Art
Remember nostalgia?
Giles Auty
Drawings of the 1940s (Christopher Hull till 21 May) Robert Gibbings and Viva Talbot and Seven British Printmakers of the 1920s and 1930s (Michael Parkin till 18 May) Newlyn Orion Spring Exhibition (Newlyn Orion, Penzance)
Minton, Ayrton, Craxton, Freud; the names together have a poetic ring and might, in fact, make an excellent first line for a Betjemanesque ditty. This is not to imply that the exhibition at Christopher Hull Gallery (670 Fulham Road, SW6) should be taken anything less than serious- ly. All four named are or were considerable artists but among the 139 exhibits many are undeniably lighthearted or witty fragments. The exhibition as a whole has an interesting theme: collaboration between Minton and Ayrton, friendly rivalry between Craxton and Freud during early, formative years. For me the entire exhibition had an air of strange nostalgia, never more so than in Minton's 'Railway Cutting' of 1942, a haunting, yellowy, ink and wash drawing, redolent of Kilburn bedsits or other areas of urban loneliness, which run down to railway lines. The 1940s and early 1950s were hard, lonely and arid times for many, little relieved by the Festival of Britain with all its self-conscious stylishness.
Most of the works in this exhibition are drawings, drawn largely from each artist's 1940s oeuvre. The influence of Surrealism, which had slowly evaporated from much British art by the late 1950s, was almost everywhere apparent. I have not previously seen any large example of Lucian Freud's youthful work and it would be hard to
guess his degree of promise from it. The spiky, angular line and strange flatness recall Grunewald no less than Grosz. John Craxton's drawings, by contrast, seem more relaxed and confident as well as more rounded, although some wrong attributions between his work and Freud's appear to have been made at times. Generally this is hard to understand; I would suggest that one drawing, over which the artists themselves disputed, is certainly by Freud. Perhaps neither was anxious to claim it.
As one who enjoys Freud more as early angularity and Surrealist overtones have slipped away, the exhibition was instruc- tive. To augment the cross-referencing it would have been pleasant if Freud's wistful portrait of Minton, painted five years before the latter's untimely death, might have been loaned to the gallery. Finally, this exhibition is as much for collectors as those seeking to re-awaken personal ghosts. For the investor who has neither the financial nor life expectancy to await a current work by Freud, `Girl with Eyes Closed' of 1944, for example, might provide some kind of substitute.
From the often melancholy tone of work which was produced either during or im- mediately following the Second World War, to the euphoric abandon of thought and artefact that followed World War I. After all, was this one not 'the war to end wars'? Many obviously felt so. Thus the ex- hibition at Michael Parkin Fine Art (11, Motcomb Street, SW I) is appropriately full of both charm and confidence. Upstairs are woodcuts by Robert Gibbings and Viva Talbot in contrast to coloured linocuts and lithographs by other artists on the lower floor. It is to this latter area, I suspect, that many will flock. Not because the work on the floor above is not well conceived, vigorous and worthy — in Gibbings's case certainly — but because colour adds an at- tractive dimension. Indeed, if the form of the works themselves, especially those of Claude Flight's pupils, did not conjure up the very essence of the period through their predominantly Futurist overtones, then the colours would. Those peculiarly 1930s greens found in anything from frocks to pantiles to interior furnishings are a chromatic time-machine that can hurtle the viewer back to a period of ocean cruises, country rambles, pipes and Oxford bags.
Subtle green plays an important role in Lill Tschudi's 'Boules at St Paul de Vence', a real collector's item, just as it does in William Greengrass's equally attractive, but very oddly labelled 'White Roses'. Gardeners may notice a strong resemblance to convolvulus. Other works to please are lithographs and etchings by John Copley, such as 'In the Cafe' and 'Cleaning the Silver'. Prints from this period in general are absurdly cheap, especially when com- pared with many overpriced contemporary offerings. Apart from the works on show, those seeking pleasure no less than future profit could do worse than search out the work of two of my own favourites from the era. William Lee-Hankey and Dame Laura Knight.
As a footnote for the out-of-town, the assurance that the far west of Cornwall over Easter has seldom looked lovelier. What it must have looked like, in its unspoiled glory, a hundred years ago, when artists of the Newlyn School first colonised the area, is not hard to imagine. Little wonder so much excellent art, again currently under- valued, was produced. It would thus be pleasant to report that the old Newlyn Society of Artists Gallery, now the Newlyn Orion and heftily Arts Council subsidised, continues the excellence of the tradition. Sadly it does not. Where current work takes the locality as a starting point, it tends to make artists of an earlier Newlyn era, such as Stanhope Forbes, seem absolutely masterly by comparison and casts odd reflections on 'progress' over the past 100 years. Visitors, such as one I overheard, do not seem unjustified in wondering exactly what went wrong.
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