ART
THR Festival sweeps on down Bond Street. The dealers, as ever, display unflagging diligence, while the Arts Council must be quite giddy keeping up to date with its transport and insurance problems. Notable among the dealers are Messrs. Wildenstein, with a mixed exhibition of nineteen important paintings from Titian to Toulouse- Lautrec ; Messrs. Matthiesen, with a first-rate exhibition devoted solely to Lautrec and the Artists' General Benevolent Institution (an achievement this, since another collection of his work is currently on view in Paris); Messrs. Roland Browse and Delbanco with some excellent Sickerts (including half a dozen at least of the very first rank); and the Leicester Galleries, where Sickert's colleague of New English days, Steer, and his colleagues of Camden Town days, form the most rewarding part of the Daniel Collection. Sir Augustus, it is clear, had a keen and catholic eye for Steer in all his moods.
The Arts Council's Festival panorama of contemporary British talent has sorted itself out into a pair of anthologies, arranged in conjunction with Manchester, and the series of large paintings (minimum area 45 by 60 inches) specially invited from 60 painters. The second anthology, devoted to the impressionist inheritance (and therefore including the Euston Roaders) has now arrived at the New Burlington Galleries, while the first, devoted to more adven- turous idioms, has moved off north. The large painting experiment, now on show at the R.B.A. Galleries, is not without significance. The painters were supplied with free canvas, and five—Messrs. Freud, Gear, Hitchens, Medley and Rogers—have had their works purchased on the recommendations of a selection jury. Two more, by Prunella Clough and Victor Pasmore, have subsequently been purchased by the Council, while five have been acquired by the Contemporary Art Society. A modicum of patronage has thus been created in a field that is increasingly unattainable for most painters.
It is a. field in which few move easily however. Some have worked out ambitious compositns, to which their small-scale touch is untuited ; others have felt that it is only necessary to double the size, of the jug and the table-top to achieve a monumental effect. There are, in fact, some well-known casualties at the R.B.A. Gal- leries, but there are surprises too. Merlyn Evans' The Meeting (between Wyndham Lewis and Edward Burrs?) gains real power from its size, and is the most impressive painting by this artist I have seen. Elinor Bellingham Smith has achieved size without loss of delicacy. Rodrigo Moynihan's conversation piece of R.C.A. asso- ciates is not without slickness, but shows exact total observation and no visible signs of faltering. Gowing's viridian forest glade, very carefully considered, has some exciting passages. Nicholson contributes a calm, grave still-life ; Pasmore a " Snowstorm" of whorls, in monotone but without monotony ; Lucien Freud a malig- nantly accomplished portrait. William Scott, Peter Lanyon, Geoffrey Tibble, Ceri Richards, Patric Heron, Burrs, Minton, Lowry, Trevelyan, John Maxwell, William Gillies stand out from their neighbours. Of the sculpture, Bernard Meadow's Standing Figure seemed to me impressive, and Chadwick's very big mobile a most
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