Epstein and Gaudier-Breszka
than Moore and Hepworth. Often
comparatively small in scale it
nonetheless exudes a
monumental sense of humanist
calm and reconciliation through
often the most troubled of times.
Very different sensibilities are
apparent in two mixed shows at
Austin/Desmond
and
Whitford
;
the former, 'A Fine Line', looking
at the work of 28European and
British artists working in the post-
war period in Constructivist,
Minimalist and Concrete spheres,
the latter 'Pop and Abstraction',
exploring the explosion of artistic
creativity in the post-war London
scene. Concrete and
Constructivist art had a strong if
often under-appreciated
following in the UK and artists
like Anthony Hill, Malcolm
Hughes, Kenneth Martin and
Gillian Wise stand up well to their
European counterparts such as
Max Bill, Henry Stazewski and
Victor Vasarely. At Whitford
meanwhile the likes of Caro,
Paolozzi, Clive Barker, Gerald
Laing and Peter Sedgley go off at
all sorts of vivid, exploratory
tangents.
Next, a reminder that if you are
in St Ives for the Festival (see
page 11) do go and look round
the Sandra Blow RA studio
spaces. An increasingly
important figure in post-war
British art, paintings and prints by
her are also at The Exchange,
Penzance, presented by
Jonathan Grimble/Sandra Blow
Estate
, until October 4.
Langdon Coburn I wonder? (see
page 32)
Meanwhile down in Bristol at
the
Royal West of England
Academy
, distinguished painter
and academic Paul Gough has
curated two beautifully conceived
exhibitions on war themes. The
first, 'Brothers in Art' which
reunites (for the first time?) the
work of John and Paul Nash as
Official War Artists in both wars
and as landscape artists in
peacetime; the second, 'Shock
and Awe: Contemporary Artists
at War and Peace', which looks at
the work of contemporary artists
recently exposed to war on the
front line in Iraq, Afghanistan and
the Balkans. With 40 major
pieces from public sources the
Nash brothers show is
profoundly touching, the work of
the still woefully underrated John
a revelation while 'Shock and
Awe', with Tim Shaw and Paul
Gough himself among the
company, a fine platform for the
artists' profound acts of
remembrance.
Back in London again, pride of
place perhaps goes to
Redfern
's
comprehensive reappraisal of the
seriously undervalued post-war
Modernist stonecarver George
Kennethson. With a substantial
essay by Richard Cork,
Kennethson emerges as a very
distinct figure. Born in 1910 his
sensibility is defined by the Great
War (he became a pacifist in the
Second) to the extent that he
wanted his art “to communicate
life”, and it is shaped more by
12
GALLERIES SEPTEMBER 2014
The combination of the
20/21
British Art Fair
(see p 40) and
the First World War anniversary
has brought about an
exceptional crop of exhibitions,
both in London and beyond,
exploring the still often revelatory
richness and sheer quality of
much 20th C. British art. For
example
Osborne Samuel
's
museum quality survey of CRW
Nevinson's prints, which has
been timed to coincide not only
with the commemoration of the
beginning of a war whose newly
mechanised horrors he did so
much to bring home visually to
the British public, but also with
the publication of Dr Jonathan
Black's complete catalogue
raisonné of them (Lund
Humphries). Nevinson was a
prolific printmaker – some 148
prints, etchings, drypoints,
mezzotints and lithographs
between 1916 and 1948– and
this illuminating show includes
the majority of them – many for
sale but the rarer ones borrowed
from private collections.
If the eye-catchers are those
from the Great War that so
shaped his early career – “some
of the most poignant images of
war in printmaking history” as
Gordon Samuel observes – his
visit to New York in 1919 for his
hugely successful show there
provided a powerful stimulus to
his perhaps now less familiar
post-war output, in particular his
often dizzily vertiginous New York
citscapes. Did he meet/know the
work of Max Weber and Alvin
WAR
MINIMALISM, POP
Nicholas Usherwood on Modern British
