Fine Arts

Granny-bashing

Giles Auty

Summer Exhibition 1984 (Royal Academy till 19 August) Bernard Dunstan (Agnew till 1 June)

Alan Lambirth (Odette Gilbert till 1 June) Alan Lowndes (Crane Kalman till 23 June)

Ten or 15 years ago when much contemporary art criticism in Britain threatened to sink under the impenetrable density of its prose and extravagance of its praise for the new, one annual event still en- sured an anticipatory pocketing of critical coshes: the Royal Academy Summer Ex- hibition. The chosen victim, apparently frail, elderly and slow-moving, had all the necessary attributes of the soft target — or easy laugh. To wild delight, artists unwise enough to paint the countryside were cut- tingly labelled 'land-escapists' by the con- temptuous young Turks of the critical Left. Much merriment later, a quiet voice might have asked why photographing, re- arranging or merely walking the country- side — all activities promoted, rather than condemned at the time by these self-same critics — should have been deemed non- escapist or otherwise superior. But unfor- tunately all too few quiet voices managed to get heard during those sad, mad days of Late Modernist hegemony.

Today, after what has been described as a major shift in critical consciousness, the granny-bashers seem to have lost a little of their confidence, so that 'easel painters' not long ago an endangered species — are free once more to leave their fox-holes and sport their brushes in the spring sunshine.

The cold wind of the critical climate may have passed but its effects are bound to linger. Thus instead of questioning the overall standards of the current Royal Academy Summer Exhibition perhaps we should first congratulate the •old lady on surviving at all. That she has done so is due largely to public loyalty, since the RA does

not receive direct state support. Flocking to the Royal Academy in their annual droves, the general public are not just eager to look but willing to buy — though this untutored willingness may not please everyone. MY guess is that the powerful group who con- trol state purchases of contemporary art would like to have similar influence 00 private buying. The existence of art patrons they cannot instruct is probably galling to our art bureaucrats — and explains whY they are so dismissive of private patronage. Luckily the RA and its patrons hay.e managed to retain a will of their own. Th15 is why we should cherish them. So to the 216th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the agreeable impression that things are looking up. Overall, the work seems better than in either of the previous two years. Happily, too, there Is less art that relies solely on its invisible and unquantifiable 'thought content' than 1° some past shows. Apparently arbitrary assemblages of wooden spars can easily look forlorn at the RA, lost without the support of their usual fellows. To avoid such problems, the organisers now keep works of a specific type together. Thus large examples of Imaged Expressionist work, part of a supposedly spontaneous rash which has been spreading across the Western world, fill one big room. Gallen' V, by contrast, is so steeped in whimsy that it was a relief to bump into such a down-to- earth character as Tessa Pullan's marvel" lous moose a bit further on in Gallery VII' But the traditional merit of the RA lies, with its stalwarts and most visitors Nv!it make for their strongholds. There, Ruskin Spear's Isleworth' and 'Night Out for Muriel' reveal he has lost none of his cun- ning — nor Carel Weight any of his quirky imagination in 'For Children: The Witches are Here'. Spear's `Isleworth' shows exalt: plary tautness and economy, just as Fred- erick Cuming's 'Channel with Venetian Blind' displays another facet of Academy tradition: painting with feeling and sophistication as well as charm. A major pleasure of the Academy remains coming across easily overlooked vvorks which grow on the viewer with closer acquaintance; Helen Clapcott's 'Back Garden, Spring', Diana Armfield's 'Winter _Aconites on the Studio Table' and Cherryl Fountain's 'Cottage Gardens' all falling in- to this agreeable category. In each instance, the e spectator has to try to isolate the paint- ing completely as possible from its sur- roundings. But this is often hard in a mixed exhibition where hanging can be crucial. Thus l would feel a touch miffed if I were Andrew Macara and found my beautifully composed painting 'Children and Brittany Beach', in which I looked down on my sub- ject, marooned way up the wall yards above eye level. Hung properly, it could have received due consideration for a prize. Painting prizes are always a problem because seldom do just a few works stand clear of the rest. This is why selection rituals probably smack of Buggins' turn to less senior artists. In sculpture, by contrast, the Merits of such as Frink and Paolozzi shine out more obviously because the number of works shown is so much smaller.

For the future, the quality of RA Sum- mer Exhibitions will rest with today's younger exhibitors, so it will reassure many to see promise such as Andrew Herning- nY's demonstrated in two large works.

with the drastic curtailment of part-time teach _

ing in British art schools, many young

artists will follow his example in seeking to live from private patronage. For years this avenue was neglected because of excessive the on state patronage, which assumed "le seductive guise of awards, bursaries, fellowships and so forth. The theory behind such largesse was that the state would prove the better and more enlightened patron, but any now doubt this. In art you rarely get anything for nothing and being, as it were, a slate-approved artist in Britain carries its share of penalties. First of these is basic ac- quiescence to the central orthodoxies of MOdernisin, Late Modernism, Post- Modernism or whatever happens to be the flavour of the decade. To question these is to be apostate and forces the artist out into the supposed wilderness of private patronage, peopled solely — or so the state script goes — by wealthy philistines.

Bernard Dunstan RA, whose popularity With private patrons instantly disproves the state view, is currently showing paintings of

itItlY at Agnew (43 Old Bond Street, W1). is light-diffused images and freedom of form should not deceive the unwary into thinking this an easy way to paint. Con-

siderable knowledge and toughness of con- trol

t are required — which is why young ar-

tists can learn much about subtle tonality from these images if they look hard enough. Rarely will concentration prove a greater pleasure.

One such young artist, Alan Lambirth, ,and ex-RA Schools Gold Medal winner, deals himself in the pleasures of tonality subdued colour. His exhibition of a,°.out 60, mostly small paintings at Odette killbert (5 Cork Street, W1) is already a suc-

cess and should aid future work and explo- ration. He has benefited from good teaching and his own doggedness; at 25, time and conditions seem on his side to develop an original talent. By contrast, I doubt whether life ever looked especially easy to the late Alan Lowndes, whose work forms a retrospec- tive exhibition at Crane Kalman (178 Brompton Road, SW3). Born in Stockport in 1921, Alan was the fifth child of a railways clerk and left school at 14. After war service in the Middle East and Europe his only tuition in painting was at night school. Inevitably, his work has invited comparison with that of the late L. S. Lowry. Yet Alan travelled more widely and was altogether more outgoing. When I first met him in 1959 he had recently moved to West Cornwall and was overwhelmed by the visual delights on his doorstep. This joy found expression in exuberant colour plus a real delight in paint. It was ironic that Alan should have lived in St Ives during the latter heyday of Abstract Expressionism, since he was no lover of Formalist or any other theory. Though his work showed consider- able awareness of the abstract elements of composition, Alan remained far too inter- ested in people to stop painting them. His great strength was his honesty — always a rare artistic commodity but rarer still when the main body of his work was produced.