ART
Eugene de Kermadec. (Mayor Gallery.) ENGLISH watercolours at Agaew's or animal drawings from Sir Bruce Ingram's collection at Colnaghi's (in aid of the London Federa- tion of Boys' Clubs, this latter); Australian expatriates, headed by Roy de Maistre, at the R.W.S. Galleries or seventy-nine "Artists Under Thirty" at the R.B.A. Galleries? The first two exhibitions— let us be frank—are the most rewarding, but the others have their own interest. The youngsters chose their own work, so it tends towards the over-ambitious, but there is much gauche courage and some honest observation. Among those who seem to have forged for themselves a coherent means of expression are Eric Atkinson, Roy Turner Durrant, David Gentleman, Alistair Grant, John Holdcroft, Sheila Mackie, William Thomp ;on and Frederick Yates.
Mr. Mayor, in Brook Street, .offers us the first Loadon show of paintings by Eugoae de Kermadec. Kermadec, born in 1899, found his interests first kindled by the fauves, but from their new-won freedom he has developed an increasingly abstract language which makes but the lightest allusions to the visible world. His is a slight and gentle art, of flat overlapping washes of thin pastel shades, wired together with springy, linear arabesques much as a parcel is held together by its string. Sometimes the contents burst out and spill over, but at his compact best Kermadec achieves a free balance of fo:ces that is almost classical in its calm. Delusively simple and coatrolled, he makes some of his younger contempora:ies look like clumsy bumpkins.
M. H. MIDDLETON.
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