Like many of the Photo-Realists stained colour areas butted up edge to
single fashionable preoccupation clarity of an intricate relief-map. McEwen uses realist technique to edge with no inter-bleeding along
dominating the scene and also In another, a pearly seed-pod splits make us examine the nature of the connecting boundaries. When I
because of the growing tendency open its silken sides, while art onion reality. In the same way as Chuck first saw Bergman's work two years
away from the stylistic classification bursts its papery casing to disgorge Close forces us to observe the surface ago, the process was being used
of an artist's work. The gum is a tangle of ragged shoots. McEwen's of a face, so McEwen thrusts at us his simply as a technical convenience
finally coming off the labels. Looked craftsmanship is such that it must knowledge of natural forms. The that was unacknowledged in the
at in this light, now should be the command respect even from those fascination exerted by the minutest final canvases. That is, you weren't
moment when artists are much freer fundamentally out of sympathy with flaws in one of Close's portraits is aware of the stitching until you peered
to pursue their own path. his aims. highly comparable to that of the closely at the work to figure out how it
Rory McEwen produced a number Although his paintings inevitably rose-spotted texture of one of was done, expecting to see a
of abstract paintings during the recall the Dutch seventeenth- and McEwen's leaves. The analogies particularly deft piece of work with
sixties and in 1970 experimented eighteenth-century painters, McEwen however should not be pushed too masking tape. Realization involved
with polarized light and acrylic should not be seen solely as a far. The Photo-Realists have stressed some kind of double-take, a
resins in a multiple called Moonshine. contemporary equivalent or offshoot the objective nature of their work, reassessment of first responses
Although his new paintings at the of that tradition. Unlike Van Huysum claiming that this does not allow that, it turned out, had been based on
Redfern seem to imply a conscious or De Heem, he is not concerned them to interfere with the image in inadequate or misleading information.
rejection of mainstream art, they also with arranging different shapes in any way. Although this standpoint is It got in the way of straightforward
represent a development of an pleasing relationships with the highly questionable (paint 'interferes' experience of the paintings. In the
interest affirmed before he ever intention of composing a decorative fora start), it is clear that there are work now at the Garage, the seaming
showed any abstract art—in 1954 he whole. Furthermore his aims are also considerable differences between has been used more positively. Instead
collaborated with Sacheverell quite different from those of a their approach and that of McEwen. of just holding things together