Recent cataloguesof 20th-century painting
Exhibition catalogues are the major -Li showcase nowadays for research and new discoveries in art history. This makes many of them unreadable for the non- specialist (and the specialist can have a hard time too). Compensating for this, they have become more lavish in production and often include an accessible preface (such as John Russell's scintillating introduction to the Bonnard catalogue — see below) and in- numerable illustrations — of pictures not in the exhibition, photographs of, and sometimes by, the artist concerned and reproductions of related material such as maps, fakes, inventories and, if you're lucky, the artist's wife, mistress or boyfriend (sometimes the artist himself) with no clothes on. Some of this may be useful. On the other hand, art historians can write with a lack of style which makes a tax return guidance form positively gripp- ing. Try to avoid French productions on 20th-century art, American ones on 19th- century and English ones on contemporary art. Some welcome exceptions are included in the following, highly personal selection.
Matthew Smith Barbican Art Gallery, Lon- don. 79 pp. £5.95. A rather chaotic produc- tion, mixing slight personal reminiscence, past critical estimates and new biographical information. Its main use is the numerous illustrations of paintings by Smith not previously reproduced and some interesting photographs. Readable contributions by Cyril Connolly, Roald Dahl and Stephen Spender. Cedric Morris Tate Gallery Publications. 128 pp. £7.95. This curious and fascinating figure — painter, horticulturalist, teacher (of Lucian Freud among others) and baronet — is recorded here by Richard Morphet in a model biographical-critical essay. Landscapes, portraits, still lives and flowerpieces — copiously illustrated — are genuinely illumined by the text. Recently at the Tate Gallery, the show is now on tour.
Robert Medley: Paintings 1928 to 1984 Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. 48 pp. £2.75. Retrospective of another senior English artist, happily still with us, best known for his classic figurative paintings and his contribution in the 1930s as designer-in-residence to the Group Theatre (Auden, Isherwood, Spender, Britten) founded by his lifelong friend Rupert Doone. Friendly introduction by Robert Wellington. Some of the best paintings are those done in the last few years, especially a nude self-portrait based on Watteau's Gilles.
Past Imperfect: Marc Cathille Chaimowicz 1972-1982 Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool. 64 pp. Beautifully produced monograph on the maverick artist Chaimowicz recently seen in London as one of the four artists designing four rooms at Liberty's. Texts by Jean Fisher and Stuart Morgan; the artist partially nude.
The Omega Workshops 1913-19 The Crafts Council, London 96 pp. £6.95. The
The Spectator 26 May 1981 the d'Offay catalogue, while the Crafts establish Roger Fry as the animator of the time or another associated with the Omega* Council's is notable for its unfamiliar il- lustrations, among them painted cupboards both containing new information. They London art world before the First War and bring together the often daring work of a host of different talents which were at one London's first nightclub is documented in for Keynes and Virginia Woolf's dining table, so often described in memoirs of the catalogue, Anthony d'Offay, London Two well illustrated catalogues of exhibi- tions held simultaneously earlier this years Omega Workshops: Alliance and Enmity in English Art 1911-1920 23 PP- and period. Tat also visible.
Gilbert & George Baltimore Museum nt- Art. 143 pp. £16.75. The Americans are cat ching on to some recent English art and th,ls large touring retrospective, originating 111, Baltimore, has an excellent catalogue 1)), Brenda Richardson which dispels much n' the G & G myth, providing reliable infor- mation and good reproductions. It ought to be widely available here.
Bonnard Musee d'art moderne, Paris. 291 PP. £17.50.A meaty celebration of 13°11- nard's later work — Mme Bonnard in her bathroom, Riviera views, sunlit interiors of, peaceful, bourgeois life and melancholy sell portraits. Excellent colour plates and some of the artist's own photographs (including Bonnard nu); the exhibition can be seeltra(• the Phillips Collection, Washington,
from 9 June to 20 August.
Balthus Musee d'art moderne, Paris. 391 PP. £15. Similar large format to the Bon- nard catalogue of a much-vaunted moder,11, figurative painter; the intensity of the earl), work (such as the illustrations to Wuthereng. Heights) is not maintained. Recently' (and with an American catalogue) at the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Picasso: The Last Years 1963-1973 Braziller, New York. 143 pp. $17.50. A revealing selection, shown at the 6118‘ genheim Museum, New York, of Picasso 's phenomenal octogenarian output — Prints' drawings and oil paintings on the familiar themes of war, art, sex, childhood, old age (including Picasso nu).
Juan Gris Abbeville Press, New York. 192 pp. $19.95. A sturdy, sensible catalogue 1/Y Mark Rosenthal on 'the perfect painter' as Gertrude Stein called Gris. The exhibition follows Picasso at the Guggenheim from 18 May to 15 July.
Fairfield Porter 1907-1975: Realist Painter in an Age of Abstraction Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 107 pp. Shortly to open at the Whitney Museum, New York, this exhibi- tion brings together the quiet landscaPes; portraits and interiors of an influential Aunmkenroicwann icnriutincgalanndd.painter, still absurdly
R.S.
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