Spectator's Notebook
WITH a slight fall-off of entries, the Academy's Summer Exhibition, open- ing this week, has merci- fully 'been thinned out a bit. Still, it gets in 1,218 exhibits, more, wearing than the 354 in the mam- moth Gulbenkian retro- spective of the past decade at the Tate. Sickert once remarked that the Aca- demy's trouble is that there can never possibly be enough good British pictures forthcoming every year to fill these daunting avenues. Board- room portraiture and Edwardian oddities remain a dead weight, clearly as the hangers this time play down embarrassments. Leading contem- poraries refrain from joining this miscellaneous mart, which equally misses many go-ahead youngsters (including some from the Academy's free schools) who may be committed to posses- sive West End dealers. It's sad, but the Sisyphean labour goes on. Without urgent canvassing be- hind the scenes, the more vital exhibits would be fewer still. One interested principal of a South Coast art school actually issued a three-line whip to his lively teachers urging their submission this year. The compliance was extremely reluc- tant (and, of course, successful).
The strongest canvassing, however, has never contrived to lure into Burlington House any of the passionate individualists associated with Mrs. Lessore's Beaux Arts Gallery. John Bratby, ARA, left her to make a more popular reputation. The brood of fledglings she has reared in Bruton Place, beginning with the dour 'kitchen-sink' painters, has never been money-spinning. Never- theless, it is a shock to learn that Helen Lessore is to close her gallery next March. Since 1951 this converted stable has been a stronghold of dissenters against an international vogue, and through the singular favour of painters like Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews she has asserted her own faith. Whether the Arts Council may offer to preserve this identity one cannot yet say. Mrs. Lessore, in any event, is a law unto herself.
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