Stanley Spencer: Drawings and Painting at CDS Gallery until July
27 (76 East 79 Street, 212 772 9555)
Languor: A Group
Show Curated by Kevin Wixted at Lohin-Geduld Gallery until July
17 (531 West 25th Street, 212 675 2656)
Night New York
at Elizabeth Harris Gallery until July 23 (529 West 20 Street, 212
463 9666)
This article first
appeared in the New York Sun, June 24, 2004
By MAUREEN
MULLARKEY
Stanley Spencer
Study of an Actor c.1923-25
Pencil on paper, 13-3/4 x 9-3/4 inches
Courtesy CDS Gallery, New York
Before Lucian Freud
there was Stanley Spencer, one of the most important English artists
of the twentieth century and perhaps the most original anywhere. Look
at any one of Spencer's paintings from life-any nude, any portrait-
and you recognize Freud's derivations. His figures add little to Spencer's
lead beyond the physical weight of pigment. Of the two, Spencer was
the more daring and inventive.
And he had a beautiful
hand, on view at CDS in an intimate gem of an exhibition. The first
show of his work in New York in over a decade, it offers 25 drawings,
mostly studies from the 1920s to the '50s. Attendance is obligatory.
But do not come looking for color. There is only a single painting here:
"King's Cookham Rise," (1947) a backyard view on loan from
the Metropolitan. The exhibition hinges on the grace of Mr. Spencer's
line and the fertile wit and ambition of his compositions.
He drew contours
with a fluid, unhesitating line resembling a stone cutter's. It is fitting
that sculptor Eric Gill, Spencer's contemporary, counted him among the
giants. There is surprising little pentimenti even in studies for complex
arrangements. Every lovely mark is an ordered choice, confident in advance
of its share of space on the page. Intuition of such caliber is impossible
without mastery over the rythmic organization of masses and the language
of graphite.
As much a Victorian
child as D.H. Lawrence, Spencer enjoyed tweaking proprieties. A study
for "The Last Day " c. 1947, has men carrying women upsidedown
by their ankles, knickers in the air. A delicious page of riffs on Leda
and the swan puts Leda on her back, one stocking still on, with the
swan bracing himself with webbed feet on just that spot where her garters
should be.
Pay special attention
to the intelligence and empathy of the portraits. His drawing of Mrs.
Slessor is Holbeinesque in simplicity. In "Study of An Actor"
(c. 1923) the planes of the face in profile-a draughtsman's forte-are
etched with rare surety and delicacy.
Barbara Grossman
Finale 2003-04
oil on linen, 48 x 42 inches
Courtesy Lohin-Geduld Gallery
That phrase "curated
by" is too stiff for this lively, eclectic show. Painter Kevin
Wixted assembled a small group of friends and collegues and hung a party
on Lohin- Geldud's wall. As in any gathering, some guests are better
company than others. It is the conversation between painters that keeps
things going here. A vivacious trio, Barbara Grossman, Peter Hristoff
and Stephanie McMahon accompany each other with brio.
All color, pattern
and light, Ms. Grossman's two figurative interiors complement each other
in mood, the soothing cool of one answering the coloristic heat of the
other. Both echo Matisse's early years in Nice: languid women arranged
amid ornamental motifs. Mr. Hristoff's abstract works combine thin films
of paint over a silkscreen base. His process yields subtle textures
and dynamic designs. Ms. McMahon's jubilant abstractions on large shaped
panels go straight for the eyeballs.
Gene Baldini's narrative
rondels lead down a dark fairy tale path. "Capalbio" (2003)
suggests an animal-no, bird-fable. "Allegory on Spring" (2004)
hints at danger lurking. Like early editions of the Brothers Grimm,
neither painting is aimed at children but both recollect the classic
caution against speaking to strangers.
It is delightful
to find a gallery that displays fabric art alongside painting. If only
Judy Stevens' yarn hangings were more interesting or coherent. Between
them, knitting and crochet offer a palette of over 1,500 stitches. She
relies on one or two in free-form sections that invoke the spaced-out
days of macram‚. A Mon Tricot Sampler would be more interesting.
Alex Katz Rollins
and John, details to follow
Elizabeth Harris
closes the season with a lively sampler of New York nightscapes by 16
painters and photographers from galleries around town.
Ron Milewicz brings
to his nocturne high pictorial agility and interpretive finesse. "Blackout"
(2004), created for this show, views the Manhattan skyline from an industrial
lot in Long Island City. Its pitch-perfect color and clever use of lateral
perspective knock the lights out. One painting that holds its own against
it is Richard Bosman's dramatic "Cityscape" (1997-98), anchored
by the Twin Towers and their reflection in the East River. The brooding
coloration of Mr. Bosman's skyline supports the elegaic quality history
has lent it.
Yvonne Jacquette's
trademark motif is here: "Above times Square" (2003), an intricate
composition rendered with a slight unsteadiness that suits the dizzying
vantage point. Alex Katz cheats a bit on the theme but he is allowed.
His "Rollins and John" (1981), a double head-shot, frames
one man against a darkened window. Christine Ray's off-beat take on
a blackened subway entrance has a stark chill that feels just right.
Doug Martin's "Night Pearl" (2003) provides a graceful study
of darkened buildings lit from below by unseen streetlights.
Simon Gaon's rollicking
"Times Square Night" (1998) seems oddly quaint. Times Square
has straightened up since Mr. Gaon set it rocking. Paul Chojnowski's
scorched drawing "Twilight in the City" (2003) is burned into
wet paper with a torch. An unsettling image sugggesting conflagration,
it is eerily beautiful. "Frozen Brooklyn" (2004) is Daina
Higgins' hieratic treatment of a desolate Williamsburg street. Ms. Higgins
sprays paint through a series of stencils over each color area, eliminating
brush marks. If the process is tedious, the result is elegant.
Among photographers,
Peter Henrick's luminous c-print mounted on aluminum distinguishes itself
by its painterliness. A square format enhances the abstract loveliness
of spare builidings framing a clear sky just before nightfall.
