Art
Revived
John McEwen
Gerald Wilde is the doyen of English artistic Characters: grandson of Osdar Wilde, model for Joyce Cary's Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth (he was not, but Cary was flattered to let everyone think he was), legendary Fitzrovian worthy to be mentioned with the likes of Dylan Thomas, Colquhoun and MacBryde. Five years ago he was raised from the dead by Timothy I-111to1 and put in a group show at the Serpentine, since when he has had two exhibitions at the October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, WC1, the second of Which is currently in progress (till 7 March). Wilde is now in his seventies and there are Paintings on view from the outset of his career in 1929 to the present, the accent being on the present. Competent representations of the observed world give way to a middle period of intense abstraction, succeeded in turn by pictures of more rYchnanalytic interest. His abstracts of the orties and early Fifties are the best, and one can only lament the loss of the majority of his early Forties work in the Blitz. There is a painting called 'The Alarm' in the present show that was bought at auction recently for £80. It was done in 1947, a year when the American abstract expressionists were for the most part still feeling their way. 'The Alarm' and its like deserve to stand with anything done in that era, and must still be considered some of the best paintings produced by an Englishman since the War.
Daumier is a real bucking bronco of an artist, so inevitably the 236 examples of his work (sculpture and paintings as well as prints) collected by Armand Hammer and currently on view at the Royal Academy (till 15 March), clear the present London ring — a point made especially piquant by the continuing presence in the same building of the New Spirit in Painting exhibition. Nothing could look more new and spirited than Daumier, his all-embracing interest and burning moral purpose as enlightening, inspiring and contemporary as ever they were for his first enormous following a hundred-odd years ago. Apart from 4,000 lithographs, 1,000 wood engravings and over 800 drawings and watercolours, Daumier left a legacy of 300 oil paintings and some unbaked clay figures later cast as bronzes. Seven of these oils and 38 of the sculptures are at the Academy. Two or three of the oils — of his favourite subject Don Quixote, of two actors— are enough to confirm his absolute mastery as a painter— a fact sometimes eclipsed by his blinding reputation as a draughtsman — but the bronzes are more problematic. Modelling, as opposed to carving, is drawing in three dimensions, so technically Daumier's models are as brilliant as one might expect. Indeed in the freedom of their handling they presage Rodin and Degas, but this technical mastery is almost entirely devoted to making caricature busts of the French politicians of the day, and it dates them fatally. The same criticism can occasionally apply to the early, more topical, prints, but in the main Daumier's draughtsmanship transcends events and captions. The lithographs in the present show can be much more comfortably appreciated by buying the catalogue — a subsidised snip, though in the irritating interests of academicism the sculptures are reproduced at the expense of some of the most arresting and amusing drawings.
Also at the Academy (till 15 March) is a palatable hors d'oeuvre of a show entitled Painting from Nature, devoted to 17th — 19th century open-air oil sketches. Highlights (literally) are provided by Constable, Turner and less familiar, less gifted, figures like Desportes, Bidauld, Grahet and Giroux. But on the whole the exhibition is largely of academic interest, full of repetitive views of Rome and the Campagna by unithaginative painters at work in a rather dull artistic period, producing the sort of modest little .canvases that must have been two a penny down Portobello Road in the Fifties but that you could cash in today for a new BMW. Architectural drawings have been selling 'like hot cakes in New York for two or three years, so it was obviously going to be only a matter of time before the idea was tried here. Now Fischer Fine Art are doing just that with a handsome exhibition of 18th20th century architectural drawings (till 15 March).
In the 'Notebook' of 13 December readers will remember Alexander Chancellor deploring the sale by the Duke of Wellington of an historic collection of Benjamin Wyatt's drawings for the never to be realised 'Waterloo Pace'. In 1973, at the wish of the Duke's father, these drawings were given on 'indefinite loan' to the Royal Institute of British Architects. Now the consequence of the present Duke's regrettable changes of mind can be seen at Fischer, where part of the Waterloo set forms the hub of the present show. The selection on view represents about a third of the total Waterloo collection, some of which was bought back by the RIBA, so there is still an opportunity for a benefactor to put most of humpty-dumpty together again. Ironically, the prettiest drawings at Fischer, in pinks and greens and bold designs, refer to an anonymous fort. The catalogue is excellent.
Previous page
