25 APRIL 1931, Page 12

Art

Two interesting exhibitions were opened last week at the Claridge Gallery, Brook Street, where a double show of paint- ings by the Austrian artists, Alfonz Purtscher and his wife, Countess Nora Wydenbruck, occupied the upper gallery, and the first London exhibition of paintings by Fraulein Martel Schwichtenberg was shown in the lower gallery. There is something of Max Lieberman in Mr. Purtscher's studies of horses, such as Speed, The Halt, and Horses on the Grass. He has a fine and controlled sense of colour and an unusual sense of decoration. I would like to see him let loose on a really big scale, which would give him a freer hand and greater oppor- tunity than he can find in such small decorative compositions as The Elysian Shore. Two of his horse pictures Dying Horse and Fighting Horses have a rather horrible dramatic interest, as they are memory paintings of the great horse camp at Klagenfurt in Carinthia which Mr. Purtscher created after the debdcle of the Austrian Army in 1918. His wife shows several crisp and well-composed flower-pieces—particularly Autumn Flowers, and a number of English townscapes.

Frifulein Martel Schwichtenberg is a newcomer to London, but she has had several one-man shows in Berlin, Paris and New York. All her paintings have a certain hard and brittle appearance. Her portraits seem, judging by the subjects which I happen to know, to be psychologically brilliant and not a little ruthless. Personally I liked her flower pieces best—particularly Dahlias and Roses Mareehal .Niel.

At the French Gallery, the exhibition of recent drawing and painting by Miss J. Jones is well worth a visit. Miss Jones is one of those painters whose pictures leave the impression that the artist has taken an enormous pleasure in painting them. Conversation, an extremely witty study of two tailor's dummies, should be noticed—also Susie, Petit Suisse, and Kneeling Girl. Among the drawings I recommend Model Resting, Susanne, No. I., Woman Undressing, Valaisanne, and Nude.

At the Wertheim Gallery there is a joint exhibition by Mr. John Banting and Mr. John Bigge which should annoy a great number of people excessively. Mr. Bigge, however, shows a series of paintings which I do not pretend to under- stand, but which as pure design are rather beautiful things. Mr. Banting's pictures are also interesting because they are the expression of a particular point of view. He attempts to convey in terms of paint something which is very elusive—the texture of a dream or the evanescent shadow of a passing mood. On the whole, I feel, he is only partially successful, but in Daybreak I think he has come very near to expressing what he has set out to do. I do not hold any particular brief for either Mr. Biggc or Mr. limiting, but I do feel that they are trying to do something original and that the result of their attempt, whether successful or not, should not be

dismissed entirely thoughtlessly. DAVID FINCHAAI.