Exhibitions 2
David Tindle (Fischer Fine Art, till 24 April) Nicholas Hely Hutchinson (Montpelier Studio, till 9 April) Susan Wilson (Art Space Gallery, till 11 April)
Feel-good factor
Giles Auty \\Then I wrote of the plight of artists recently, I certainly intended no criticism of commercial galleries nor of the commis- sions they find it necessary to take in order to stay alive. Unlike many publicly funded
As I say, I sympathise not just with the lot of those who try to make good art but also with those who try to sell it, during a recession especially. Several notable names have disappeared already from the London art scene during these difficult times and many more galleries struggle on under seri- ous threat.
Those lacking sympathetic backers and landlords will surely add to the growing list of casualties, the latest of which is Fischer Fine Art, which has an excellent record of showing living art by such fine practitioners as John Bellany, Arthur Boyd, Ben John- son and David Tindle. The present exhibi- tion of work by the last-named marks the end of Fischer Fine Art at 30 King Street, SW1, a loss which will be felt further afield than St James's.
David Tindle is 60 this year and possess- es a talent which has never been recognised sufficiently in all the clamour of nonsense which has characterised the business of liv- ing art during his adulthood. Other ages than ours could have discerned the major merit of works such as `Double Rainbow, Guemene Gardens'; few square meters of canvas have been covered so lovingly dur- ing the past 40 years. Tindle's work affirms human dignity. He looks for and sees beau- ty in changing seasons, times of day and the surfaces of things. In its quiet and reflective way, his work is utterly distinctive. He does not seek to break new ground but cultivates the well-tilled to beautiful effect.
Nicholas Hely Hutchinson, who is having his fifth show at Montpelier Studio (4 Montpelier Street, SW7), is a generation 'Approaching Storm, St Just', gouache, by Nicholas Hely H younger than Tindle and is thus an even more unlikely candidate to find addressing the beauty and poetry of life on earth. His previous work has concentrated largely on the south of France, so that it has been no surprise to find overtones of Dufy and
Matisse in his methpd. His consistent theme has been the enjoyment of life: of food, wine, sunshine, sea and hillsides. From this list, the first trio are not com- modities likely to be associated immediate- ly with West Cornwall, especially the old mining town of St Just, a place I know well. But a change of scene has also brought a significant change of palette and emphasis in Hely Hutchinson's work. His new paint- ings fit comfortably into the English neo- Romantic tradition; names such as Minton and Bawden spring to mind. There is merit here which only the supposed sophisticates of current art, who prefer to get their buzz from dying blow-flies, might fail to see. This last is a matter I hope to address in next week's issue.
Susan Wilson, showing currently at Art Space Gallery (84 St Peter's Street, Ni), comes from the same birthplace as another New Zealand woman artist of merit who also exiled herself in England: Frances Hodgkins. Wilson's thick, crusty paint and poetic treatments of domestic jumble root her firmly in -a tradition which is at once affirmative and humanistic. The artist's first job was in nursing, as a sister in a neu- rological hospital. Perhaps the humility that experience provoked helps keep her from lecturing her audience on the mean- ing of life. Her paintings are full of allegor- ical asides nonetheless. They are all intensely human documents, whether the subjects are her own small children or merely friends who sit for her. `Alberto' and `Angela (Up- set)' are notable portraits, while even her arrange- ments of objects, such as `South Island Still-Life II', tingle with human
presence: post- cards, an old- fashioned mincing machine and an
exotic seashell some sizes larger than the baby's jumper which lies beside it.
In a week when celebrations of the humanistic have caught my eye, it is a pleasure to end by mentioning poems from the first world war by David Bomberg. A selection of these,
utchinson accompanied by drawings, has been published for the first time by Gillian Jason Gallery (40 Inverness Street, NW1). An exhibition of works by Bomberg, including some notable late drawings, celebrates this imaginative venture and continues until 15 April.
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