ART
The Lefevre Galleries and the Society of Antiquaries.
CECIL COLLDIS, who shows drawings and paintings at the Lefevre Galleries, is an artist who has been biding his time (he is now thirty-seven) before coming out into the open with this one-man show, which has considerable interest. His habit of vision is poeti- cal and—owing something as it does to Picasso, Chagall and Klee— original. His figures are fanciful and dreamlike, which is not to imply that they are surrealist, but are much more completely rea- lised and "carried over" than is usual in the work of contemporary painters who rely on poetically conceived statements rather than on observed-formal ones. This is because Mr. Collins has a real feel- ing for materials, using paint and (in drawing) a fine line with enough sensibility for his ideas to grow and elaborate themselves, instead of getting killed off in the process of being transferred to paper or canvas. On the whole, the series of Fools and the smaller paintings are the most completely successful, but he has the equip- ment to go far.
A little-advertised exhibition of interest is being held at the Society of Antiquaries (Burlington House), and is open to the public at reasonable times on request. It demonstrates by means of books, drawings and photographs, which have been collected and brilliantly arranged by the society's secretary, Mr. T. D. Kendrick, the ten- dencies of archaeological and topographical illustration from the six- teenth century to the present one. The order is roughly chrono- logical, beginning with manuscript drawings by the early Heralds and proceeding with publications of the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries itself, and works by individuals dealing with ecclesio- logy, pre-history and so on. There are sections devoted to monu- ments, stained glass, brasses, the work of single archaeologists such as William Stukeley, and single artists such as Cotman ; and there is a special section on Stonehenge, showing the extraordinary changes in habits of vision that arc represented by successive views of this monument, from the time it was first illustrated, in a fourteenth- century English illumination. Among other things worth looking at in this excellent exhibition are the coloured aquatints of pave- ments and stained glass by William Fowler, of Winterton, and some very beautiful Victorian photographs. JOHN PIPER.
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