New leaves
John McEwen
Rory McEwen's new work, watercolours of single leaves, on calf-skin vellum (Taranman, 236 Brompton Road, till 14 January), is the best of his career. McEwen long ago settled to the difficult task of making a contemporary art of floral subjects, an ambition made no easier in his case by a widely respected talent for botanical illustration. Botanical illustration is principally a matter of scientific record, essentially contrary to the imaginative intentions of art.
What makes an artistic success of McEwen's new work is that a graphic technique is used to intensify an aesthetic conception of subject and form. These leaves have not been chosen as representatives of a genus, but picked up, after they have fallen, solely on the grounds of individual shaPc and colour. They are not painted as if placed on a page but floated in pictorial space. Accordingly, they become objects of conteary plation. It is an oriental approach to nature. McEwen has attempted much the guile before, notably with vegetables and dessier ted leaves, but for various reasons theY tended to read astrompe l'oeil even though, as now, no background was indicated. . Where the new work differs most benef!' cially is in its tighter scale and more intrinsic_ use of photography. Painted in most cases. from photographs, colours and idiosYri, cracies of decay have been preserved afl the technique of enlargement often put tu good and, in the case of the two biggest pictures in the show, dramatic effect. Oriental they may be in feeling, technically they could not have been done outside our immediate time. Here too it is perhaps worth mentioning that no photograph could act as a substitute for these paintings, any more than paper, however fine, could provide a surface to match the life, luminosity and absorbent smoothness of sized calfskin. Not all of them are successful — cornpositionally they are rather hit or miss — but when the colour is most built up and the design (in the majority of cases) least artful, their beauty fills the mind. From the Air, a book of poems by the well-known American poet Kenneth Koch, has been published to coincide with the exhibition (Taranman Editions, L10). The poems have been specially written in response to the pictures, some of which illustrate the text as colour plates. Christopher Hewett has made his usual impeccable job of the exhibition presentation and catalogue. Spectator readers should take special note of the opening of the Maclean Gallery, 35 St George Street, WI. Sukie Marlowe, famous among other things as the organiser of the now legendary Spectator Ball, has abandoned Doughty Street to work as its manager for her brother James Maclean. The gallery will specialise in English art 1880-1950, but also show figurative work by contemporary artists. Three already on its books are Caroline Williams, Virginia Powell and David Scott. Examples of the work of Caroline Williams and Virginia Powell can be seen in the opening show, a Christmas selection of watercolours, drawings and prints (till 15th January). This also includes good specimens of early Vaughan, Moore and Sutherland—being, inthe latter's case, a watercolour preferable to anything in his show at the Marlborough (till 30 Dec).
Ed Ruscha (pronounced Rew-shay, as he invariably points out) is exhibiting three new oil paintings and some drawings at Nigel Greenwood (till 19 January). Ruscha has made an art of his brilliance for graphic design. If he had been born in England, where art is no laughing matter, he would probably still be drawing a monthly salary. But the idea of Ruscha being nurtured anywhere outside Los Angeles is unthinkable. 'One man's mess is another man's masterpiece', he observed recently. His latest oils are wide and narrow cinemascope skyscapes, with titles like 'America's Future' suitably superimposed. They fit the gallery like a glove and, along with some similarly widespread drawings, show that he is getting back to what he does best and may soon be out of his present doldrums altogether.
The Shoe Show (ICA till 6 January, and then touring Britain till 1981) is hardly worth travelling great distances to see but might nevertheless come in useful for those short of an idea sometime towards the end of the next fortnight. There are some irritating design features, like panels that have to be lifted if you want to see the shoe inside the case, but mercifully not too much footwear. And of course there are statistics. For instance, 380,000 cattle had to be slaughtered to produce the 400 acres of leather that went into the booting of our two and a half million soldiers in the First War.
Previous page
