ART
THE " metaphysical assurance," as it has been called, which the artist derives from group activity can often warm his talents as the Mediterranean sun warms a stranger from the north. It may be seen at work, giving strength and purpose to gifts which are not of the first order in the Redfern's most interesting symposium of eighteen Russian emigre painters working in Paris (all but one of them Jewish). An extra- ordinary unity 'of outlook runs through the pictures here—in the rich, dark glow of the colour ; the passionate brushwork ; the nostalgic, sometimes tragic, emotionalism. It is that Eastern European expressionism which, given a measure of poise and sophis- tication by Paris, we associate most readily with Soutine. Chagall, Zadkine, Mintchine and Mane-Katz are the other names we know best from the sizable cast-list. They lend an unfortunate air of provincialism to the more or lesS contemporary McEvoys at the Leicester Galleries.
* The best English exhibitions are those by Norman Adams at Gimpels and John Minton at the Lefevre Gallery. Adams's search for a modern equivalent of the eighteenth century's sublime has taken him to Ireland, whence he has brought back a series of monochromatic studies of seascapes and breaking waves : very dark, very dramatic. Minton seems to be doing penance for the more mannered excesses of his youth. In his new show of topographical watercolours, interspersed with a handful of portraits in oils, his talent remains quite unforced. There are no set-pieces, no fire- works. Probity of draughtsmanship and an underlying sensuousness held in check by intellectual austerity are the keynotes. Minton is incapable of making a statement that is not precise, incisively observed, and recorded with a natural fluency that cannot fail to disarm. The watercolour drawings from north (Scandinavia) and south (Morocco) are rich and evocative records of places ; the more dry, papery (but exact) forms of the young men's portraits more objective records of individuals. This is not Minton full out but it is impressive
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