ART
AFTER the Football Association's gesture come two more invited exhibitions: one of coronation paintings sponsored by the Minister of Works, to be seen in the Pillared Hall of the new Government Offices off Whitehall (the entrance is in Horse Guards Avenue); the other, also a celebration of the coronation, a collection of some sixty big paintings on the traditional theme of Figures in a Setting produced for the Contemporary Art Society and shown by them at the Tate.
Sir David Eccles's artists were beaten, for the most. part, by the subject and the weather. There are good drawings by Ardizzone and Topolski, and a handful of honourable paintings of which those by Philip Le Bas, Carl Cheek, S. J. Waghorn and Leonard Rosoman are notable. It is perhaps not the fault of the artists in this case that they are scarcely able to add to our knowledge of an event more greatly pub- licised than any other in history.
At the Tate the artists are more relaxed, have gone their own way and thumbed their noses, several of them, at the burden, mild enough in all conscience, laid upon them by a beneficent C.A.S. Some of my colleagues have expressed themselves disap- pointed that so traditional a theme has not sparked off more masterpieces; others gratified that it has. It is hard to believe that a condition so loosely phrased (and purposely so) could fire any ambition in this direction that was not already smouldering, and the results are just as you might expect, only larger—for a minimum dimension of three feet was the other main condition. The effect, indeed, of these three galleries is impressive, if only because of the scale of the contents.
Norman Adams shows one of his Greco- ish Bible scenes, very dramatic but perhaps big for its content, and this is beaten for size only by Michael Toothill's turgidly energetic Walpurgisnacht, though Donald Hamilton-Fraser's abstract is in the running. Of the older artists Ayrton, Elinor Belling- ham-Smith, le Brocquy, Bateson Mason, John Minton, Mary Potter, Stella Steyn, Spear and Humphrey Spender are all shown at their best and relate in varying degrees to the subject. •Matthew Smith has a sur- prising Chagall-like composition; Carel Weight has produced another of his inimit- able "gimmicks"; Brian Robb, who has been constantly to the fore since his pictures in the London Group a year ago, a portrait. Purchases include a gold and red abstract by Sandra Blow, an excellent Medley of casts in a studio, an almost 3-D Feiler, a Bur- gundian peasant meal under a tree by Herman, a theme by Alan Reynolds revived
, from two years ago, and Martin Froy's curious record of that moment before one's eyes become accustomed to an interior gloom while the light outside the window remains hard and white. My vote for the best painting so far unpurchased goes unhesitatingly to Ceri Richards. This is really about something, carefully observed and very well painted.
M. H. MIDDLETON
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