First-night excitements
Andrew Larnbirth enjoys an extravaganza of opening parties The autumn season of exhibitions and their attendant private views is now well under way. It began properly for me with the opening party for Apocalypse at the Royal Academy, and continued intensively for more than a week. Now I feel like retir- ing to bed for a month with an improving book, but duty calls, and anyway I have to finish a monograph for Thames & Hudson. Just for the moment, though, I have had enough of partying.
Private views are rarely private, and vernissages are rarely opportunities to var- nish, though rather splendidly it does still happen occasionally at the RA's Summer Exhibition. Thus on Members Varnishing Day this year, Anthony Eyton was to be observed not only varnishing his paintings, but continuing to work on them. Turner, of course, is famous for entirely repainting a composition under the envious eyes of his fellow academicians, but few dare to attempt anything so foolhardy now. Eyton's style, however, is eminently suited to reworking. He employs a form of flickering impressionism with lots of surface white. The light effects come and go, and he is forever changing the props and dramatis personae in the hope of finding the perfect picture. It's good to be able to report that at the age of 77 he shows no sign of flag- ging — in fact; the new paintings at his lat-
est one-man show (at Browse & Darby, Cork Street, Wl, until 20 October) are per- haps his best yet.
Eyton is a master of the beach scene, and has recently been out to Rio, painting in the extreme heat and revelling in the crowds. His private view, timed for the same night as the Apocalypse party, was somewhat more formal than the subject matter on the walls, but was well attended by Eyton's artist-peers, friends and pupils. As I headed off into the night in the gener- al direction of the Royal Academy, the voice of Frank Sinatra echoed in my mind: `Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking . . Eyton's celebratory beach paintings are the perfect accompaniment to the song.
At the Academy the scene was rather dif- ferent. Everyone has probably already formed an opinion of Apocalypse (until 15 December), but I must admit to not yet having made up my mind. For a start, the opening party was so riddled with queues of guests trying to view the more scan- dalous exhibits that I haven't had a proper chance to study them. Even at a posh party like this one, where the security is tight and invitations arc hard to come by, there are plenty of freeloaders. As for the post-open- ing party afterwards — at home london in Leicester Square — well, ushers were dol- ing out handfuls of invitations to that exclusive venue as people finally staggered away from the Academy's august portals at around 9 p.m.
My gut reaction to Apocalypse is that it will not create the same buzz as Sensation did three years ago. Perhaps it is too simi- lar and too soon. I sensed a low-key response among many of the invited at the private view. It occurs to me that maybe the Academy should put on another kind of show altogether — not about the end of the world and mankind's ignorant destruc- tion of the planet, but about art with a
`Beach at Night' by Anthony Eyton social awareness, which is about integration and understanding and hope. Oh yes, and probably curated by a woman.
By the time I reached floors five and six of home london it was rather late. I had been elsewhere to dine, and the bars and dancefloors of the Leicester Square club had the somewhat lacklustre appearance of a student party. From the windows the views were still pretty good, but inside it was a bit dreary. I expect it was better earli- er on. It seemed wisest to beat a retreat.
The next night I ventured forth to the firm of Connaught Brown, a dealership in Albemarle Street, Wl. This was the open- ing of The Art of Rudolph Bauer:• From Berlin to New York (until 21 October). The exhibition had been much flagged, so I knew that Bauer was a little-known associ- ate of Kandinsky. The works on display at this decidedly restrained opening ranged wildly from fashion-plate illustrations to poignantly coloured abstracts, geometrical and textured, such as 'Andante' (1923). The more organic abstractions, such as `Fugale VI', are indeed reminiscent of Kandinsky, but without the compression or compulsion, though the gallery requests £45,000 from you if you want to take the picture home. I looked up Bauer in Yale's new Dictionary of Art and Artists, by Erica Langmuir and Norbert Lynton. Nothing. I think I'll remain unconvinced until I see a larger cross-section of his work.
From Green Park I took the Tube, but Knightsbridge station was closed, which necessitated a longer walk to reach James Colman's gallery in Montpelier Street, just past Harrods. The exhibition there is of new paintings by Tory Lawrence (until 20 October), mostly heavily textured land- scapes in strong colours, many featuring the rooks or lapwings of Lawrence's native Berkshire Downs. One or two paintings incorporate fragments of flint stuck to the surface, making a powerful visual and liter- al equivalent of the prehistoric standing stones of Avebury. Lawrence had been ambitious enough to organise two private views, on successive nights. I attended the first, together with Jilly Cooper, George Melly, Shena Mackay and Paul Bailey. Hello! magazine had sent a photographer but, despite wearing a green shirt and one of Craigie Aitchison's bright pink ties, for some reason I was not selected for my portrait ...
The next night it was the turn of Dillwyn Smith at Purdy Hicks, down in SE1 by the new Tate on Bankside. Purdy Hicks is a gallery with a booming reputation, largely thanks to the care and enthusiasm with which it is run by its contingent of female directors. Unlike many of the shops that pass for galleries, Purdy Hicks goes to con- siderable lengths to support and encourage its artists, and to sell their work. Dillwyn Smith is an immensely talented young abstract artist, whose beautiful, large paint- ings combine satisfying structure with lyri- cal colour. The show (until 28 October) looks stunning, and it was a fitting end to the evening to be able to gaze later at the reflected lights on the river with a fair companion.
The last exhibition opening I will men- tion (and there were others I attended on The Spectator's behalf in my intensive peri- od of research) was at Marlborough Fine Art, again in Albemarle Street. Unusually, this was a lunchtime private view, of the paintings, pastels, drawings and etchings of Avigdor Arikha (until 28 October). Arikha lives in Paris, and I had thought that per- haps he had requested a lunchtime vernissage in order to be safely home for dinner. In fact he had chosen midday so that his pictures could be viewed in natural light. People forget the importance of natu- ral light. Most galleries at least supplement their meagre inflow of daylight with artifi- cial light, so it was refreshing to see Arikha's delicate paintings glowing on the Marlborough's walls. His particular brand of realism, all subtle tonal shifts and reso- nances, is intended to be viewed in the light it was made by.
This private view attracted a good turn- out of friends and admirers, professors and art-world personalities. Chief among the guests was the nonagenarian photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. I was thrilled to have the chance to shake his hand and linger talking for a few minutes. That doesn't happen every day. Perhaps private views are really rather more extraordinary than I've been tempted to think.
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