ART
THE Celtic romanticism that has led many of his countrymen into a humourless gloom infuses Ceri Richards' kaleidoscopic improvisa- tions at the Redfern Gallery with a refreshing gaiety that few British painters command today. The theme is that of his big picture for the Arts Council Festival scheme. He—and we with him—flit about like Trafalgar Square starlings, collecting a fountain here, a flurry of green pigeons there, a photographer from over yonder. Into the blues and yellows they all go—seen from above, from alongside, from far and near—enlivened intermittently by startling complementary contrasts rather akin to a photographer's use of polarisation. The instinctive arabesques of Matisse, which lie behind these paintings, accord with Richards' own fluent graphic facility. Whether his eye is as truly innocent as he would have us believe ; whether his distortions are sustained by the passion of true innovation ; whether his sometimes casual disregard of organisa- tion will weather the years, one remains uncertain. For his light- hearted verve let us here and now be thankful. At the same gallery Denis Mathews appears to have advanced very considerably. His small chalky landscapes (aides-rnemoire. I imagine, done on the spot) are unexceptional, but some of his more considered canvases —for instance, Nos. 31, 33—recalling fin-de-siecle tendencies in their flat treatment, are rich in colour and entirely pleasing. ,
Gimpel Fils have made for themselves a special niche among the mixed summer shows, first with their exhibition of British abstract painting, and now with their second batch of "Young Contemporaries" from the annual manifestation in Suffolk Street. These six artists, all but one under 30, are very varied in manner and exceedingly competent. It is hard to see how Richard Platt, who paints with ease and distinction, can progress from the mauve intri- cacies of his French Cemetery. Alfred Daniels, who takes his subject-matter in similar fashion from the urban life around him, lists the litter in Sunday on the Grass with a shadowless realism that is neither better nor worse than a dozen leading American painters. Breon O'Casey, it is true, running amok between Bonnard and J. B. Yeats, sometimes allows tone and colour to get so much out of step that form disintegrates into chaos, but Norman Adams is much more controlled in his dark and mysterious grisailles of horned and crescent-shaped landscapes. Of the two abstract painters, George Tuckwell is a clever, tasteful and rather wan juggler with planes in perspective • Peter Kinley achieves scale and poise in his blaze of sunflower yellows, No. 20 Other exhibitions: At the R.I. Galleries the Sunday Pictorial's annual show of children's art • at the Arts Council's H.Q. in St. James's Square, a memorial exhibition of work by the late A. S. Hartrick ; at the Leicester Galleries, part H of "Fame and Promise."
M. H. MIDDLETON.
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