Inside New York’s Art World by Barbaralee Diamondstein (review)

166 Books his book is an ingratiating approach to his promised book that will deal with the English Post-Impressionist, Duncan Grant. Indeed, his scholarship strikes me as lacking in depth. One is taken through inter-artist frictions (enthusiastic formulations based on common ideals of a group and its break-up) and sporadic. detailed appreciations that I found bored me as one unfamiliar with the Groups. No painter presented nor painting reproduced strikes me as 'great'. I think that no matter how impersonal a painting may become, there is at its core a manifestation of a single original mind. Inadvertently, his thesis may serve the purpose of revealing why the works of these artists had little influence. 'Abstract Kinetic Scroll' by Roger Fry. one of the key painters, for instance, provokes a lengthy analysis, yet the painting reproduced in colour left me personally unmoved. A .similar place of honour is reserved for Harold Gilman's portraits of Mrs. Mounter, which I found stiff and dull. Throughout the book, over the artists described there looms an overpowering shadow of the French impressionists and of cezanne. The pictures by these English painters appear to me in many ways strikingly similar to those by USAmerican impressionists and post-impressionists, of whom no mention is made. I think that the works of the English painters treated in this book (Spencer Gore, Roger Fry. Duncan Grant, W. R. Sickert, Charles Ginner, Harold Gilman, Vanessa Bell, Malcolm Drummond, Robert Bevan. William Ratcliff, Wyndham Lewis. Henry Lamb. Mark Gertler) could be better evaluated if at least a contextual reference had been made to USAmericans (Eakins and Homer. Robert Henri. Maurice Pendergast. William Glackens, Chi Ide Hassarn, William Merritt Chase, Edmund Tarbell. John Twachtman and Mary Cassatt). Also a more enlightening perspective of their achievement would have been provided by mentioning their French mentors: Monet. Renoir. Degas. Pissarro (these English painters had an intimate link to bim through his son Lucien). Bastien-Lepage. Tissot and the outstanding French painters who followed them. I think that the book is somewhat overpriced. The Fifties: Aspects of Painting in New York. Phyllis Rosenzweig. Hirshhorn Museum Catalogue. Smithsonian Inst. Press, Washington. D. C.; 1980. 109 pp., illus. Paper. Reviewed by Dorothy Grotz* Perhaps because of the divergent strains in USAmerican visual art. it has of late been the custom of art writers to catalogue artworks in decades rather than in styles. Actually, labelled as Abstract Expressionism, the painters selected to represent this category (which Abram Lerner in his Introduction calls 'a fully formed brotherhood') may have been held together more by fraternal feelings than by similarity. He characterizes Abstract Expressionism as a 'successful revolution. with New York artists creating a new aesthetic and a release from the provincial frustration that had been the American artist's lot for generations '. The organizers of the exhibition quite wisely concentrate attention on aspects of painting only in the vicinity of New York City during this period. They do not purport to cover the wide variety of artworks in the U.S.A. that were produced during the period. Rosenzweig in her essay carefully documents notes taken from periodicals. etc., pertaining to works by each artist exhibited. The artists in New York City given much attention by the art world were mainly Baziotes, de Kooning, Gottlieb, Motherwell and Hoffman. They used different styles and seem to have been united more by what they were against than by what they were for. Of the artists in and near New York City. 33 were selected. A careful study of the critical writing on these artists reveals to what extent the critics' philosophy of art shaped the perceptions of their artworks in the 1950s. A glance at the carefully and tastefully prepared catalogue shows such divergence of style among the artists selected that I wonder how they could have been combined in one exhibition. For example. Fairfield Porter, a figurative painter, is closer to Vuillard than to Motherwell. The works of Jane Wilson are closer to Monet than to her contemporaries. Did Hans Hoffman, *7 St. Lukes Place. New York. NY 10014. U.S.A. the much admired German art teacher. weld them together? What has happened since? Edward...