Art
Portraitist
John McEwen
Can you recommend a good portraviet painter?' Many distinguished people ha.b. come to the same conclusion on this su , iect: Derek Hill. A retrospective of Or portraits, plus the bonus of a wailful landscapes (Marlborough till 6 JanuarYP amply demonstrates how right most of dieciTir have been. In his catalogue introduction. Isaiah Berlin remarks on the 'sheer "104 ment' of the sittings for his portrait, arid tithe variety of experience chronicled in artist's biographical notes makes it re understandable. Hill has a crowded agelle an hour, of glorious life to his credit, professional attentions of painting not har,e ing restricted his curiosity one bit. Anl°,,-; other things he is an inveterate traveller, 7r, accomplished stage-designer and an authae ity, in particular, on the Russian theatrii; was Art Director of the British School Rome for two years, recorded Matisse ° his death-bed for the BBC and has orOd ised important exhibitions of Degas all, Landseer. He is a master of architecturo, photography and has, most recentlY' published two authoritative works;it Islamic architecture. He has, thouP,ne should go without saying, even found th'..t. to grace the pages of the Spectator. In sbo,;(7, he is a romantic, and it is therefore -11 surprise to find that in choosing the skftfeor as his preferred technique he has opteume the method of greatest freedom. It is a s'Inti particularly suited to facial characterisatl-of and a small scale, not the grand manllefd.. official portraiture, and it is in be:,,„t and-shoulders and small full-lengths "'; Hill excels. Betjeman, Thesiger, Vell from Tory Island, a small full-figure of a stripling Hugh Cavendish are all nieellent. But when it comes to the 5th wiarquess of Salisbury in his garter robes the artist is clearly ill-at-ease — Sargent would never have let off those drapes and chaills so lightly. And a similar need to atch technique and subject applies to the 1a 'technique Ireland, where he has had a nouse since 1954, is Hill's spiritual home, and a painting like 'Sligo Bog' knocks all his memories of Italy and Greece into a ccieked-hat. The only persistent flaw is the waY he insists on signing his pictures with an initialled button of paint, a most ilfellaracteristically genteel touch. Otherwise, let us hope we do not have to wait seventeen years before savouring his next eXhibnion. A, Anthony Caro's 'Writing Pieces' (Knoeq!er till 22 December) continue his improYlsations with small, table sculpture. VareIclus bits and pieces of steel — including ,.n, ()ugh wrenches, bolts, scissors and the nice to fill a toolroom — are welded into a es of separate traceries that clearly 'Press the stated implication of their correate title. They are writings, almost dooths, the most decorative and witty pieces of ale artist's career. Of all sculptures Cato \vigils himself closest to painting, and these orks are obviously no exception. The most 7e-catching in the show, `Who', ends on a °sand° of shapes straight out of Miro, and all of them there is the customary atten to surface detail. But it is in the apparent speed of decision and fluidity of their triangement that they are most painterly. u ,..`d one can make steel look more sensually ensteel-like than Caro. A visit round the sc'rnerto Kasmin Ltd at 10 Clifford rtteet (till 22 December), where more of 'Writing pieces are shown with some of IC table sculptures of a year or so back, will zveal how much they differ from the horie°„Ilial Concerns, the broad strokes of his last filorts on this scale. The vice of mastery is Caip does not have an obsession h'ith a single theme like his teacher Moore, keePs pushing on. Here is another exam' e of it, though facility, in the form of a certain 'Q.E.D. . Next!' quality, has never. been in closer attendance. s Glen Baxter (recently at Anthony et°kes) already has an appreciative audi. nee abroad for his surreal and deadpan r" kes, particularly in New York, but less so c his native England. His drawings are heocted from pre-War Boys Annual C:ist,lrations and fitted to carefully devised th-Ptions, while some recent uncaptioned, ,nngh titled, watercolours are much more a'sertive visually though deliberately more nibiguous in content. This is to their advanta__. ge The drawings become a bit ge The drawings become a bit Monotonous and would work better in a book.
rri There have been small but select modern inaster shows recently. Twenty-four paint10,8s and drawings by Seurat, the largest "eoher of the artist's works ever assembled 11 is country, were at Artemis as a tribute to Benedict Nicholson, editor of the Burlington Magazine, who died earlier this year. Much of the show is of marginalia, but it is made memorable by the inclusion of two famous late paintings, Les Poseuses (small version) and La Tour Eiffel. 'Les Fauves' (Lefevre till 21 December) has an exhibition of eleven works of high fauvism by Braque, Matisse, Derain and, most sensatioivally, Vlaminck. The latter carries the day with his superb Paysage de Banlieue but he has hot competition from two of the Derains.
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