Evan Anthony on

a young artist hermetically Sealed

That life often follows art may be the basis for the fiction persisting that — along with estate agents, pop star managers, and solicitors — the art dealer and/or gallery director is an exploiter of the naive and innocent, playing the Devil to the artist's Faust. But he does play other parts, sometimes even cast in the role of patron saint. And there are those sophisticated, rationalising cynics who see him as a necessary, if regrettable, evil.

I cannot, of course presume to say which part Patrick Seale — who runs the 'Observer Art' print mail order business and a gallery in Motcomb Street — wants to play in the life of Ilric Shetland, a young artist whom I first met while myself playing the part of patron saint (of course) in the guise of naiVe and innocent gallery 'director': but I should like to share with you some of the more intimate facts of the life a fellow leads while trying to become established as a professional artist. You can then make up your own mind about the Patrick Seale patronage plan.

It is almost two years since uric Shetland walked into my now-extinct Covent Garden Gallery, looking like a whipped puppy and carrying a portfolio of extraordinary drawings. His response to praise was to cower sceptically. The interview resulted in a show in August of 1973, not exactly the most propitous month or, for that matter, place, for an unknown to make his name and fortune. But surprising things can happen, and in this instance did.

A personal conviction that this artist was remarkably talented, and a general sense of irritation exacerbated by the indifference of my fellow critics to an August exhibition, moved me to ring Allan Hall,

who is 'Atticus' of the Sunday Times. His secretary coolly and clearly indicated that it was absurd to think that "Allan" could be interested in an art item, but he let me talk and the promise of seeing pictures that had been turned down by galleries in Amsterdam as being too 'disturbing' intrigued him. He came, he saw, he wrote about Shetland, and his photographer produced a photograph of the artist and one of his pictures.

Within two days the seven drawings on' show were sold, a lady from Brussels insisted that sne was on her way and told us not to remove a picture until she had had a look, another wrote from California and eventually bought a drawing that had not been included in the show, sight unseen. Had every critic bestirred himself to find our bijou picture palace-and rave about Shetland (they didn't write, because they didn't come), his success could hardly have been as great. The lady from Brussels was important; last autumn she promoted two Shetland shows in Belgium. The artist did not sell out, but he made a modest profit, learned a bit more about gallery huckstering and the pitfalls of exhibitions, and finally decided that he would like to receive some praise from critics, written in English. Through a friend, he met Patrick Seale, and after seeing his work, Seale offered him the following terms: 1. We would like you to prepare work for exhibition here in the late autumn. I think we would need a minimum of twelve drawings, preferably more, but clearly we wouldn't quibble.

2. We would like to include two or three of your drawings in our show at this year's Basle Art Fair in June.

3. The terms we can offer are a 50-50 split on all sales of your work, after deduction by us of the first £500 spent on promotion, catalogues and so forth. The price of your work would be fixed by mutual consent, but we would have the right to purchase outright from you at any time drawings at a 50 per cent discount. This, in effect, gives us first option on all your work. In addition, we would guarantee to buy from you a drawing or drawings worth at least £250 a year. We would want you to bind yourself to us for at least two years.

Shetland considered this offer, reflected and realised, "If I sold at £300 apiece all twelve of my drawings produced in a year I could make £1,800, less the first £500 which the Seale operation deducts. If I sold only half, I could live, possibly, if I got national assistance or a gardening job. It would have to be national assistance because a gardening job wouldn't allow me time enough to draw."

He has opted for placing drawings with the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery, Chiltern Street, on a sale or return basis, and continuing to make the rounds hoping to interest a gallery in promoting a one-man show on more generous terms than Seale has offered. Treadwell takes 40 per cent commission.

In checking with other galleries it seems that general commission charges range between 30 and 40 per cent. At Roland, Browse and Delbanco in Cork Street, the commission is 331/2 per cent, with the gallery assuming all responsibility For mounting the show — that includes publicity, catalogues, opening night party. Occasionally the artist contributes to the cost of the catalogues and the party if it is mutually agreed that something extra is desirable.

The Seale offer could be worse; after all, Shetland wasn't asked to pay the rent, or the heat and light bills. The Romi Goldmuntz Centrum Gallery in Antwerp notes this in their offer to the artist. They pay for the "costs of the gallery," and this includes "surveillance," but he must pay for the cocktail party, printing costs, posters (which.seem to be obligatory in Belgian galleries), insUrance costs, and postage for sending invitations and announcements. But even here, the commission is only 30 per cent. So, we have a portrait of the artist as a young man trying to get ahead, seeking the help of a gallery or patron. I should have thought 'Observer Art' could have afforded more generous terms, and I should very much like to know what the artist gets for his £500 — "promotion" and "so forth" are, after all, rather vague terms.

Getting down to the week's reviewing, I don't know what terms the Mercury Gallery, Cork Street, offers, but I should imagine that both the gallery and Andrew Wallace stand to make some money and reputation on the basis of his very clever exhibition of small bronzes. This is Wallace's first one-man show and his figures have both wit and imagination.

Josef Herman's pen and wash drawings at the aforementioned Roland, Browse and Delbanco are a bit too effortless to sustain my• interest, but the paintings have a mood that suggest deeper concern, and that concern is communicated

reasonably well.

Philip Pearlstein's The Human Figure exhibition at Gimpel Fils, Davies Street, offers more meat, both literally and figuratively. His joyless nudes, revealing every fold, ripple and stretch-mark, are admirably captured and cleverly composed, but there is the unmistakable impression that the models are in some sort of purgatory or in limbo, going througlerthe motions for Pearlstein and unable to get out of the studio.

Michaelangelo offers more humanity, hope and glory in the magnificent drawing exhibition at the British Museum, but what is one to write about a genius that hasn't been said before. It's very difficult for us poor art reviewers to write about the 'classics.' The theatre critic has more than the play to expound upon, even when it's Hamlet — all sorts of things can happen to the Prince on his way to the theatre. Not 'so with art, thank God; Michaelangelo's talent remains an absolute. Join the queue.