Real merits
Andrew Lamhirth
The Summer Exhibition Royal Academy of Arts until 10 August
The season is with us again, and it's time to wander down to Burlington House for that great bazaar of contemporary and traditional art, the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. This is the 235th Summer Show and it contains well over 1,200 exhibits. It's still the largest and longest-running open exhibition in the world, though how 'open' is a moot point with non-RA artists. That continuity is impressive, but its size does help to account for the predictability of the critics' responses. How to do justice to such variety in a short review? Easier by far to denounce it than to try to assess its real merits. For real merits it always has, which this year consist of two dedicated galleries — one a memorial to the Spanish sculptor and Honorary RA Eduardo Chillida, the other showcasing Anthony Green's remarkable sculpture-cum-painting entitled 'Resurrection'.
The first things the visitor encounters can set the mood for the whole show. Galleries I and II are this year dominated by sculpture, but the overall effect is bitty rather than monumental. There are fine things here, however, such as the chased and polished nickel bronze surfaces of Charles Hadcock's maquettes, arching and desirable, and the disquieting partial humanity of Robert Clatworthy's bronze heads. And there are David Mach's sexy collages referring you back to his nude woman composed of metal coat hangers in the lobby outside. Gallery II is more emphatic, with a large polished wood wall piece by the newly-elected RA Nigel Hall holding a conversation with John Carter's exquisite geometries. This dialogue is backed up by three early sculptures by the late Lynn Chadwick, some typically flavoursome Tapies textures and four powerful dark drawings by Ann Christopher: and a flowing aluminium wall sculpture by Bryan Kneale, like a saraband of eels. The large print room is always densely hung and difficult to assimilate quickly. This year the space is commanded by an extensive charred oak floor piece by David Nash. Among the works which stand out are the abstract elegances of Sandra Blow's etchings, the vivid topographies of Michael Heindorff, Colin Self's three-plate print of a mechanical cyclops and Ian Welsh's photo-based inkjet print 'Near Tower Bridge', all subtle shadows and reflections. The Small Weston Room which leads out of the print room has once again been filled with small paintings (more than 200 of them have been hung by Ken Howard, who declares that 'size has nothing to do with quality') and will no doubt prove as popular as usual. I liked the gentle abstract landscapes of Sally McGill, Gordon House's paint pot and Danny Markey's urban views, but my favourite in this gallery has to be Robert Dukes's oil 'Sprig of Leaves in a Water Glass'. For understated poetry as well as economy of means, it's hard to beat.
The main gallery is as usual hung with Academicians' work, the end wall being given over to a memorial to the colourful Chilean surrealist and Honorary RA Matta, who died earlier this year. Hung to the right are three beautiful small paintings by John Craxton, the finest being 'Cretan Cats' which is a marvellous design of interweaving kitties, chair and floor tiles. (A typically witty touch has the woven seat doubling as a fish skeleton.) A touch of European sensibility seems to pervade this room, and lift the heart of the exhibition right out of reach of the frequent complaint that the summer show is parochial. Three Kitaj drawings and an Allen Jones watercolour have just such a cosmopolitan gloss. A couple of vibrant Gillian Ayres paintings, bright as liquorice allsorts, set up visual echoes with the group of Adrian Berg's liquid Sheffield Park Garden paintings. Eileen Cooper's hot-blooded figuration has an expressionist fervour, while Tom Phillips's sophisticated 'Ornament' painting sounds a clarion call for a theoretical new art movement. Other delights include drawings by Norman Adams which recall Stanley Spencer in their wiry sensitivity, and a rare painting of a white person by Craigie Aitchison.
Moving through into Gallery IV, and manoeuvring round a rather strange figurative sculpture by Anthony Caro, an exuberant collage painting by Terry Frost, all swinging shapes and bobbing colours, holds its own against the stiff competition of John Hoyland's voluptuous paintwork. Jeffery Camp's singular vision of the English landscape conjured through joined-together asymmetrical panels is thankfully undimmed. Through into Gallery V and a memento of last year's Summer Exhibition from Anthony Eyton — the courtyard evoked in pastels; a clutch of Mary Feddens offer a hint of the strangeness of dream, while Leonard McComb's magisterial portrait of the town crier of Lambeth captures the corresponding strangeness of reality.
For some misguided reason, Gallery VI is hung this year with the work of invited students from the RA Schools, the Royal College, the Slade and Goldsmith's. Mostly pretty thin stuff of sheer shapes and psychedelic flowers and lots of really poor painting, though Ian Monroe's accumulations of loudspeakers (already noticed down at the Saatchi Gallery) continue to look unusual and convincing. It's a relief to escape to the Central Hall full of Chillidas — eight pieces in different materials: iron, steel, alabaster, felt and etching. A consistently impressive artist, whose objects have the solidity of buildings and who indeed trained initially as an architect. It is absolutely right of the Academy to so honour him.
Space precludes a more detailed examination of the remainder of the Summer Exhibition. Certain exhibits do, however, stand out in my memory and deserve mention, Graham Crowley's 'Blue Street' and Roy Oxlade's 'Red Leg', though at opposite ends of the figurative spectrum, are both paintings of considerable conviction and presence. I am a firm admirer of the luscious thick surfaces of George Rowlett's paintings (he has a solo show at Art Space Gallery in Islington until 21 June), so was disappointed to find his three riverscapes hung too high to admire properly. But then, in the print room, so distinguished a luminary as Quentin Blake was also skied.
Among the architectural plans and models I particularly enjoyed Will Alsop's 'Fourth Grace', a rather chic plaster object like three flattened ring-doughnuts on feet, decorated with silver and black triangles, and the same architect's inspirational 'Rethinking Barnsley'. The installation Sky High', curated by Norman Foster, of
models of sky scrapers around the world, was originally intended as a self-contained exhibition. Now it tags onto the Summer Exhibition and deprives it of a gallery, which is unfair, however elegant a display it makes. Further good things by Clyde Hopkins, Basil Beattie, Rose Wylie, Terry Setch. Day Bowman, Luke Elwes, Alex Ramsay and John McLean jostle in my mind, beside the lasting impression left by Anthony Green's autobiographical extravaganza. A rich and heady compilation, and best seen more than once.
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