Art
Poppycock
John McEwen
a, eter Phillips first came to public atteur 1. tion as one of an exceptional and talented group of painters at the Royal Col- lege in the early Sixties. Among them were, David Hockney, Allen Jones, Derek Boshier and Patrick Caulfield, but none was more successful at that time than Phillips himself. He was soon off to Novi York on a Harkness Fellowship, returned to! Europe at the end of the decade to teach in' Hamburg as a guest professor, and finally settled in Zurich — where he still lives. For almost 20 years, therefore, he has beet away from home, rarely visiting this court- try and exhibiting his work here even less, so his current retrospective, or retrcrt VISION, at the Walker Art Gallery, Liver- pool (till 1 August) is an event of con- siderable fascination as well as importance.
What the show most obviously demon- strates is how inadequate it is to classify' Phillips — as has been the case in England till now — as nothing more than a `poP' artist. Like all such labels, 'pop' was in- vented as a convenience rather than a definition and has not stuck very easily tol any individual case, but its suggestion of iii" mediacy, of a disregard for history and tradition, of commercial celebration and throwaway intention does not fit him at all Even the first pictures, purposely evocative of the appearance of pinball tables and i juke-box fronts, benefit from the artist's first-hand knowledge of early Renaissance painting gained on a pre-college travelling scholarship to Italy in 1959. And latet.1 when he employed industrial techniques, like airbrush spraying, to authenticate the presentation of commercial objects on a billboard scale, the metaphorical range is that of a wily European. It makes these ostensibly very 'pop' paintings quite dif' ferent in effect to the same size of thing done by American 'pop' artists. Phillips is not an innocent. When he made an artwork (in collaboration with the Scottish artist Gerald Laing), where the appearance and form of the piece were determined by the answers to a circulated questionnaire, the suggestion that the commercially put-upon modern artist might just as well be at automaton was not unintentional. Bill Phillips is not really an ironist, more of 3 humorist, and fresh in his partiality.
Such partiality declares itself most con'
sistently as a taste for tight composition and tactile contrasts. Being trained from the age of 13 at an old-fashioned school of applied arts has had its effect. There he learned a number of disciplines including painting and decorating, sign-writing, heraldry, silversmithing, graphic design, architectural illustration and technical draughtsmanship; and his pictures exploit virtually all these skills to the full. From his first collaged works as a student to the latest trompe-l'oeil variations with relief elements, he has busily mixed media. What has changed is not method — or even, real- ly, intention — but imagery, style and Materials. The rough-and-ready charm of the collages, fresh as ever after 20 years, is succeeded by the machinelike precision, the undoubtedly `poppish' experimentation with new techniques, of the often dazzling airbrush paintings. With the last seven years showing a return to oils and brushes, first in the service of meticulous realism with sym- bolic overtones, today in more carefree games of visual deception.
The director of the Tate, in his address to open the show, pointed out that isolation need not be a bad thing for an artist. Phillips has undoubtedly preferred to paint rather than to promote, and the reward is steady development and an impressive Weight of successful works. The director also stated that the artist's place in the art history of our time was already ensured. Whatever that place proves to be — and Phillips should have half a life left in which to consolidate it, such is the advantage of being an early starter — this exhibition con- firms the inadequacy of his current classi- fication. The zest is still there — the eroticism (though less overt than it has sometimes been), the playful tricks of Perception (the last painting is significantly entitled 'Jester') — but experience and knowledge have technically and metaphor- ically enriched the implication. It makes for a triumphant homecoming.
The recent retrospectives of Peter Phillips's contemporaries Allen Jones and Patrick Caulfield were also inaugurated by the Walker, and the director, Timothy Stevens, and his assistant, Marco Liv- ingstone, (now in an equivalent position at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford) Who devised and organised the shows and also wrote and edited the indispensable catalogues — deserve to be roundly con- gratulated. The earlier shows were widely reviewed only when they arrived in London, long after their origins were forgotten. Now that this present series of retrospectives is Coming to an end, the rightful creditors should be especially acknowledged. It should also be said that the present instal- lation of retroVISION will surely not be bettered.
The show travels to the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (15 August to 3 Oc- tober); Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon- TYne (15 October to 21 November);' Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh (22 January to 26 February, 1983); Southampton Art Gallery (20 March to 8 May, 1983); Bar-
bican Art Gallery, London (1 July to 4 September, 1983). Also at the Walker is a small reappraisal of the work of the Vic- torian painter George Heming Mason (till 31 July). The show comes to the Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond Street, W I (9 August to 4 September). It was inaugurated by the City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke- on-Trent.
Previous page
