Page 52 - Studio International - December 1974

technique than Nevinson's Paths of It was believed that the clutter of has paid modest tribute to the modest whole, the exhibition has a sombreness
Glory, remained uncensored when it many working-class homes, with their art of bookplate design. The private quite unlike British painting, and each
was shown at Agnews in May 1918. bloated three-pieces in varnished world of bibliophily often suggests artist works more or less in monochrome.
Yet the subject matter of war plywood, with comic or sentimental something twee and much of the It is reminiscent of contemporary
injected new life into English art by ashtrays from Margate, would be exhibition was at a fairly second-rate Japanese work, the more so because
offering opportunities for important purified by simplicity, even morally level of graphic interest, revealing there is the same high, rather cold
commissions in the public sector which uplifted by the change: colours would some unpleasant aspects of bookishness, technical quality.
were never available to Lavery's be sober, befitting a time of 'total' narrow, cosy and genteel. Yet in the The links with Japanese art are not
generation in the later nineteenth war and materials honest rather than hands of Beardsley, Jack B. Yeats, entirely coincidental. Nikolaus Lang
century. Lavery's painting of the fake opulent. The results were and Pissarro one can see what pictorial visited Japan recently and Rainer
airship station at East Fortune which still are hideous, guaranteed to depress genius could do with small scales; Wittenborn paints in a diagrammatic
shows two airships waiting in the the numbest spirit. In trying to their work is not diminished, but style that must be derived partly from
blackest of nights, and Muirhead Bone's establish what went wrong with the right. Perhaps with the decline of Shusaku Arakawa, but is more direct,
drawings of tanks and shipbuilding aspirations of the planners, designers the book's prestige, private bookplates less sensual, and primarily didactic
scenes on the Clyde, are some of the and manufacturers I concluded that themselves will go into decline. rather than aesthetic. Arakawa has
most atmospheric works to come out the whole of the exhibition gives off Timothy O'Keefe exhibited under the title 'Towards a
of the war. In contrast, aerial a strong whiff of a bureaucracy run Cold Poetic Image', and this German
photography and the dog fights of the by barking sheep. exhibition is not far from that approach.
Bristol Scouts and RE8s of the air Perhaps the symbols of wartime Five From Germany: Young artists Wittenborn's subject-matter is
war gave Sydney Carline (1888-1929) controls — the ration books, censored selected by Robert Kudielka, at the despoliation by military applications of
the basis for advanced pictorial letters and so on — that are properly Serpentine Gallery, London science and would have been at home
compositions, especially in his study also on display intensify this feeling. 1 November — 1 December in the politically active atmosphere at
for Two British planes attacking the Can anything more aptly recall the Young German artists have been the ICA.
Turkish Army Corps of 1919, which crude inanity of 'authority' than the presented in two exhibitions during Edgar Hofschen works with sewn
hovers on the brink of abstraction. The wartime posters with their 1984 German Month; 'Art into Society, and patched military tarpaulin fabric
paradox was that the real abstract art exhortations — 'Weigh Your Mummy's Society into Art' at the ICA, and subtly coloured with greenish engine-oil
of the First War was not carried out by Meat Ration', 'Think before you 'Five From Germany' at the Serpentine and smudged with black grease. The
the official war artists, but by the Speak', 'Eat Greens'? They appear
anonymous designers of dazzle designed to make the population feel
camouflage, of which three examples that it was trying to get National
of 1917 are shown. Dazzle painting Assistance when it already had as
optically disguised the shape of ships much as sixpence in its pocket. For
at sea and the direction in which they one writer in the catalogue, 'Utility'
were travelling. A meticulous Britain reached an apotheosis with the
watercolour of Herculanean Dock, Festival of Britain 1951; John Vaizey,
Liverpool, by Leonard Campbell rightly in my view, looks back in
Taylor (1874-1969 ex. Ruskin School horror at both. There is no doubt
and RA) demonstrates a principle that the general taste in design has
which prompted Edward Wadsworth to been much influenced by the days of
move into fine art abstraction for his 'Utility', but as much by reaction as
book of '14 Modern Woodcuts' by emulation. Anyone over 40 who
published in 1926, and exhibited goes to the exhibition is advised to
alongside. The exhibition also includes take smelling salts.
