6 NOVEMBER 1976, Page 45

Art

Provincialism

John McEwen

Camden Town Recalled, an exhibition in celebration of the Fine Art Society (till 12 November) gives a good airing to that rather innocuous version of post-impressi°11is1 painting which has become popular with British collectors now that examples of the genuine Parisian article have become so rare and expensive. Camden Town is provincial painting and has to be judged with due condescension. Even that old bombast Sickert went to rance fully accepting his own inferiority I.n the face of the French masters, acquaint'fig himself with their ideas to strengthen his position in London. He returned to become a big fish in a little pond, setting a precedent which has hallowed English provincialism, Particularly in matters of art teaching, to is day. 'Taste is the death of a painter,' ne declared. 'He has all his work cut out for

observing and recording. His poetry is the interpretation of ready-made life. He has

business to have time for preferences.' 2erein lies the origin of so much of the antiintellectualism of subsequent English art, the inverted snobbery, the philistinism dis

guised as commonsense, the hatred of change, the puritanism, the bureaucracy, the work ethic rationalities which have befogged the real issues of art teaching and administration. Regrettable though its results were, Sickert did have more energy than any of his English artistic contemporaries, and there is a genuineness in his appreciation of the music hall and other aspects of workingclass life which makes something heroic even of his attempt to transform Camden Town into Montmartre. In this show he is upstaged as a painter by Harold Gilman.

Sir William Coldstream is a great admirer of Sickert, and the Euston Road School which he founded with Claude Rogers and Victor Pasmore consciously embodied the Sickertian doctrine quoted above. It was commonsensical and reactionary, a riposte to the modernism being conducted up the road by Moore, Cecil Stephenson and others at the Mall Studios off Haverstock Hill. After the war Coldstream was appointed Principal of the Slade and the mild puritanism of the Euston Road ideal has been perpetuated and disseminated by its students ever since. Even to paint thickly was condemned as an artistic indulgence and to this day Coldstream only permits himself the use of one size of brush. As an artist he is rarely seen, so any new opportunity to set the work against its legendary reputation is an event. There is more colour in these recent pictures, especially in the bright reds and greens of the little measuring marks, but the polite poses of the models, the decorous lack of emotion. the unfinished appearance are unchanged. They seem very defensive, as if by accenting the marks of professionalism and effort the overall weaknesses will be disguised or at least excused. It remains a subterfuge which is unconvincing in an activity as straight as painting.

Tim Behrens (William Darby till 5 November) was at the Slade and it continues to show in his preoccupation with the nude and use of thin paint. In the present exhibition he has attempted to draw some very difficult poses and paint some very difficult effects. There is also quite a lot of colour. But the quietest works remain the most convincing and also best convey the atmosphere of Italy, where he now lives.

Cecil Stephenson (Fischer Fine Art till 10 November) represents an opposite tendency as has been mentioned. He died in 1965 and is now undergoing an academic autopsy. On the basis of this work it is evident that he early confused abstract painting with design, and it is as a designer therefore that he has to be judged. His first big break came when he did thirty paintings for the Festival of Britain, and in 1958 he erected an enormous mural for the British pavilion at the Brussels World Fair. This information should convey something of his dainty 'good taste', the ovoids, the prim desire to set everything at an angle which undoubtedly made their own contribution to the extreme lack of distinction of 'fifties design.