ART
Paintings by Eight British Artists. At the Lefivre Galleries.— Paintings by Jack B. Yeats. At Wildenstein's.
THE exhibition at the Lefevre Galleries contains at least two first- rate pictures and at least half a dozen very good ones, and the whole show maintains a very high standard. Graham Sutherland's " Thorn Tree" shows clearly that he has passed through the period of painful development which his last group of pictures, at the same gallery, displayed. It also makes it clear that he is the most important painter of his generation in this country and that we may look forward to even more exciting developments. The big " Thorn Tree " has tremendous intensity and a more subtle modelling of form than any but his best work has possessed hitherto. I must admit I am puzzled by his seemingly arbitrary use of small patches of orange in this picture. Whether these are intended to make the predominant blues and greens " sing " I do not know, but this nineteenth-century method—used frequently by both Constable and Corot—of giving life to greens is often an irritating trick even in the hands of those two masters.
The other outstanding picture is Robert Colquhoun's " Woman with a Birdcage," which has very wisely been acquired by the Con- temporary Art Society. Though the other pictures he shows are good, the " Woman with a Birdcage " is far and away the best thing Colquhoun has painted, which makes it the most important picture produced by a contemporary artist under thirty in Great Britain. Lucien Freud and Robert MacBryde are both exquisite craftsmen. The former's " Heron " and the latter's " Woman and the Trictrac Game" are both remarkable for their sense of paint and elegance of drawing. MacBryde in particular has made a considerable advance from his work of a year ago. The four other artists in this exhibition are Ben Nicholson and Julian Trevelyan—the one austere and sensitive, the other charming and lyrical—Francis Bacon and John Craxton. I must confess that I cannot make out what Bacon is driving at. He has passion and power, but since I do not understand the purposes to which he puts these qualities, I do not feel able to criticise his picture. John Craxton's new work is disappointing and unhappily reminiscent of Andre Masson ; furthermore it does not seem to me to be sufficiently concentrated either in design or expression.
Jack Yeats is Ireland's major living artist, and his work is full of passionate poetry of a mysterious kind, while his execution is of a violence reminiscent of " Les Faures." If you like Yeats, you submit to his wild vision without compromise. His best work has great force and a glittering fierceness of colour. " Two Travellers " and several other of the larger pictures at Wildenstein's are of his best work, and they are very exciting indeed. This is a very good time to make the trip down Bond Street. MICHAEL AYRTON.
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