works by Bomberg, Epstein, Fergusson, Walking away to Bethnal Green,
Kennington, McBey, Meninsky, passing through streets that once
Seabrooke, Gilbert Spencer and Ian supported a far larger furniture
Strang; as well as a collection of trench manufacturing industry than they do
and battlefield photographs. today, I mused on the misery that
Nikolaus Lang To the Gölte Brothers and Sisters
Robin Spencer well-meaning people can inflict on
others. On seeing the collection of
objects about cars that James Barron
collected my heart lifted when coming
Utility Furniture and Fashion Gallery. Regrettably, 'German Month' medium is laconically described in the
upon a case full of objects that
1941-1951, Geffrye Museum, London, really means West German month and catalogue as 'oil'. This may sound
bureaucracy would condemn as
till 29 December; Automobile Art, for 'German' in this review 'West uninviting but the paintings have a
irredeemably wasteful and frivolous:
Bethnal Green Museum, London, German' should be understood. The great aesthetic appeal. They owe a lot
a collection of glazed, earthenware
November; Bookplates by Book Art into Society symposium at the to Tapiés, but avoid the preciousness
teapots in the shape of old cars.
Illustrators 1880-1940, National Book ICA would have benefitted from the and irrelevance Tapiés so often falls into.
League, London, October Nearby is a brass radiator mascot in presence of East Germans to comment Tapiés has ever been tempted by new
the shape of Bruce Bairnfather's
Few things more vividly summon up first-hand on theory and praxis. materials, but Hofschen's success must
famous Great War character, 'Old Bill'.
the horrors of wartime in Britain than The English-speaking world tends surely lie in his limitation of means.
The prints, posters, models and
the exhibition at the excellent Geffrye not to know very much about post-war With Hans Peter Reuter and Ansgar
fantasies all testify to a yea-saying
Museum. The theme is the virtues of German art, partly because its Nierhoff somehow one feels one has
spirit, not the 'This-will-do-you-good'
what was called Utility, a dun- development has been slow. seen it all before. For the record,
one, which itches to withdraw the
coloured name for styles in everyday Immediately post-war there was a Reuter is a perspectivist using images of
chance of an alternative.
use in furniture, clothes and general tabula rasa period with no established municipal baths and swimming baths in
design. To recall the peculiar nastiness The name of Réne Lalique crops younger generation and no resident cool blue. There are mild surrealistic
of the time, the Museum has had the up occasionally in novels of the 20s older generation at all. The fifties and overtones. Nierhoff sculpts with
nice idea of showing various common and 30s (Aldous Huxley and, I think, sixties were periods of reticence where stainless steel and makes it look untidy,
wartime products, ranging from Evelyn Waugh) with a connotation of the only reasonable course seemed to which is not easy.
Donald Duck gas-marks to propaganda 'très chic, presque snob' that each of be a self-effacing pursuance of safe If the work I have commented on so
posters. The nearest thing to gaiety those writers liked so much. But international tendencies. Only now are far were the whole of this exhibition it
is a parody of 'Struwwelpeter' entitled Lalique's radiator mascots in moulded we seeing the emergence of the artists would hardly be worth the walk from
'Struwwelhitler'! glass have little in common with 'Old who were still babes-in-arms at the end Kensington Gore; but there is also the
Given wartime shortages and the Bill': they have the elegance and of the war. Guilt, expiation, and chance to see an extra ordinary
need for strict controls (surprisingly finesse of a Borzoi; undoubtedly conciliation are no longer relevant, and 'sculpture' by Nikolaus Lang who is
often self-imposed) a few high-minded luxury trade stuff. The collection as this means the peculiarly German psyche now, I would say, at the beginning of
people in government and manufacture a whole is tilted heavily towards is again being expressed in art in the his fame. He is already known in
decided that economies could be France (the few English things shown unfettered idioms of its time. London, where he studied in 1966 at
achieved by producing standardized are not in the same class of authority Unlike the ICA exhibition 'Five Camberwell College of Art, and
designs and, for the first time it was and wit) and relates to an age when From Germany' does not present a subsequently lectured part-time. He
believed, to introduce the benefits of the car was still comparatively group working with any explicit has had one-man exhibitions in a
simplicity and restraint to a mass- innocent. The plastic and tin-plate common intention, although Lang and private garden in North London in
consuming population: a sensible churned out by today's production Wittenborn both have a concern with 1968 and at the Maltzahn Gallery in
enough idea one might suppose but, lines cannot be expected to arouse ecology and have exhibited together 1972. The sculptures in his 1968
in the event, disastrous. Out went another Barron to do for a later age before. The artists were selected for exhibition were intelligently worked-
flashiness, gimmickry, 'unnecessary' of motoring what he did for the the Arts Council by Dr Robert Kudielka, out fibre-glass variables intended for
adornment: in came sobriety, a earlier. assistant editor of Das Kunstwerk. multiple production. In 1972 at the
decent respect for the material, the After utility and fantasy in the They are all under thirty-two, successful, Maltzahn Gallery, London, there were
virtues of puritans. East End, the National Book League but not yet very widely known. As a strange things more like those now at