ART
AT the end of the war it seemed possible not only to refer to a " School of London " for the first time, but to hope for the develop- ment of the younger painters forming that school along lines of some originality. Four years later it must be admitted that their progress, if not halted, is at least very much slower than during the preceding period of expansion. As a general tendency this seemed to me exemplified by the exhibition which two of the most talented of their generation—Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde- have been holding at the Lefevre Gallery. Both painters continue to exploit certain stylistic mannerisms with assurance and power, but neither has been refreshed, I feel, with a draught of direct visual stimulus for quite a long period. There is a time for looking and a time for working out accumulated experience from one's system. Both Colquhoun and MacBryde would, I suspect, be well advised to go back on their tracks and look afresh.
MacBryde, whose colour is as splendid as ever, is entirely engrossed in the architectural problems of composition, so that he is more successful in his strongly constructed still lifes than in his inhuman beings. He is completely at home only in the decorative employ- ment of small detail—the patterns formed by the seeds of a sliced cucumber or a sliced melon—or in the arbitrary ordering of large flat areas of colour for formal ends. He is not usually able to subdue the larger and simpler three-dimensional forms, such as a thigh or a clothed torso, to the demands of his particular language. Colquhoun's monotypes, also, are uneven. The variations that he manages to ring upon his theme are surprising, but though the best of them are impressive I have the feeling that he is still marking time.
Winifred Nicholson, at the same gallery, was all caresses when the Scotsmen were dealing body-blows. The subtlety of tone whereby she describes the rotundity of a striped mug is entirely delicious. If her work is the acme of feminine taste and charm, it is none the less affecting for that.
Varied talents may be seen at the Leicester Galleries. Henry Lamb's thoughtful academician' is at its best in his portraits, and his portraiture is at its best in Henrietta. Andre Bicat has one foot in the cloying landscape sentiment of late Victorianism, and the other, rather oddly, in contemporary Paris. His emotional romanticism is often formless, but A Cage of Wondrous Birds really did seem wondrous. Elsa Vaudrey's watercolours, sometimes recalling those of Frances Hodgkins, are similarly apt to disintegrate in chaos. When they do not they vibrate with energy.
Among the other exhibitions is an excellent small show of drawings from abroad, at the A.I.A. Gallery in Lisle Street, by Edgar Ainsworth, James Boswell, Paul Hogarth, Laurence Scarfe, Ronald Searle and Felix Topolski. Recent experiments in bas-felief by Eduardo Paolozzi may be seen at the Mayor Gallery, and at Brighton an exhibition of works by Blake, including The Spiritual
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